You Need a Practice Strategy!

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Dr. John Mortensen explains what a practice strategy is, and why you need one.

[@Joey_Fury]

Your wisdom, clarity of thought, and exceptional practicality are such a gift. Thank you for sharing as always.

[@goneretired7030]

One of the things that I taught by some of my teachers is practicing in really small units - often no more than a measure, but sometimes only a beat at a time. If the piece is fairly fast - say 16th notes at about 160 bpm, then I might do one or two beat units at full speed and stop. The idea is to be totally relaxed while playing. Then I might repeat the process, but.start with the second 16th. Then again starting on the 3rd 16th. Etc. Another is to play a difficult segment backwards starting at the problem spot. It might seem tedious, but it’s amazing just how quickly those problem spots go away.

[@michaelsmith697]

Yes all these little things help.

[@alzhang74]

do you have a teacher to refer me to? I'm adult learning piano for 3 years now.

[@dincerekin]

A beat at a time seems needlessly tedious. A measure to a phrase at a time is sufficient in my opinion

[@goneretired7030]

@@dincerekin Depends on the piece and where your rough spots are. For a Mozart sonata - maybe it’s not as necessary, but for something like Chopin Revolutionary/Waterfall Etude then it becomes necessary. I’ve been working on an arrangement of “Hallelujah” by Jonny May. Tempo of 90 with 6 notes per beat. Both hands are only playing one note but have lots of arpeggio action. The goal is that even though it’s fast and a bit awkward, you want it to sound easy, smooth, and clear. The real difficulty of the piece is getting the two hands synchronized, otherwise it sounds sloppy. The quickest way to clean that is with very small units. Another similar piece like that is Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu.

[@michaellane1316]

Interesting on the playing backwards. A reverse engineering concept if one will. This I can conceive just never thought about. Thanks!

[@Yeargdribble]

It's so hard to convince people that an exponentially more difficult piece won't yield exponentially greater growth. If anything, it's 100% the opposite. Conquering dozens of small hurdles adds so much more significantly to your ability in a much more rounded way. You'll encounter more keys, more unique rhythmic problems, more variations of voicing, harmony, etc. And you'll have much spare mental bandwidth to spend on actually audiating and playing the musical details rather than just fighting with the notes. Then playing musically becomes your default instinct rather than something you "fix in post." And for the time you would have to spend tackling one gargantuan monster that you aren't equipped with the skills for, you could learn a dozen pieces in that learning "sweet spot" as well as more efficiently deal with issue of technique in isolation that will slowly MAKE you ready for that type of literature and lead you to be able to prepare it in a fraction of the time and perform it much more musically.

[@superblondeDotOrg]

It is even harder (I would say impossible) to convince the INSTRUCTORS that a piece is too difficult and they should assign something less complex. The instructor's ego is always in the way and always trying to make themselves look good, push the student beyond capabilities, go too fast on the learning curve, and worse, either ignore or be non-observant of students' problems.

[@michaelsmith697]

It’s important to give ourselves a challenge. I’m working on the Rach 2 concerto and finding it outrageously uncomfortable. It has so many notes to play and figure out. The first movement is hard. I worked through slowly sight reading the second movement quite easily. The thing I’m pointing out here is that because I am challenging myself, I now find learn some of the Beethoven sonatas to be so much easier! We must press forward and not fall into the trap that this or that piece is “too difficult “ for us, because we will never improve or play the hard works! Of course we need to have the technical ability and understanding of the work we are playing, and to also work out suitable fingerings.

[@Angelo-z2i]

I don't know, I feel that I have grown a lot by studying colossal pieces. Hell, I'll even argue that they improved my reading

[@KingstonCzajkowski]

@@michaelsmith697 The second movement of that concerto is much harder than either of the other two movements

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Once again, the best universal wisdom on piano for all levels. Thank you, many times over. The most reliable advisement on the web.

[@michaellane1316]

I truly enjoy your approach on giving the vasts amount of knowledge and wisdom in such a way that it's like a corner cafe/bistro/truck talk. A very relaxed atmosphere with a slight hint of making it actually, fun. Understanding one's own perception levels is by far the greatest challenges we face. You have my undivided attention. I will sift when needed but so far, because, like a sponge, we can not get it all with the first swipe, but attempt another pass over once we ring the pad. There is so much good information that can apply to all should we find what any of us may need, sometimes the light comes on, and it can be anywhere within the spectrum of conveyance of each podcast. Please keep this great source of knowledge coming.

[@boredPianoAdv]

Good advice, and the slideshow is a helpful addition!

