How To Learn Piano as Fast as Humanly Possible

[@petiks6391]

I think you chose speed over accuracy when typing the text in 4:01

[@piano-sauce]

savage

[@Mr.spock010]

😭

[@quinn470]

That's gold 🤣

[@msyarif1397]

hhahaha

[@ReligionAndMaterialismDebunked]

​@@piano-saucexD

[@Accuratetranslationservices]

It’s weird how the brain takes time to “download” a song. What I mean is, I will play piano for a couple hours practicing something hard and I still will not be able to play it at the end of the 2 hrs. Then, I will go do something else, go to bed, live my life, and come back to the piano 24-48 hours later, and sit down and be able to play it right away. It is wild. Like my brain was installing software.

[@piano-sauce]

literally, I often think about practice as fueling sleep for this very reason

[@lionofistanmusic7311]

Totally!!!

[@adrien1802]

I read somewhere that when u pause after practice, your brain keeps playing it, but in a very fast motion, multiple time

[@Wuweiovers]

applies to almost everything we do in life. its magical really. thats why good sleep and a healthy lifestyle would have you at peak performance

[@godzdead]

​@@adrien1802 yes!

[@tratixmusic8884]

One thing to point out is while it's good to get into the habit of fixing mistakes when practicing, it's not good to have that habit when performing. So another skill that you should learn is how to continue on despite a mistake you made so it doesn't draw attention to it

[@sqkoi]

this!! my piano teacher always tells me that if i go back and correct my mistake during a performance, the more pronounce that mistake is to the audience. the best thing to do is move forward and the audience will just forget that it ever happened

[@pw6002]

This issue is also solved (or at least lessened) by the practice routine showed in this video. If you practice this way, you develop a mastery of the music piece that makes you being always perfectly aware of what you are doing while playing. So making a mistake doesn’t put you as easily off-track anymore, and you can go on with far more confidence.

[@pdmg94]

good one

[@piano-sauce]

Yeah man, when preparing my students for performance I teach them to play through mistakes/how not to get derailed by them. It's important as well, but the main mode of operation is fixing mistakes for the reasons stated in the vid.

[@ReligionAndMaterialismDebunked]

it.* Indeed.

[@ADR69]

So practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice does.

[@matroxman11]

Practice makes permanent

[@MrWhagWha]

“… so practice as perfectly as you possibly can” I was taught this

[@Ataleay]

what I got from a tutorial for ANYTHING is that practice doesn't make perfect, good sleep makes perfect apparently

[@henrikduende]

You need to talk about why if you play it perfect 9 times and wrong 1, your brain will memorise that one misstake and erase the 9 times that was right. WHY?!?!?!

[@greglee1174]

Because 9 to 1 isn’t enough to iron out that wrinkle in your playing. Your results may have to average out to be 109 to 1 or even 909 to 1 in order to cement the proper execution.

[@winstonsmith8240]

God has to have a laugh now and again.

[@ImLeanooo]

@@winstonsmith8240💀💀💀

[@elephantgrass631]

@@winstonsmith8240😂😂😂😂

[@nevidomyvitaliy]

Fix every mistake immediately: if you made 1 mistake and then 9 perfect attempts -- you good, if you had 9 perfect and then wrong -- now you need to fix it

[@Fantasticleman]

I love your advice for practicing 5 minutes everyday! It makes a lot of sense because the hardest part is getting yourself to sit down and do it!

[@VincentBuonora]

I concur, teacher told me same for homework and brushing my teeth.

[@neutronenstern.]

no my biggest problem is to continue. I can sit down like 10times a day in front of the piano, and play the piece, and then after a while, i notice, i got other things to do. But then instead of doong them, i watch youtube, and the cycle begins again

[@2liter8]

yeah, I say ok I'll just go do a few bars of one piece. That's all I have to do. But it always turns into a full work session. :) Strange thing procrastinating is. like you think of it as some monumental task. but it ain't.

[@imthecryptic]

I love how you can apply these tips with whatever else you’re learning and they work just as well. It’s overall good advice

[@KidnapT]

Okay now did you learn math with metronome on?

[@imthecryptic]

@@KidnapT yeah op strat you just speed it up as you learn more equations

[@smittyguitarplyr]

Only for motor skills! Good luck trying to learn a language by stopping to fix every mistake you make.

[@MaNuLaToROfficial]

@@smittyguitarplyr stop yelling at me!!!!

[@Fire_Axus]

your feelings are irrational

[@mathiusq9128]

I dont have time to go in depth here but there is a lot of research on practice showing that (when applied to musical instrument training) setting the metronome a little faster than you can handle in order to trigger a high stress response and forcing yourself through the piece (with mistakes and all) followed by playing to same piece very slowly and perfectly precisely (correcting all mistakes made before) is a way to trigger optimal conditions for learning using principals of neuro-elasticity. The most important part of this method is that you must end your practice with perfect or very precise play through as slow as you need to in order to play it with such precision.

