How Should I Organize My Practice Time?

 

One of the most common questions I get from new students is "how much should I practice?" I reply that the quality of the practice is far more important than the quantity. The amount of time spent would depend on how much you have available, of course, and the quantity and difficulty-level of your pieces. So there is no one answer to that question. 

People rarely ask if they should follow some sort of plan for their practice sessions, but I think it's worth considering. I write detailed notes for all of students at the lessons, not only what they are to practice, but how to practice for the most efficiency and best results. I don't specify any order to follow, because I want them to have the flexibility to adapt their practice sessions to their schedules and their own moods.

When I was young, all my teachers said to do your "exercises" first. Scales, arpeggios, Hanon, Czerny and so on. Supposedly it was to help you "warm up" and prepare for the technical challenges in your pieces. I'm quite certain that many, many teachers still recommend the same thing today.

As you might have guessed, I disagree with that idea altogether. For most students, playing a lot of scales and arpeggios is not necessary. They are skills you need, yes, but from what I see, most students just play them over and over in a mechanical way. Scales and so on are only worth practicing if you are going to really work at doing them better, that is, more smoothly, faster, in different combinations, etc. If you already have the basic skill, you don't need to keep doing it over and over. Plus, you will encounter scales and so on in your pieces, so you will still get ample chances to work on those specific skills.

I really believe most people do not need to "warm up" their hands. We do thousands of manual tasks in our daily lives and do not need to warm up for them. True, piano is much more complex than all of our normal tasks, but if you are playing with the right technique, meaning integration of the arm, hand and fingers, you won't be over-taxing your muscles. If you have arthritis or another medical condition in your hands, you need to be especially mindful of your technique, that is does not rely solely on the small muscles of the fingers. If you are relying more on your larger muscles, the arm, then they are fine without any special type of warm up.

If you really do want some sort of warm up, then those exercises mentioned would be the worst way to do it, especially if you do them in the manner that is often prescribed, with high fingers and lots of articulation and isolation of the small muscles. Those exercises could potentially cause strain, the very thing you are trying to avoid by "warming up!"

In addition, if you do exercises first and then get interrupted and run out of time, you may not get to your actual music, which is the reason you probably want to play the piano in the first place.

Some people will advise you to organize your practice in a very rigid way, even down to the level of detail such as how much time to spend playing with the metronome. I couldn't disagree with this approach more. (On that note, please see my post "Burn Your Metronome.")

Instead, start with the music you are currently working on. You could start with the newest piece, the one you know least well, so you make sure to get to it. Or you could start with the one you know better, maybe one you can play by memory, so you have a nice gentle easing into your practice session. Of course you don't have to do them in the same order every time. 

I usually recommend you play the piece through, then go back and work on "spots" that need extra attention, then end by playing through again. Playing through after spot work will tell you if, and how, your spot work was effective. I know many other teachers would disagree with this and say you need more time for trouble spots. Some even say to only do spot work. I like to emphasize the "wholeness" of the piece, rather than have it end up feeling like a patchwork of "spots." Places that were "spots" yesterday may be better today and no longer need special attention (probably because you worked on them yesterday and made progress!). Playing through first will tell you what needs work today. However, if it's a longer and/or more challenging piece, you could decide to start with spot work, but then still end by playing through.

For longer pieces, you will probably need to break them up into sections. Sometimes I like to start my practice session with the last section of the piece, then work backwards by section. Otherwise, the earlier sections tend to get more practice, so this method makes sure you get to everything more or less equally. In fact, it's a good idea to start at random places in the piece and work from there. If you find you have trouble doing that, it means you don't know the piece as well as you could. 

What if you have trouble getting yourself to the piano to practice? Even if you love it, you may be a procrastinator and put off your practice time. In that case, find a piece, maybe a short one, that you really love, and play that first. Then once you're sitting there, you'll probably be motivated to continue practicing. If you like to improvise, do that first. Improvising is a great "warm up" because there is (ideally) no stress about "wrong notes" and such. If you are playing some popular music or other non-classical that is less demanding, you could do that first to ease yourself into the practice session.