[@mietteitamusiikista]

When I graduated at the age of 29, I immediately made a huge plans on Excel about musical goals and specific minitasks I need to accomplish to reach the ideal musicianship. All this came down to one simple graph that very briefly, but specifically, contains everything I ever need to practice to reach my goals. I always know what to do and rarely get distracted anymore. Wish I did this when I was 18 😂

[@lightball1414]

That would be interesting to read if you could share that.

[@rilesbronson7990]

I like how you think.

[@eggnebula4757]

I'd like to do this myself but am a little unsure of how to begin. Would you mind giving us a few steps to go through or can we see your example? :)

[@inashyti212]

Can you explain further, please? :D

[@afrocretan]

The "future self" concept I have found is very very useful

[@zita-lein]

Love this channel so much. I am going to develop a practice strategy using all this advice.

[@bh5606]

Is there no heat in your building? Good discussion.

[@goldenhandsmagic]

Thank you so much for this! A message we all need…

[@jreubens1]

Fantastic video.

[@hollyavillella554]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@VeraLiseIhm]

"Exciting pieces tempt us to go straight towards the triumphant performance..." ……Guilty 😂😂 ! This is the moment (every time) when I had my worst lessons, the deepest fall from my imagination of "doing quite well so far" hahahaha wonderful!

[@johndavis8285]

Excellent thank you!

[@robertdyson4216]

Good man in every way. Very valuable advice.

[@Laurent._]

Wise teacher

[@vladyslavlibov467]

In one of your videos you mentioned a concept of “unnecessary motions” - when someone tells you to make some finger/hand/arm motion which is actually of no help. Could you maybe make a video on the most common “proper” motions and the situations they apply to? For instance, i saw someone suggesting to start every phrase with hand down, and lift your hand at the end of it. This doesn’t seem even possible (nevermind necessary/helpful) to do for every phrase…. unless i misinterpreted that idea.

[@vladyslavlibov467]

Wow, thanks for sharing! I have to watch again and write everything down 😅 I think many of the mistakes you mentioned are mine unfortunately

[@alex-lv6sb]

love the keffiyeh 😍

[@alcyonecrucis]

Man, you totally got me. Called me out !!

[@carolyncoleman9504]

Thank you for your instruction. I enjoy music, first of all! I love my practice time, in the realm of music. After a year of lessons. As a 9yr old. I was given sheet music by zed,kitten on the keys. I didnt know what it was or how it sounded. I attempted to play by sight, because i was told When i could play that. I could be a musician. Wow! I can play the first page, i quit lessons. But. I still play and love 🎶 just saying...

[@MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM888]

I practice so that I can sight-read accompaniments to vocalises and operatic arias if there is no progress, then I change tactics. Now I play etudes and study solfeggio.Sight reading is my aspiration

[@jancanbek7279]

Nice video

[@timothydoyle581]

Question: how do you decide that you've actually accomplished what your practice goal is for the day? If I'm working on a tough passage, I will likely not conquer it in a single day...I can't conquer it in a single day. That leads me to ask how specific a practice strategy should be. Should it be time based? Achievement of a metronome marking with a certain percentage of correct repititions?

[@rilesbronson7990]

What works for me is to think in terms of “repetition packages”. Every little thing I practice I do in groups of 10. Then I do some interleaving- switching to another section of the piece or a different facet of the same measure - and then return, doing 10 more. I might strive for a total of 30 repetitions on each concept before calling it a day. Practicing to me is going deep on 4 or 5 problems a day, saturating each problem with repetitions. By focusing on these tasks and trusting that reps + time will do the trick, the sheer *straining* towards a desired outcome goes away.

[@radoslavdragnev8797]

Sometimes forcing yourself into learning a very difficult piece can actually be really good. Check out Jonah Ho he played Fantasie Impromptu at 5 years old. Do you Think He gradually increased dificulty for months and years leading up to fantasie impromptu? No he is 5 years old and probably went straight for that after learning a few very basic pieces.

[@man0sticks]

Learning to play music, which is a form of language acquisition, occurs naturally between about two years of age and puberty. It is radically different from the way most of us learn. Jonah Ho is not a good example of how anyone beyond that period of natural learning should go about studying the piano.

[@michaellane1316]

They must be conserving, the extra clothes, the scarf says it's cold in there.

[@danielkarsten1579]

How do I improvise Stevie Wonder? lol

[@cedarvillemusic]

Like this. studio.kzbin.infoB7ou78H6Auw/edit?o=U

[@tommyiglesias2267]

Problem is practicing to many different things! Jazz, Classical performance, Other styles, orchestration, composition, arranging, partimento, etc etc

[@RodrigoFurmanUNIS]

This ain't a problem at all. The problem is doing it without strategy and methodology.

[@carlosazambujayt]

A nice little reality check for deluded students... and deluded teachers! Thank you for this pragmatic and very useful video.

[@gretareinarsson7461]

Play less scales and more music