[@richarpadilla1891]

I've see that you are not only a good jazz piano teacher, you are a good piano teacher in all aspects !

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks man! I like to think I have a lot to offer many different types of students, very kind of you :)

[@tehedx]

Good points! One thing that helps me, is to reverse the order. It seems obvious to start with the first chunk (4 bars or something) and gradually add new chunks to the end once the previous chunks are written in the brain. I like to do this in reverse: start with the last chunk of the piece and add new chunks to the beginning. The idea behind this is that whatever is new is by far harder than what you already know. When doing it forward, I first spend energy playing the known part and _then_ come to the new part that requires more energy. By then I found out I forgot (again). Have to go over it and do it again. Easier to put that difficult new chunk first. And _then_ play what you already know, which is rewarding as well. Anyway, every brain is different. It might work for you :)

[@typhlo7291]

That's honestly a really interesting way of doing it, I might try that sometime! The only gripe I would have with that is that it might make planning out your hand position and fingering more difficult in some cases. I could see someone learning the fingering a certain way and then moving to learn the previous bar and finding that the habit they've created makes learning that last bar a lot harder, when there was a simpler way to play it that allowed the previous bar to flow more smoothly into the new one. However, I'm not classically trained or anything and am mostly self taught, so it's possible people with more concrete training wouldn't struggle that way. How I tend to learn new sections to combat the fatigue problem though is to learn the new bar or phrase a little bit, and then once I have a small grasp on that part, playing a small chunk from the previous bar or phrase right before the one i'm learning and leading it into the new portion i'm practicing. Then when I get more and more confident, I add more and more of the stuff I know, until i've made my way back to the beginning of the piece. That way I can practice the new section the most and am starting with the part I am learning, but also begin slowly incorporating it into the larger piece so I don't lose confidence once I get to the new part. Kind of a mix of learning it forwards and learning it backwards like you do in a way. Who knows if that's the best way, that's just how I like to do it; like you said, all brains are different!

[@tehedx]

​@@typhlo7291Interesting answer, thank you! I'm in the same team - not classical trained, self taught. I just find it interesting to look at the learning _process_ and try to optimize it. I think it's good to look at which problem you're trying to solve. If it's the fingering, I can imagine that it doesn't really help to do it in reverse, just like you explain. The problem for me is simply: memory. By the time I get to the new part, I just forgot. Talking about fingering and hand position, I just started trying to play blind. Thought this was only for the pro's that spent at least half of their life at their instrument ... but it's not! Due to my level I miss a LOT initially, but building the skill goes actually quite fast. The wider the hands are away from each other, the more it helps. Can't look left and right at the same time anyway, can we? :D

[@mrmustard1633]

My jaw dropped when you started explaining this and realise I'd never thought of it... applicable to all instruments as well

[@piano-sauce]

Yeah man, applicable to just about any movement/memory based skill probably, especially movement though

[@djulianofficial]

Do you mean your jax or you 'jaw' :)

[@dequentinmiller9086]

I literally stop playing the piano for 1.5 years and I sat down the other day and realized I knew just about everything that I knew 1.5 years ago still. 😅 This is really blowing my mind. This phenomenon has encouraged me to never stop piano again. Music really is like learning a new language.

[@michellemonet4358]

Yeaaaaa!!

[@TimMurko]

Thanks for the reminder of these 'secrets'! Perfect timing as I embark on my self-taught journey back into piano after a 20-year hiatus. Documenting the progress on my channel, and I welcome anyone to join the adventure. Kudos for this insightful video! 🎹✨

[@luckypatwari1908]

I used to play piano for 8 years and hated it, now after 3 years of no practice I forgot everything and wish I never quit, so I’ve trying to get back into it

[@piano-sauce]

Good luck Tim!

[@joshuaadelaja9996]

subscribed! looking forward to your documentation.

[@retrokeyed]

Thanks @@joshuaadelaja9996! Actually this would be my new channel: www.youtube.com/@retrokeyed 🎹✨

[@teleporter777]

Thanks for helping me understand, Jesse Pinkman.

[@AleRu483]

😂😂😂

[@juancarlosbarragan8436]

😅😅😅

[@GabrieleGatti_]

Jesse, we need to PRACTISE, Jesse!

[@sophiebi5798]

I've always thought of piano practice as a journey of seeking something internally - we have to overcome our ego and be absolutely honest with where we are. I've made my fair share of mistakes of playing something faster than I could and therefore reinforcing the mistakes.

[@gunlokman]

A simply brilliant observation and highly useful. This has stopped my impatience to race ahead and I'm already experiencing the benefits. Thank you.

[@NelsonGuedes]

Refreshing to see something more than just "how to learn the names of the notes" on KZbin!

