So you’ve gone to your lesson and either started a new piece of music or continued working on a previous one. The teacher wrote suggestions for what you should work on over the upcoming week. You’re at home now, ready to practice. You open up your notebook and read your teacher’s notes, and suddenly, you’re unsure where or how to start your practice session; how do you get all of this work done? Planning your daily practice session can help you maximize your time at the piano or any instrument. A well-planned practice session can increase your productivity while reducing time spent practicing. Who doesn’t love that proposition?
So, what does it mean to plan your practice session, and how do you do it? A good start is to break down each session into sections or topics. For many piano students, these sections include technique, studies, sight reading, ear training, and repertoire.
The next step is to plan approximately how much time you want or expect to practice each section and devise a realistic goal of what you would like to achieve by the end of the week.
Now that you know how much time you wish to spend on each section, break your weekly goal into smaller daily goals and the amount of time required to achieve each daily goal. Here’s what that may look like. If you aim to learn the C, F, and G major scales over six days, plan to study the C major scale on days one and two, the F major scale on days three and four, and the G major scale on days five and six. If you do that, you should have those scales in good form for your next lesson.
You can break studies or etudes down into how many phrases or lines you want to learn each day, how many ear-training questions you want to answer, how long you want to spend on sight reading, and planning what music you will read. You can break down your repertoire into how many lines you wish to complete in each practice session.
By planning out your practice sessions, you’ll be able to track your progress, see how you’re growing as a musician, and, with all of this organization, possibly be surprised that you eventually spend less time practicing and accomplish more in your practice sessions.
If you’re interested in more practice tips, check out my blog’s Piano & More category. Have fun planning your practice sessions, and happy practicing.