Remember, you are studying piano because you love music and love the experience of creating music. You know the saying, "if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong." Don't let practice time become a task. Find ways to keep the practicing playful and fun. See my various posts on how to keep it creative. Avoid any advice or methods that smack of rigidity.

The Measure

 

The measure. All the stuff in between those vertical lines on the staff. If you read music, you've seen the measure in everything you've read, but probably don't give it much thought. Why do we have it? Is it necessary? If we took the measure lines (bar lines) away, would the music sound the same? Do they have some kind of meaning?

Our music (in the Western world) is metric, meaning measured. The easiest way to think of "measured" is  that the sounds you hear are grouped in some perceivable and predictable way.  The sounds of traffic outside are random, thus, not measured. Even most sounds in nature are not measured (one notable exception being birdsong). But music, being a human creation, must, by its very nature, be graspable and understandable by human brains. Apparently, we are not good at making sense of a long string of sounds without some kind of grouping of those sounds.

(Perhaps I should mention that very early music, e.g. from the Middle Ages, was not metric. It took the form of chants which were based on the words. It was more like free-form "talking," with tones, than it is like our modern music. When it first began to be written down, there was no notation to indicate the grouping or the rhythm. The chants were learned by listening to others, and the words helped indicate the "rhythm," such as it was.)

In fact, this grouping is called "chunking." In the early days of the telephone, it was found that people had trouble remembering a string of numbers, say, seven numbers. But if you divide the numbers into a group of three and a group of four, they are much easier to remember. This is how our modern phone numbers came to be as they are. 

Let's say you had a piece of music that was just a steady beat or pulse, with no variation (all quarter notes, say). Even after a short amount of time, your brain would not make any sense of the music, even if, for arguement's sake, the pitches themselves were pleasant. It would just be rambling and the brain would lose interest. If, however, the steady pulse were to be grouped in fours, it would make sense; it could even be a march, for example, something you could walk to. How would this grouping happen, if the notes were steady with no variation? There would have to be a slight emphasis, or accent, on the first note of each group of four. Our brains could then identify the beginning of each new group.

Most music, of course, is more complex and is not just a steady drone of quarter notes. All the other variations of sounds -- sounds that occur in time -- form other patterns, other groupings, which is what we call rhythm. All these other rhythmic patterns do not remove the grouping, they exist within it. You could even say they form groups within groups. 

Whether you are composing, and plan to write down your composition, or improvising it on the spot, your brain, if you have some degree of experience and sensitivity to music, will naturally group things without even thinking about it consciously. If you are new to improvising and notice that your improv is somewhat rambling-sounding, there are several reasons, but primarily that there are either no groupings or inconsistent groupings.

Remember, the ideas and inspiration for the music came first, and notation came later. Musical ideas and themes are conceived with their tones and rhythm being inextricably married. It is completely unimaginable that a composer came up with the tones of the melody and somehow added the rhythm later! After the "birth" of the theme(s), the composer would develop them, spinning them into compositions of varying complexity and length. The grouping of the tones of the themes would be built into the fiber of the composition, therefore, not added as an afterthought. 

Regarding the person playing the music, the grouping must be subtle. The forward momentum and "flow" of the music is paramount; you wouldn't want to hear it chopped up by exaggerating the first tone(s) of the groups. In fact, the grouping is so "built in" by the composer, there is nothing you need to do. The hallmark of a beginner would be the "choppy" sound that would result from over-accenting the first beats of the measure (group).

When it comes to notating the composition, it could be said that the groupings are obvious and no futher notation is necessary. However, after the Middle Ages, as mentioned above, especially when music began to break away from words, adding the measure lines, to explicitly show the groupings, was a great aid to those wanting to read the music. It also meant that, should the composer decide to change the groupings in one section of the composition, it could be shown easily, without confusion.

And so the measure was born. Theoretically, you could remove the bar lines, and the music would be played, and would sound, exactly the same. The compoer Erik Satie did just that in a few of his compositions, but you can still hear it group itself into groups of four. 