[@cimbrito]

Never thought that muscle memory can work against me, in building wrong pathways, but it makes total sense. Thank you for this video.

[@andersjjensen]

As a novice guitar player this was immensely helpful. Can't wait to see how much of your "goldilocks zone tuning method" I can translate to the guitar.

[@TerryTinsel]

Same reason I'm here!

[@harijariwala7472]

same here!

[@MyNamesHunter75]

Same lol

[@Lilyofthevalley575]

Such useful advice! I've implemented these into practice lately and it's helped a lot. I think the key thing is to play very slowly and always start slow, don't speed up unnecessarily. I think mental play is a great technique :)

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks dude! Glad it was helpful to you, slow is fast as they say!

[@yjko1028]

Extremely helpful. I know, from my experience as an adult beginner playing the piano, your advice is so true. It works. Thanks for sharing your insights.

[@Gwennbleidd_Chess]

Almost exactly what I concluded after learning a bunch of pieces, these tips are very simple yet extremely powerful.

[@forfree6150]

wow, this is THE ultimate video on how to practice! nothing to add even though I've learnt piano for almost 4 years and also was a kickboxing coach where the same rules apply, great job!

[@Dreaplum]

I’ve been holding off playing piano from fear of messing up but this made me realise that I just have to start. Thanks for the tips😊

[@johnsmith2931]

Doing something wrong doesn't necessarily create muscle memory, it's about neurochemistry, if you know you are doing something wrong, your brain won't reward you for it and you won't have that action reinforced (and you'll get bad feels like frustration). When learning something like tennis, you might only correctly serve 1 / 10 serves at the beginning but you won't learn to serve worse and worse until your the worst tennis player in the world. No instead, because you know you're serving incorrectly, you don't reinforce bad muscle memory, the 1 / 10 times you get it right though, your brain will reward you (and you get good feels yay!) and you will gain muscle memory and be able to do it a little bit more correctly from then on. It's really more about being conscious of your mistakes and making a purposeful effort to correct them. Just as if you gaslighted a tennis player to think they were serving correctly when they weren't they would learn the wrong technique.

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks for your comment, though I do think I disagree, because I see students ignore (ie not fix) mistakes all the time, and their knowledge that it's wrong doesn't stop it from turning into muscle memory, which quickly becomes a bad habit they have to unlearn. This stuff is complicated, I'm not a neuroscientist, but what I've seen tells me that knowing about your mistakes doesn't stop you from learning them.

[@aps-pictures9335]

Don’t tell the expert pianist he’s wrong about an entirely different expertise of psychology 😂. Honestly, as a psychologist, it pisses me off when people misuse psychological terms and pretend they’ve a clue how we learn…

[@elliotkuehl]

I agree with this especially for sports and physical learning. Music is weird because your brain processes it like learning a language, which is where the engrained failure come in. So because reading music combines both right and left brain processes, it isn't quite the same as memorizing a tennis hit or soccer kick, that slight difference makes your brain takes success and failure feedback much differently.

[@aps-pictures9335]

@@elliotkuehl please google ‘left right brain myth’

[@MrTabz2357]

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Logically I’m so with original commenter, important point to be made. But my own experience playing classical since 6yrs old (20s now) says when I play a pattern wrong my fingers keep wanting to hit those w notes - I’ll just correct it quicker as time goes by. But ultimately to fix it I gotta slow down and play it right a bunch of times anyways. So i think this tip is hugely helpful, and if he’s not right literally then at least he’s right by analogy 🙌

[@omniphoriusvcf907]

I've been teaching piano for years and this is exactly the method I teach, though I haven't fleshed it out in such detail...well done! There is so much garbage on youtube, nice to see someone who knows what they are talking about.

[@TophinatorStreams]

This is a wonderful illustration of how we learn through muscle memory. “Faster” is a different memory than what pace you initially learned from. Thus, care when going faster creates more of that improved performance. This is where HS English and/or History classes can help. To do anything, you have to know what it is you’re wanting to do; a goal you can place at the end of an outline, created to track your progress, like you’re writing a paper for school. Beginnings, middles, ends and the overall is a project you’re hoping gets approved. Well done, sir.

[@valuemastery]

This video is absolute gold! Thanks for this. I've read Anders Ericsson's book "Peak", where he investigates what makes people great at anything. And it's perfectly in line with what you say. This book was the source of the mistaken "10.000 hour rule" - looking at Ericsson's research, some people thought, when you practice something for 10.000 hours, you've achieved world class level. But it's not true. What Ericsson is saying is, that all world-class people have had at least 10.000 hours of practice. So lots of practice is needed, but it's not sufficient to make progress (you could spend half your life practicing on a plateau). What makes progress is the *way* you practice, as you described (and as is presented in more detail in Ericsson's book). Well done.

