I notice there seems to be lots of reference to "ensure the student is practicing effectively", or "how to practice". I wonder if someone could be kind enough to outline theses key points.

Im an adult learning and have only been playing the piano since April 2011. Im due to sit grade 1 at the end of March. Im fairly strict with myself in that I make around 2 hours a day 6 days a week available for practicing. A typical evening will be around 20 to 30 mins on scales and broken chords - I work on trying to bring out the strong and weak beats; another half hour will be spent on sight reading (G1 and touching on G2); I then work through the 3 exam pieces for about 20 mins a piece. Once thats done I treat myself to some practice on Moonlight Sonata. Im up to about bar 20, but in all honestly I find this piece very difficult to learn to read and play, especially for someone at my level, but i guess thats to be expected. I guess Ill continue with Moonlight as I just see it as extra sight reading practice, especially with the ledger lines, but with a meaningful tune and melody.

I do have a weekly half an hour piano lesson with an experienced teacher, but they have never discussed effective practice with me. My concern is that maybe they assume that I know how to practice effectively... just as my old teacher assumed I knew that the notes in the first few bars of Moonlight Sonata were triplets and was a little confused when I was trying to fathom out the time signature and couldnt.

I should add that im also study and sitting the theory exams alongside, so do spend the 7th days looking at that. Ive just sat G2 theory and will be working towards G3 if Im sucessful with G2.

Many thanks in advance

Hi baduk,
"Practising effectively" is really about how you approach practice to make it work for you and to get the most benefit from it. Some students make the mistake of sitting down to practice without engaging the brain, just bashing through pieces thoughtlessly making the same errors every time, and watching the clock to decide when they have done "enough".

Quality ("effective") practice, on the other hand, is an entirely different approach. A very good plan when you sit down to practice is to decide on your aim(s) for that particular session: maybe (for example) a tricky couple of bars that you stumble over, or a complex part that you have trouble playing at the right speed. Once you have decided on your aims, think through some strategies for improving these (which could include slowing them down, breaking them down into even smaller components, playing hands separately several times over, playing them backwards, or with different rhythms, etc). It's not about clock-watching; a shorter, effective practice session can reap far greater rewards than a longer time spent just playing through.

That's it in a nutshell. You sound like a solid practiser, but you might try setting yourself some specific aims for your practice sessions - if you don't do this already. The chances are that if your teacher hasn't discussed this with you, he/she can tell that you are already practising effectively by what you produce in your lessons. But do raise it with him/her - especially if you need tips about specific strategies for particular problems. It's easy to assume adults already know these things but (as Seer Green pointed out in another thread) they often need as much - or more - guidance than younger students.

Hope that helps - and good luck with your G1.

Hiya

Many thanks for that indeed. I have learned something new. In the first couple of month of playing I did adopt the aimless approach. I used to sit down, play through a few pieces five times and then move on to the new piece, clock watching, but soon realised that I was spending time practicing, but not really making any advancements, which is what you have outlined, so I can relate to that. My practice time since has been more focused since, but still not as detailed as you have stated. I have never really consciously sat down and decided what my objectives will be for this practice session, so I will be doing that from here on - it now all makes sense.

I totally agree with your comment in that adult students needs the same level or more guidance as the younger students. I think a big mistake is to assume that because one is an adult student you dont need to state the obvious a teacher does as I said before I spent ages trying to work out why I couldnt make the notes on the first few bars of Moonlight to add up to the time signature, only to realise they were triplets and not quavers (after a friends told me). Still, I guess a big lesson learned there, which shouldnt catch me out again!

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I found your advice extremely useful.

Heres to G1

Barry

Wow - that is a h*ll of a lot of practice - I wish all my adult students did that much!

Does your teacher tell you what they would like you to achieve by the next lesson? I usually sum up at the end of a lesson and say something along the lines of "So, let's focus on getting the middle 8 eight bars of your piece up to speed, getting your A minor scale fluent, and learning the left hand patterns of the beginning of your new piece" or some such similar statement, telling them exactly what I want them to aim for.

It's great that you're doing two hours a day, but I'd really only expect 20 minutes/half an hour a day from someone at your level, so you may be spending a lot of time "bashing through" stuff and not really achieving a huge amount. You'd probably be better off focusing your practice on specific things (hopefully guided by your teacher) and then spend more time just playing around - having a go at the Moonlight, or just picking things out by ear. Have fun!

Thank you for your posting.

I totally appreciate your comments regarding how much time I'm spending practising and to be fair you're not the only person that has commented on it. The problem I have is that there is so much to learn and I find very difficult to sit around at home doing other things when there is a piano in the corner screaming to be played!

It's difficult for me to say if I'm achieving what I would hope to achieve with that level of practice, but due to having not had a great teacher in the past I have kinda taken it on my own shoulders as to what I should be learning (with the help of the syllabus). The scales I'm playing do seem to be fluent with a good even legato (I think...lol). It would be great however to have the direction and guidance that your suggesting. My current teacher does seem very experienced, but he is in an unfortunate position whereby we are fairly new as a team and he has the unfortunate task of putting the finishing touches to my exam pieces, so they are ready for the exam at the end of March.

Hopefully, once this exam is completed we can start from a clean slate and I'm hoping he'll give me the correct guidence required to develop my technique in order to go forward?

Barry

Since you are doing this to some extent on your own, you can find other useful tips re effective practice in an excellent book by Philip Johnston called The Practice Revolution.

Ok thanks for the book reference "qualified worrier" with (Hons). I will check it out for sure. Now that I do have what appers to be a decent teacher I'm hoping thing will change from hereon.

Thanks again...