But there is an inherent problem, potentially, with the bar lines. With beginning students, I've noticed it seems to make their eyes stop at the line. The music is meant to proceed, unhampered by the bar lines, but for some it creates a subtle barrier to the next measure. The bar line itself has no time value and the listener would not be aware of where there were bar lines in the music. It is incumbent upon the teacher to notice when this is happening with the student and train the student to look ahead to the next measure, and to have a solid rhythmic training.

In a future post I will discuss the deeper meaning and purpose of the measure, how it embodies "going away and coming home" and propels the music forward.

Desirable Difficulties

 

I recently read a very good book about music and the brain where the author used the term "desirable difficulties." It seems to encapsulate the concept of many of the techniques I use, and have my students use, that improve one's command of the music one is working on.

As you've heard me say before, nothing happens in the hand, fingers, arms, etc. without first happening in the brain. Not so long ago, people believed "muscle memory" was actually in the muscles themselves; now we know it is primarily in the motor cortex of the brain. See my post "It's All (neuro)logical". We are creating and strengthening the neurons and the neural pathways that enable us to perform the movements required by the music in a somewhat automatic fashion, that is, without literally "thinking" about them.

You might think, as many people do, that the way to develop the "wiring" in the brain, as I like to call it, would be to just play the piece, or the passage, over and over again. Virtually everyone who teaches or talks or writes about learning to play the piano will tell you that copious amounts of repetition are necessary. As it turns out, recent scientific experiments with musicians' brains, as well as people from other disciplines, tell a different story. The brain seeks novelty. After a certain amount of repetition, there are diminishing returns regarding how many more neurons and/or pathways are created. 

To get the brain really working again, you need to create some new challenges or difficulties for it. It will then create new wiring that will strengthen and supplement what you already have. You may be thinking, "It's already hard enough! Why make it harder?" But that is, in fact, what is necessary. If it's hard, you probably will benefit from doing it. (Remember, when I say "hard" I mean mentally. There should never be any physical pain with any of this. Never play through pain.)

Maybe you can eventually get to where you have a solid command of the music with just the ordinary repetition, but creating desirable difficulties will get you there faster. And hopefully it will also be more fun and interesting.

Here are some of my top ways of creating desirable difficulties:

1. Tranpose. Transposing the piece, or even parts of the piece, to different keys, by ear, will challenge your ear more than you ever thought possible. And, as I always say, the ear really runs the show, so it's the first thing to work on. (Again, when I speak of the ear I mean the auditory cortex of the brain.)

2. Play with eyes closed. See my post on this topic.

3. Play with hands crossed. Again, see my post on this topic. 

4. Play the left hand's part doubled with the right, meaning they are both playing the same thing. Of course you can go slowly and possibly skip any large leaps or things you just can't reach. Then do the reverse. This way, your dominant hand helps "teach" the other hand. Ironically, the non-dominant hand also helps the dominant hand, probably because it just feels so awkward and foreign to the brain that is had to work really hard at it.

5. Play one hand's part while singing the other hand's part. This would work well for a two-voice piece such as a Bach Invention. 

There are other means of creating desirable difficulties, Experiment and see if you can come up with some of your own.

Should You Visualize the Score when Playing by Memory?

 

I've heard people say that they try to visualize the written score when playing by memory. And I've heard people advise doing that. I've also heard people say that you should even write out the piece, by memory, to help with visualization (Wow, that would be terribly time-consuming.) I don't believe that this will help with memory in the long term.

It seems like people who have photographic memories would have zero problems with memory slips when performing. I know someone who has a photographic memory, but he still has memory slips just due to nerves. It's possible to lose your place in the score while just visualizing it, and the fear of this causes the slips. More importantly, his playing is not very musical. I suspect that the involvement of the visual cortex of the brain to such a great degree detracts from the auditory and the emotional parts of the brain. 

I would imagine that trying to visualize just parts of the score, versus all of it, would be even worse, because you'd have to remember to jump to doing the visual in just those parts, and if you forgot to do that, you might have no back-up plan. I say I "imagine" because I never ever visualize the score. By the time I'm ready to play in performance, I have been playing by memory for months, and how the actual score looks is long forgotten.