[@notrhythm]

applying this to get better at typing, very helpful. i usually make a lot of mistakes, but now im trying not to, and its a fun experience.

[@andrewcampbell-bluespianop6741]

Some good advice here. I’ve found playing slowly helps me the most.

[@barmalini]

Congratulations, you've just correctly explained how supervised machine learning works

[@Tadija-mp9zc]

Thank you very much. This was very helpful. Have a good time practicing everybody!

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks for the comment dude glad you enjoyed it!

[@mylesanthony2302]

I love this video - really cuts out that wasted energy and frustration

[@TheSteveGainesRockBand]

I'm glad I watched this. It has given me some things to think about and try in my practice. Thanks.

[@daniel.phoenix]

Hello Steve, I just posted my first song with vocals and I'm looking for some feedback. Please let me know what you think! Your input is valuable to me. 🙏🏼

[@piano-sauce]

No worries glad you enjoyed it!

[@daschmitzi8403]

This is also true for every other instrument. Great advice.

[@uberjam-sam8512]

Thx for keeping it simple. Too many videos of this sort try to cram too much into a limited amount of time

[@simonwillover4175]

Thank you so much! This advice actually generalizes to other tasks, and I am not a piano player. I'll make sure to share this advice with my friends when they are trying to learn a motor-control-based task.

[@KitKat-lp8gn]

Instructions unclear, I started playing jazz

[@gustavgustavgustav]

Excellent video! Engaging, educational. Thank you.

[@zestylem0n]

When I used to do piano more seriously, I would play a song starting at a slow speed (80 bpm I think), and increase it 1 or 2 bpm each time, until I was at 110 or 120. If I made too many mistakes, I'd go back down to 90 or 100 and sharpen things up. Stuff like that is how you can spend 2-3 hours on just one song each day.

[@something2b445]

I go from like 50 bpm to 188 bpm

[@Michachel]

Wish I had seen this video sooner 😭This makes a lot of sense Update: I’ve been using this for not even a week and my playing has improved dramatically

[@Crikeyz]

I noticed that just practicing for 15-25 minutes then imagining your finger placement throughout the piece for 5 minutes when taking a break is a really good way of removing errors from muscle memory and improving your speed and accuracy (I’ve only been playing for around a year but the progress I’m able to make while doing it is twice as much as me practicing normally) Also don’t practice when you’re burnt out if you do you’ll end up worsening your muscle memory or you’ll play for an hour but practice for 5 minutes. You don’t really need to practice hours soon hours a day just try to practice in the morning every day to build a routine

[@Qwoll]

I love how you think about the mind and you're a really good teacher

[@Randomstuff77654]

This is really useful. Ive had teachers say to me just try and maintain rhythm but i havent found that helpful at all!

[@Otto-r9i]

I had to leave a comment, I loved this Video and I think you explained it very well, CONGRATULATIONS! ❤❤❤❤

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks man!!

[@ltsme_You]

This is huge for me thank you!! I've recently picked up keyboard/piano and I've been aimless for awhile, so this is gonna help a ton, thank you!

[@manuelese8760]

Amazing channel. I'll recommend it to my friends. Greetings from Argentina

[@daredevil2724]

Been playing guitar on/off for 3 years with minimal progress until recently. This video helps so much I appreciate it

[@mkaali]

The best lesson for piano (or any instrument really) on KZbin!

[@metalcubana3004]

I've recently restarted playing after a long hiatus (kids finally don't join in on key smashing during practice!) My guitarist husband says he can't practice like I do, which is to play small chunks correctly and eventually link the sections and then practice from beginning to end. I remember that my teacher gave me Hanon assignments to improve my speed, muscle memory and overall dexterity. I found them very fun to practice once the "pattern" was clear. 😊

[@Jeannie-Coffey]

A simply brilliant observation and highly useful. This has stopped my impatience to race ahead and I'm already experiencing the benefits. Thank you.

[@mr88cet]

1:44 - Zackly! One of my (classical) guitar teachers quoted his teacher’s answer to “how did you get to playing so well: “ _I don’t practice mistakes_ !”

[@NotBenCoultry]

I got into this with the Hanon exercises last year and wrote up a pretty specific regimen based on the way i felt things as they were happening (even felt nerves responding at certain trigger points), got incredible results with 3 hours a day for 3 months. It was like going back in time and practicing for 5 years like I would have if I was normal. In any case you're the first person I've seen who might find it interesting so I'm putting it in a reply. It's the combined operations in each step that make it successful so quickly.

