6 Time-Saving Secrets to Effective Piano Practice and Memorization

Nobody wants to waste time, and yet many people who try to learn how to play the piano play aimlessly, without any structure, without a method. They open up a piece of music, sit down and just go through it. For years I did the same thing, and it would take me months upon months to learn a single song from start to finish. Even then, it would take me months, sometimes even years to memorize the piece. If you ask any seasoned piano player, the most enjoyable pieces to play are those that have been mastered and memorized, because you can concentrate on just playing and enjoying the music. But to get to this point, the process of practicing is work. If you don't have a method of practicing, you could be spending the majority of your time working instead of enjoying your music.

These tips come from a seasoned piano instructor who at one point in her life fell sick and couldn't practice piano for months. She found a way to catch up to all her fellow students in just a short amount of time by implementing these secrets. When you implement these strategies, it may seem like you're starting off slow, but it's better to be slow and learn something correctly, than fast and doing it all wrong. It reminds me of doing resistance training. Form is always more important than how fast or how much you can lift. If you do anything too fast with too much weight using the wrong form, you're bound to get injured. It's the same thing with learning the piano. Accuracy is more important than speed.

1. Write numbers above on each note to indicate which finger will play the note
This is the first step. It is also the most important step. You must do this before your first attempt at playing the piece. Some music pieces already have some numbers written in; just fill in the missing numbers. This step is the most important because every time you play a note, the repetition forces your brain to associate a specific finger with a specific key on the piano. The only way to memorize a piece is to use the same fingers for the same keys. If you don't number every note, you may be playing the keys with different fingers every time, and then you're wasting time because your brain will be confused and won't memorize anything! If you don't do this right away, your brain will be working double the effort to unlearn a habit and then relearn a new association of key to finger.

2. Divide the piece into digestible sections
Don't try to play the whole thing through! You want to start off with a few measures and tackle that first. This is important because you want to avoid "stuttering" at all costs. Stuttering is when you get off the beat because you don't know the part and you have to pause. You don't want to lose the beat. Once you start stuttering in a section, it's becomes a habit.

3. Do one hand, then the other
I know it sounds better with both, but the truth is, if you can't play one hand without stuttering, there's no way you can play both without stuttering. This step is important because most people have a harder time playing with their left hand and when they play the piece, their left hand is weaker than their right hand. When you try to play a piece through without breaking it down, your eyes automatically focus on the top bar (the right hand) to the neglect of the lower bar (the left hand). By taking the time to do this step, you are guaranteeing that both hands will be receiving the same amount of focus.

4. Play loud and hard with no feeling
Once you put the two hands together and tackle the digestible section, play every note the same: loud and hard. Don't pay any attention to the crescendos and dynamics. Right now is the time to put all your focus on learning the notes. If your effort is divided, it'll take longer to learn the notes, so just play it loud and hard. You want to make each hand strong. In the end, it's easier to control strength than to make a weak hand strong. Also, you want to remember to arch your fingers. This is the ideal way to practice the piano. You build strength and develop precision when your hands are arched instead of laying flat.

5. Work on the next digestible section and then connect the first with the second and so on
Once you've mastered the right and the left hand of the first section, played the two hands together loud and hard with your hands arched, and felt you've acquired a level of mastery on that section, then and only then should you move on to the next section. You repeat this process until you've made it to the end of the piece!

6. Add expression, feeling and tone
Once you've gone through the entire piece and mastered all the sections and put them all together, then you can add the elements of expression. Don't focus on them any time before. It's your treat to get to this point where you can express your learned art. Now is the time to put your personal expression into the piece, and it will be enjoyable because you aren't going to be stuttering. Congratulations, you're on your way to memorizing it! Now, you just have to repeat the piece over and over, and your brain will soon have it memorized.