Remember, the score is just a visual representation of the music, not the music itself! Before the composers set the music down in writing, they heard it all in their minds. Music notation is a wonderful thing, giving access to a whole world of music. But the goal should be to go past the notation and fully internalize the music. So how do you do that?

As you've heard me say in previous posts, the development of the ear is the number one job for the musician. The best musicians are the ones with the best ears. Even if you already have a good, or even great ear, there are ways to improve it. I've had students ask me if they should go to the internet for programs which, for example, play intervals and have you identify them. You can do that yourself, at the piano, just by playing two notes (one in each hand, so you can't feel the interval) with your eyes closed. That would just be for beginners who want to improve their ear. For the more advanced player, transposing the pieces you are working on, or simpler pieces if necessary, is the most powerful tool for making your ear work harder and thus get stronger. Transposing means you are moving the music to another place (another key), but keeping all the relationships the same. That is the essense of hearing and knowing a piece, to be able to hear all the relationships.

Remember, the transposing needs to be by ear, not by eye, which would mean just calculating each note's distance from the original one.

Another often-overlooked way to improve your ear is to sight-sing. Choirs often require that their members be able to sight sing. If you can see an interval and sing it, that means your ear knows it. To practice this, you'd need to take music with which you are not familiar, otherwise you'd already just sing it from memory.

Even if you try to visualize the score and are successful at it, you'd have to start again from scratch on every new piece. But if you develop your ear, it is there for you at all times, in everything you play.

So many people just focus on "learning the notes" of what they are playing, and perhaps mastering the physical techniques as well. But if you want to play by memory (which I hope you do), then you need to get the piece into the deep levels of the "wiring" in your brain. This means really knowing how it sounds. You may think, "of course I know how it sounds," but if you can't transpose it to another key, then you don't really know it. I believe ear and memory are essentially the same thing.

Don't Count On It

 

Once again I find myself wanting to write about rhythm. Without rhythm there would be no music. 

I am still amazed at how many people, even some who have been playing the piano for a few years, are just stumped by rhythm, and others who ignore it almost entirely.

If you are improvising (solo), you can theoretically ignore rhythm. There is no such thing as NO rhythm. But you could have a rambling, unsteady, incoherent rhythm, and, I suppose, if it doesn't bother you and no one else is listening, then who am I to say it's not good. But if you improvise with or for others, you will find no one will want to be your partners or your audience. And if you continue this way, focusing just on "the notes," your improvising will not improve.

Now we will address the more common situation, playing music from written musical notation. If you tried to teach yourself, you may have had no idea how to go about learning to read and hear rhythm. If you had a teacher, she/he should have given you the training and tools to hear the rhythm, and to understand the rhythmic notation. However, intellectual understanding is not enough; you must connect the hearing and understanding to a deep knowledge in your body to be able to actually play them. Sadly, many teachers and many books and many "methods" don't really do this. It has to be taught in a way which engages the physical, not just the mental. Knowing the "math" of rhythm is not enough.

So for hundreds of years teachers and pedagogues have searched for tools that could help with the learning of rhythm. Unfortunately, the one most commonly used is "counting," which is a blunt instrument indeed. As you are probably aware, counting involves saying (out loud) the number of the beat (e.g. one-two-three-four), and when the beat divides in two, adding a syllable between the beat (e.g. one-and-two-and etc.). If the beat divides further, more syllables are added. Proponents of this method insist you must count at all times. 

There are SO MANY problems with this, yet I am going to attempt to list them all.