[@NotBenCoultry]

Hyper-Efficient Practice for Building Skills Quickly All this piano practice also became a study in the art of practice itself. This will be applicable in all other areas, specifically in terms of how the body learns repeated patterns, but it’s extremely useful for teaching your nervous system speed and accuracy. --What I’ve been learning are scales which are meant to be played all the way up the keyboard, beginning on the first white key then repeating once on each white key all the way up, for two octaves. So that’s the context this was written in ----- 1. Accuracy - Get the notes in the right order with no mistakes without concern for tempo or rhythm. Play the whole keyboard this way and speed will advance in this first step. *2 minute break* 2. Pacing/Rhythm - Play the notes with no mistakes (forcefully, but not hard) at as even a pace as possible, at any comfortable speed with a metronome. Success: 4 repeats fluidly, without mistakes. *30 second break* 3. Regularity - Play the pattern across the whole keyboard maintaining the even time-spacing between notes from step 2, but allow the tempo to change to your fastest comfortable level while maintaining form and playing on the forceful side. If you make a mistake, back up one measure and begin again. 3b. Now find your new speed on the metronome and play along to the same goal: 4 repeats fluidly, without mistakes. ***3 minute break*** 4. Extension - Play the pattern as you would normally, without extra force. You’ll see that you’re faster and more accurate. Here’s where you can make a leap: There’s a resistance line when you’re playing fast that Almost feels like wind resistance, but it’s the point at which your muscles and tendons haven’t yet reached in terms of speed. If you start to break through that “air pressure” feeling on your fingers, you’ll pick up higher speeds. This is when you go back to step 2 and milk the crap out of it. ----- The reason this works is you are rallying groups of receptors in your hands to a unified task and when you reach four repeats they talk to each other. That forms a neural path. If you maintain a speed for 4 repeats but then make a mistake, pause. It'll work anyway. It's like they recognize the error in contrast to the success.

[@piano-sauce]

Dude this is super cool, a lot of it matches with what I already do but there's some stuff in here I haven't come across. Would you be up for having a chat some time? I'd love to see how you do this with more specifics. If you're interested send an email to [e-mail] and we'll set something up. Either way thanks for your comment, super interesting!

[@NotBenCoultry]

@@piano-sauce Yeah absolutely, this stuff is really damned exciting as a music-obsessive, and I'm positive there are many more angles of training native to the nervous system. You'll see a bunch of 8's in the subject line to make it easy to spot.

[@blva888]

Wow I am not half way through and this makes sense. This goes for violin too and every instrument. Thank you!

[@Amateursdelight]

The most helpful video I watched this year. Excellent advice. 👍🏽

[@NOQUESTIONWHO]

Never thought I'd find self help tips for life in a how to learn piano video

[@carolineroosyoga2017]

Really helpful video thank you 🙏 I always stumble ahead of myself when I am learning a new piece. It works but it possibly takes me a lot longer than it should 😂

[@Foggy41500]

Great observations and advice I'm pretty new to learning to play music and this is all great advice!

[@HackerHaus]

Another way of referring to your “Goldilocks Zone” idea that we use in education is “Zone of Proximal Development.” There’s a fair bit of research on this concept. Fantastic stuff!

[@piano-sauce]

ooh fascinating! Yeah it's a pretty obvious idea I think, the tricky thing is staying in it! It's a small target, and when you practice right it's constantly on the move! My practice sheet is how I deal with this problem, more on that to come. Thanks for your comment, I'll have to have a look at that stuff one day!

[@HackerHaus]

@@piano-sauce Staying in that zone is where a skillful teacher or coach comes in. It's awfully hard to even know where it is on my own, let alone keep myself there.

[@piano-sauce]

@@HackerHaus Yes that's right it's super complicated! I have to plan it out ahead of time for my own practice. I'm working on something for this, hopefully have something to show in the next few months!

[@yorksingingpiano]

Thanks for your video. I teach these same principals to my students. It's hard for younger students when they go home and don't have teacher next to them to help with mistakes. Also, I'd like to know when your next video will be out where you share your practice sheet that helps students stay in the Goldilocks zone (love the memorable analogy). Thanks for sharing your ideas. @@piano-sauce

[@rccnw]

Thanks, this is very helpful. The kind of mistakes I am often at a loss to even recognize let alone correct are fingering mistakes. They aren't always obvious mistakes until you get stuck in an awkward situation, and then it can be hard to relearn let alone even know what the ideal fingering is.

[@piano-sauce]

Work out and write down the fingering before hand, then make sure you stick to it, when you get it wrong, stop, go back and do it right. Fingering trips up a lot of students! I have ways of helping you learn it as part of the process of learning a piece so it's sorted early in the process, more to come :)

[@sannitaalikka]

Thank you! I was going too fast with metronome, because someone on youtube told me just to use it. I didn't realize i was making more mistakes and slowing my progress.

[@typhlo7291]

Really satisfied that I've never seen a video about this but these are almost all of the habits I do when practicing piano anyways despite being self taught lmfao. Some bad habits I still need to kick especially bc I can be a little impatient in the accuracy phase, but practicing like this is absolutely way more helpful than anything else I've tried

[@typhlo7291]

anyways that's definitely a sub from me! great tips!

