Studying Every Day

Music is an attractive after school activity. The secret of your success is practice, practice, practice. Every piece you are doing is slightly different and complicated than the previous one. You always need to be proud of yourself, learning new things. But how important is practice every day?

The tutor's lesson is just one hour a week - most cases even 30 minutes. Your teacher have not enough time to study with you; she can only show you the work to do in the week. In the proportion, your work is the 80% of the total effort to receive your goal. Children and beginner could study for 20 minutes a day: the perseverance is the key of your success! Normally, the higher is your grade more time you need to improve yourself.

Another important aspect is what you play and how. Sometimes I find that my students do not know how to study. First, divide your work: technique, studies and pieces. The technique is all kinds of exercise to improve your fingers - like scales, arpeggios, broken chords. The studies are all that kind of pieces where you apply more technical skills. The pieces are all those classic, romantic or modern score to play for leisure or for an exam.

Always start with your technique. Then practice the boring things (like a piece for the exam that you don't like very much.) and focus on your mistakes. It is not important how many times you play all the piece from the beginning to the end, but understanding your mistakes and try to fix them. It is always better doing less but good, not all and wrong! Also remember to divide what you are practicing in small sections - for example study 4 bars at time - as your mind is not able to remember for long more, especially if you are putting both hands together for the first time.