1. Counting is basically putting the cart before the horse. Or perhaps it's more of a "catch-22." If you can hear the rhythm, you don't need to count or put any other words to it. If you really can't hear it, no amount of counting will help you, because you can still just say those numbers in the wrong rhythm and not even realize it. We all have a pulse within us, 24/7, moment of birth until moment of death, so I firmly believe everyone can hear (and replicate) a steady pulse. No need to say "one two three four" to hear it. (Yes, there are those few who are challenged to clap to the beat when hearing music, but they are a small minority and could improve with proper training.) Let's say our beat is a quarter note, and when the beat divides you have eighth notes. It is still like a pulse, just twice as fast. Same thing if it divides again. The problem is, of course, that actual music has these in different and ever-changing patterns. So, if your counting isn't 100% consistent, and even, it will still be a mess. With my method, I break down the more complex rhythms into a simpler ones, then "fill in" more of the "divisions" step by step, until the whole thing is fleshed out. I realize this may be unclear just from the description, but suffice it to say that, like many things we do, we start with the basic structure and add details litte by little. That being said, if the student is attempting to play a piece with really complex rhythms and is getting lost in it, then they may not be ready for that particular piece, and I would assign simpler pieces (rhythm-wise) and work up to the complex ones.

2. The system of counting began hundreds of years ago, when music was not nearly as complex as it is now. The system never really came up with an adequate method of using numbers and words when the beat divides in three instead of two or four, which is quite common. Teachers have devised all sorts of words to supposedly help with this problem, but again, it's entirely possible to say these words in a different rhythm than the one you intended. Counting is completely useless for non-standard divisions of the beat (see my post on this topic) such as five or seven, which may not have been used by early composers, but is very common in all the composers of the Romantic era and everything since then.

3. Counting is pathetic when it comes to jazz or pop. The idea of counting was formulated when the most "stressed" notes fall ON the beat. Thus, the other syllables such as the "and" and uh" are not as stressed. But what about syncopation, where the most "important" notes (or words, if it's a song) are occuring OFF the beats. Counting becomes very awkward. It was just never imagined that there would be a need for a system to accomodate this type of music.

4. Counting is totally useless for poly-rhythms, for example one hand playing in duplets (normal eighth notes) and the other in triplets. You obviously can't be saying both at once. Proponents of counting would just tell you to play each hand separately as you count, then put them together. I can assure, it's the putting them together that is the challenge. No amount of counting is going to help "wire your brain" to hear two different rhythms at once. (See my post on this topic.)

5. Counting is too slow. You can really only do it if you are playing fairly slowly. If you have to count "one-ee-and-uh two-ee-and-uh" for sixteenth notes, you can't say it fast enough for a lot of music that would actually have sixteenth notes.

6. Since counting itself is unreliable, the use of the metronome was introduced. Theoretically, having the metronome tick away in a steady pulse is supposed to help you with the rhythm. But as we have seen, the pulse is not the problem. It's all the stuff that happens within the beat that makes it complicated. Use of the metronome, making yourself a slave to an external machine, is never going to give YOU a good sense of rhythm, or help you play with rhythmic vitality. If you somehow manage to use it and get all your rhythm "correct," it will be lifeless and dull. By the time you wean yourself off it, it will be too late. Your habit of playing without any rhythmic nuance and subtelty will be too entrenched. Once again, some proponents of the metronome insist you use it almost all the time.

7. You can't really be listening to your own playing if you have to constantly hear the chatter of all those numbers and syllables. Our goal is to strengthen the connection between ear and body (arms, hands, etc.). Inserting mental and verbal activity such as counting is a distraction and is going to impede your progress.

8. Proponents of counting never do say when you can finally stop doing it! I've read the blogs and articles of many counting enthusiasts, and I have yet to find one who tells you when you don't need it anymore. Should you wean yourself off or go cold turkey? I hope you realize that concert pianists and other highly accomplished players DO NOT COUNT in their practicing. Many probably never did. If their their early teachers insisted on it, they just stopped doing it because they learned to hear the rhythm and simply realized they didn't need to count.

9. And finally, I want to point out that the people who play the most complex rhythms, such as African and Latin drummers, and many jazz musicians, never learned to play with counting nor with the metronome.