[@bafgcde]

This was immediately helpful to me, and came at a perfect time. Thank you.

[@piano-sauce]

Nice, glad I could be of aid

[@AndSendMe]

This is a well fleshed out review of the common perspective on practice and progress, with some useful ideas added in. It leaves out some new information that has been developed in the last 20 years on neuroplasticity. It also makes a fetish out of avoiding mistakes that creates the danger of pushing out an important area of how improvement works--a key mode in human learning: trial and error. Mistakes are not the devil all the time, in fact if you are not making mistakes when you are pushing for maximum growth you are not learning as quickly as you could be. Mistake-free practice is one important type of practice, not the whole story.

[@piano-sauce]

I completely agree that mistake free practice is not the whole story, in fact I think that mistakes are extremely powerful for improving as long as they are handled right, which I cover in the fix mistakes part. Thanks for your comment :)

[@JeremyPass]

This seems to be a video about how to correctly learn the notes of a new piece of music in the least amount of time. I don't think he mentioned it was going to be the "whole story" of how humans learn material. Assuming there is no specific technique being practiced, or some type of musical outcome being experimented with, trial and error when learning new notes should be obsessively avoided with the utmost neuroticism, and Mr. Sauce's advice should be followed. Unless I am misunderstanding your point, there is absolutely no room for experimentation when the goal is simply to learn notes as they appear on the sheet music in front of you; the notes are prescribed and immutable, and should be strictly adhered to from Day 1. Mistakes *are* the devil at this very tenuous and sensitive first stage, until the notes are learned with some degree of comfort and confidence. Having a "fetish" for learning the notes correctly is called for. Trial, error, and mistakes are permissible and advisable later in the process. The healthy alternative (and functionally opposite) approach to what is outlined in this video would be sight-reading, where trial and error should also be avoided, but where mistakes and "flow" may be somewhat more embraced. An effective and appropriate level of difficulty when sight-reading should be something along the lines of, "a piece or section of music you can play straight through on your first time, with nearly all the correct notes, and with mostly correct rhythm. A mistake here and there is fine." Then, as you improve, you can add criteria like dynamics, etc. Sight-reading at a slow speed is advised. If you are sight-reading with no mistakes, the material is too easy. If you are making a ton of mistakes, the music is too difficult for sight reading, but may still be an appropriate choice for a challenging piece to learn one section at a time, if you've got the time and passion for it. Tl;dr: there are important and necessary times for trial and error when practicing piano (or learning any skill in life), but not when the goal is to learn the notes of a new piece, which, again, seems to be the sole and intended topic of this video.

[@rmrfboy]

true that! aiming for not making mistakes at all, especially during the first few sessions of learning something new, will slow you down considerably. there will be a point where if you don't speed things out, you will never get to the next level.

[@tresormvumbi]

This was super helpful, I'm planning to return to practicing piano and these tips are gold, thank you

[@danielrichardson3613]

You only reinforce a learned mistake if you are unable to correct it. Learning from messing up is fundamental to acquiring any new skill. I think there are parts of this video regarding learning processes and progress that are inaccurate and will leave some folks terrified of one "wrong" note.

[@asqmate]

Thank you for this

[@namelesswanderer9315]

This applies to every instrument (and actually, everything). Great advice and tips.

[@pvcflutist]

Awesome video with great advice ! But : to anyone who wants to learn improvisation and who is having a hard time with feelings like "what I play isn't right" or "I shouldn't improvise until I practised enough" : SCREW your muscle memory for now and focus on trying stuff out, letting go, having fun ! It should also be part of your music practice :)

[@Jwellsuhhuh]

Yeah - there’s a completely different set of practice principles for improv that should not be conflated with practicing written scores

[@callmeal3017]

thanks for bringing this up! i think you're kinda sorta barely hardly almost somewhat right. on the other hand if you are someone "who wants to learn improvisation and who is having a hard time with feelings like "what I play isn't right" or "I shouldn't improvise until I practised enough"", you might find some more of this muscle memory stuff to be very useful, liberating, and confidence building. parker's embouchure and grappelli's bow-hold, etc., were muscle memory that allowed them to improv world class. if you're not sure you can completely and utterly freely improv with a million different ways of playing just one specific phrase, maybe you could try it some time, after, or even as, you work that phrase into muscle memory.. modify the phrasing of that phrase, even modify the 'notes'. look at what beethoven's 5th was made of... i think the best compositions are just improvs preserved and then massaged into something, no? every truly creative act stands in the midst of the paradox between structure and freedom. structure begets freedom. i build a rocket and fly me to the moon. i don't buy the idea that the 'music is a language ' thing is an adequate explanation, but nevertheless there are notes, somewhat like letters or words, harmonic relationships, which we could suppose for a moment are like sentences or paragraphs, from which we may build a story. (story being the fundamental of all art be it poetry, a movie, painting, dance, symphony, novel, musical composition or improv. , etc.). coltrane admitted to a bandmate that he was so busy just making the changes when improvising on giant steps that he wasn't really able to tell a story. the bandmate, i think it was paul chambers, said 'man, you makin' the changes IS the story.' but i digress. thanks, tho, if you read all the way to here! cheers!

[@crispindry]

First class video, makes complete sense and fits with my own experience of learning to play piano.

[@piano-sauce]

Glad to hear it tracked with your experience :)

[@betawolfhd]

This is a great way to portray learning and practice. If I could add my passion for rhythm games maybe it might help others process this in another form. With the rise and fall and rerise and recall of rhythm games a constantly useful way for me to self improve was to continue through the lowest difficulty until I practice enough to increase difficulty. I do that until I reach the max difficulty in each game (DJ hero, guitar hero/band hero/rockstar, and beat saber). During each step, constantly playthrough and where you mess up the most (often it's where you fail the song out, other times it's your worst miss/hit ratio in the song) is your weakness in muscle memory. Now you know that's your problem piece you will focus more on accuracy and forming appropriate muscle memory to pass the piece of song with a better score each time. And eventually as you bring your score per difficulty up into the 80-90% range you can look for ways to make it harder or by practicing harder pieces. My favorite part of Beat Saber was the community of map and mod makers to enhance the difficulty and add a variety of practice and play. I feel your approach is going to teach a method that may lean a little too far towards thinking a mistake in muscle memory training is difficult to overcome, but I'd argue it's a necessary step to understand your shortcomings. And so long as you put conscious effort towards those areas you'll grow out of bad habits. The only tracks I ever bother going for 100% scores is when I'm in the overtly expert levels where accuracy is a layer of difficulty and the final practice form. And leading up to the highest difficulties I could almost literally trip my way through some songs barely getting a passing score. You either decide to try and try again or that it's difficulty is still out of your range and you should go into a practice montage of what you've been doing and come back to it another time. But always come back to it, eventually you'll just fly through it (a bit suddenly too).

[@carlcgarrett3]

Very good lesson. The points about practice are spot on.

[@DNchannel07]

A professional classical pianist gave me similar advice: start slow to develop muscle memory and work your way up. Well…another factor to consider is to practice without any distractions (people, tv, mobile phone, pets, kitchen noises). Been there, done that. Lastly, in an ideal world, people don’t have things troubling them, or having to think what they’ll cook later, what deadlines they have at work etc. It’s not easy to have the same progress at older ages because of all of that. A quiet room, however, is the best solution.

[@TheresaTV1]

Yes, absolutely! I was lucky enough to take piano lessons from a professional classical piano soloist for a while, and he told me the same thing. He also said that nerves will make you speed up when performing, so he advised me to make my top practice tempo slightly slower than marked because I would tend to go faster on stage.

[@oscalicious1805]

Very helpful, really good content for the amount of subscribers you have, you’ve earned a new one!

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks for the sub!

[@woodydrn]

Great video and great tips, your video made me think back when I play new songs. I play the guitar, been doing that for 20+ years, one thing I almost always get when learning a new song is that progress is going great in the beginning, then suddenly flats out, going backwards and I think I just couldn't do the song. Now I should probably just slow down as you said, but then next day the song is a breeze, sleep seems to just make me better. (well I should probably have seen the whole video before commenting haha) And to increase my speed I always go very slow, playing correctly, then at least double in speed, or at least a speed I just can't do, but I just want to move my fingers very fast doing the song, then slow again after, but just after few minutets I seem to be faster.

[@delusionalbunny4577]

Waiting for part 2 so we can have that system of practicing!! Great Great video ! Gold!

[@yukishika.yamamoto]

Another Pianist Jazer Lee also mentioned something like this called the "Absolute Accuracy Rule", to play slow enough so that there is absolutely no mistakes. I tried this method and eventually I am able to sight read a lot faster an correctly as well.

[@piano-sauce]

Yeah big fan of Jazer Lee we are on the same page with most of this stuff I believe :)

[@nickk8416]

Really great advice. I wish I knew about this 40 years ago. Thank You!

[@MendozaMichelle100]

Thank you. That’s useful. Here’s a tip for you on how to remember it’s “fewer” mistakes, not “less” mistakes. Because you would say “I made a few mistakes”. So you would then say “after practicing slowly, I made fewer mistakes”. (not “less”). Whereas you might say “I only had a little time to practice yesterday”. “Unfortunately today I’m so busy I had even less time”. So, few/fewer go together and so do little little/less.

[@theanitmeme]

I’ve been trying out Duolingo music and this is one thing they get wrong. You play through a song until you play it without mistakes, and then you don’t get as many points for practicing even if you play it perfect. This encourages you to play it wrong over and over until you get it right once and then move on.