There are so many people who advocate using counting and the metronome, sternly warning you that you would ignore this at your peril! So you may be inclined to think there must be some truth in it if so many people believe it. I hope this post has convinced you otherwise. Our understanding and our methods have evolved over the years in almost every field of endeavor -- sports, science, medicine, to name a few -- yet piano methods seem largely stuck in the 1700s. If you still want to follow those methods because you are comfortable with them, or any other reason, and think you will someday play with beauty, fluency and mastery, I would say: DON'T COUNT ON IT!

Making Your Own Song Arrangements

 

You've read in my previous posts that I encourage students to play music other than classical music, at least a little, even if they are mostly interested in classical. It has a lot of skills to teach you.

When beginners start with me (and even not-so-beginners), I always start with playing by ear. They pick out the melodies for familiar songs such as Happy Birthday, Silent Night, Amazing Grace, and so on. I teach them about chords, starting with major triads, but they need to learn all twelve, not just the ones which fall all on white keys (which I've seen many students do). They harmonize the songs with the chords (just three chords for those songs), by ear, but with my guidance as necessary. We continue on to more songs, finding ones that require more chords.

Not only do you need to use your ear to determine which chords to select, you need to use your ear to tell you where they come. This will build your sense of rhythm and your understanding of musical architecture. Many people think the chord is one that has the melody note in it, but this is not necessarily the case. The musical architecture is more important here. You may not quite understand what I mean by architecture, but just for starters, read my post "Going Away and Coming Home."

Soon after, they learn all twelve minor chords, then augmented and diminished traids, then 7th chords, eventually learning all five kinds of 7th chords. At this point they know 108 chords. It is important to stress here that you must learn the chords by learning how they are built, not reading them from a book or chord chart. If you learn them by reading them or other methods which just show you which keys to play, you will never really know them well. It's the difference between giving you a fish and teaching you how to fish. If you currently have a teacher who cannot teach you this, or thinks it is not important, I strongly suggest you find a new teacher. (One of my current students had a previous teacher who told him that "the learning curve was too steep" to learn all about chords! Isn't that what a teacher is supposed to be helping you with?)

You originally learn all the chords in root position, but later your must also learn to play the inversions with ease. This means the notes of the chord are re-arranged. It is the equivalent of a whole egg vs. a scrambled egg. You must know the "egg" first, then you can scramble it.

In addition to being able to play dozens, if not hundreds of songs, you will be getting a lot of ear training and a lot of experience with chords. Not to mention that most people find this fun and satisfying. They can sit down at the piano and play for friends and family at a social gathering, playing music which many people may recognize and really enjoy.

The next step would be to play from "fake books" (also called "real books") where the melody is written in standard musical notation but the chords are written with symbols, which of course I taught them when the learned the chords. With this approach, you can learn and play many songs you might not have been able to figure out by ear. (Which doesn't mean you shouldn't still try.) You would continue playing the chords blocked (meaning all the notes at once) in root position in the left hand. This arrangement sounds perfectly fine, although it lacks something that a more complex and elaborate arrangement would have.

The next step, therefore, is moving the chords to the right hand, which frees up the left hand to play in the lower registers of the piano, which gives more richness to the arrangement, as well as being able to add some rhythmic interest. To put the chords in the right hand means that the melody note must always be at the top (the highest note). If it were not, we wouldn't identify it as the melody. (You don't want to "bury" the melody note inside the chord.) That means the chord tones will fall underneath the melody note. Therefore, many, if not most, of the chords will end up being an inversion (as opposed to root position). It takes a while (for many students) for the hand to just find those chords quickly, but eventually it will.

The left hand arrangement will differ if it is a slow, lyrical song, vs. an upbeat faster song. It is beyond the scope of this post to describe the myriad things the left hand can do. But even if it is simple, having chords in the right hand and even just one note (probably the root of the chord) in the left, will give you  a very pleasing result. And remember, if you can do this, without having read the chords in notation, from a book, it means you really know your chords.