[@Bitz00.]

bro duolingo music is dogshit like it doesnt teach you anything

[@MrBrineplays_]

Duolingo music is just as crap as Simply Piano

[@Rinkyu]

@@MrBrineplays_simply piano is the goat

[@michellelynneasteinberg3302]

Playground Sessions encourages good practicing with an easy to access tempo selector.

[@newagain9964]

@@Rinkyuyou must work in their marketing dept 😂

[@personofinternet682]

Just amazing advice. I’ll implement it in my practice.

[@MisterMunkki]

I think the most important thing is attention. If you're paying attention and are very conscious about what you're doing it can be very useful to purposefully go to the "failure" point, see what mistakes happen and work on that immediately. The "bad" feedback loop of muscle memory happens only if you're not paying attention to what you're doing, but the "good" one is infinitely less strong if you're not paying attention either, intentionality is key

[@alejandropalazonurtubi3520]

Bro! This is the real Sauce.

[@corbinslaymaker3346]

Ontological shock is a concept I’ve never heard of. Going through it right now. Thanks for sharing.

[@dare_the_creative_agency]

There's a fantastic book called Mapping Cloud Nine by Steven Kotler that beautifully unpacks the Goldilocks zone you speak of. Great video.

[@MrJuanchossss]

thanks man, i really like the video, the last part of goldilocks zone was really god

[@geraldmurphy7669]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@jannab8123]

Thanks for that video! I just sat down at my piano after roughly 2 years of no practise and started playing the song where I kept stuck at theforever lasting same point which festures some fast notes on the left hand. I just tried to do it.. and I somehow immediately knew what and how to do it so I guess I just mastered a song which has been on the side for 2 years. What got me sitting back on my pianos chair was though, that I really wanted to play Howls moving castle :) and I know that I enjoy offline hobbies just so much. So yay! Hopefully I'm keeping this motivation + consistency up so that I'll be able to play it in a few months :).

[@piano-sauce]

Nice man sounds good! Keep it up dude, just a little every day, and keep going over what you've done so you don't forget it while you work on the new bits. Good luck with it :)

[@belch7]

Thanks, using this for a talent show this summer, gonna be playing "Your Song" -Elton John-

[@PianoMatronNeeNee]

Fantastic advise. Thank you ❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@personofinternet682]

I am doing the sleep part perfectly. I just need to work on the practice part.

[@JonnyCrackers]

One of the biggest mistakes I'd constantly make while learning to play guitar as a young lad was always attempting to practice everything at full speed even when I clearly wasn't ready for it. I wanted to shred and I wanted it RIGHT NOW. Only made my goals harder to reach. Wish I would have realized that sooner.

[@piano-sauce]

amen, still struggle with that now even though I know better haha

[@herrlogan17]

Brilliant guide and actually very informative and correct!

[@piano-sauce]

Thanks man!

[@fe-dor]

One of the most useful habit to learn and make continuous progress is just sleep well. Sleep enough, going to bed and waking up nearly the same time every day. And practice every day as you said in this very useful video. "Stupid psychological trick that stupidly works" - that's brilliant.

[@GariotsPianoJourney]

Very informative. I will try to follow this on my Journey :) Especially the part of fixing every mistake immediately. I am used to play through a mistake and after that, try again. Because i have the impression that i otherwise practice my mistake instead of fixing it. But its worth a shot i guess. Thanks for the video.

[@piano-sauce]

fixing every mistake you make is basically what it's all about! Nothing is more effective in my experience :)

[@echoman9705]

So glad I found your channel

[@jarnkarlinn]

great video. eagerly anticipating the next video :)

[@Lucas-mf1tc]

Right on! Another issue I’ve had, I need to stop playing a piece when my progress stops. I’m trying to learn an instrument, not a song.

[@rubyherring]

You make a good point. However, sometimes it's okay to make some mistakes just to get a feel for that particular piece - it's not just hitting the notes, it's also hitting them at the right time, with the right rhythm/emotion. So sometimes I choose to ignore the little mistakes to get that style right. When I got that somewhat down, I often go into "perfect mode" - play as slow as necessary and restart the whole piece every single time I make a mistake. This sounds tedious at first, but it's actually fun because within no time, you got the beginning down perfectly, which feels real nice and gives you motivation to continue. Also, having played through the whole piece without a mistake gives you a real good feeling ("I got this!"). Then just increase speed.

[@piano-sauce]

If you fix every mistake you make then mistakes will actually speed up your progress rather than slow it down, so definitely agree it's not necessary to cut all of them out, they can be your best friends, provided you handle them right!

[@aarons1972]

This is a great list. Thank you!

[@catienajar]

My main instrument is guitar but I’m attempting to learn piano to learn music theory (& perhaps have another instrument under my belt 😅) but these tips would be great for learning any instrument. Great vid!