Even if you think you want to play 100% classical music, I believe it's wise to devote some time to doing this as well. I've had many people come to me for lessons, and they may play a Chopin Nocturne, but when I ask them to play a simple rendition of Happy Birthday they can't do it. They ask to see the sheet music! Or I will point to a place in their classical piece and ask what chord it is, and they don't have a clue. Even though I've seen it dozens of times, I'm still shocked when this happens. Chords are one of the building blocks of our music. If you play clarinet or any single-line instrument, you don't have many opportunities to learn about harmony (chords), unless you go to a good music school or conservatory, in which case you absolutely are required to learn them. But as pianists, we are virtually never NOT playing chords. So it behooves you to at least understand what you are playing, but even better, to achieve mastery of it.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

 

When people contact me to inquire about starting piano lessons with me, they often say "I'm just doing this for my own enjoyment," to which I reply, "what other reason is there?"

All of my students are adults. Some are total beginners, and many are returning to the piano after an absence. Either way, it is quite clear to them that they aren't going to become concert pianists or make a career of music. This is virtually impossible. (I say "virtually" because there was the case of a man who was a doctor by profession, was struck by lightning on the golf course, and when he woke up in the hospital he had an overwhelming desire to devote his life to music. He became a composer and conductor with a succesful career. But I'm sure you don't want to be struck by lighting to achieve this result for yourself!)

Having fun is goal number one. Yes it's going to be work and effort to make progress and play really well. There are days that will be frustrating and even discouraging. But it will all be ultimately worth it if the majority of the time you find it to be FUN.

Hearing a piece of music come to life under your hands can be very exciting. Opening up a page of music and playing it through is very gratifying. Improvising and/or playing with others can be a great experience. So what are the things that prevent your piano studies from being fun? Here are the main ones.

1. Turning your practice sessions into drudgery. Many people believe that drudgery, endless repetition, and grueling or boring exercises are just part of the territory in learning to play the piano. Not true!! Playing scales, arpeggios or other "finger exercises" for hours is not the way to learn, and certainly not the way to learn to play with emotion and expression. Yet many teachers still will tell their students to do these things. Some repetition is needed, but it must be very targeted to solve an actual problem.

2. Having too limited a "diet." A woman came to see me last week who had been studying piano on and off for several years. She told me she had played almost all the Clementi Sonatinas, as well as some Haydn and Mozart, but not much else. Nothing written in the last 200 years. Since she didn't know anything else, she may not realize what potential fun she is missing out on. But someday she may realize it, and then it will be lot of time lost. In addition to a wide range of classical music, I urge my students to also play some jazz, pop, and Broadway, as well as to improvise. All of these will make you a better pianist, not to mention being fun.

3. Adherence to a rigid method or routine. There are a large number of "methods" (e.g. Suzuki) or curriculums (e.g. ABRSM -- Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), and others developed by schools or individuals, too numerous to list here. In Suzuki there must be a strict following of the methods and there is no room for individual differences. In APRSM, there is a curriculum of exercises and pieces which must be practiced and learned in the prescribed order, followed by exams which must be passed before moving on. I really believe this is absurd. Every student is different. Some have a good ear but can't sight-read, others the reverse. Some have good coordination but cannot play with emotion, others the reverse. I find some students keep practicing things they can already do reasonably well, just out of habit, but then ignore other aspects of playing because no one "told" them to do it. I tailor all my lessons to each individual, working more on their weaker areas, but still continuing to improve their stronger ones. Most importantly, all students do not play the exact same music. Before assigning a piece, I want to make sure they enjoy the sound of it. If not, we choose something else that will develop the same skills. You wouldn't expect a doctor to give the same exact medical advice to every patient. Learning to play the piano is not a "one-size-fits-all." Following a rigid plan or schedule makes it easier for the teacher because they don't have to put a lot of thought into each lesson, but it's not better for the student.

4. Bad teachers. By this I mean a teacher who insists you do all of the above mentioned items. Or it could just be the teacher is cold, critical, un-caring, or seems bored with teaching. Or they could be un-professional, unrealiable (e.g. cancelling a lot of lessons). Some are just unqualified: they can't play well themselves and can neither demonstrate nor explain the many aspects of music theory, technique, etc., and wave their students' concerns off with statements like "you don't really need to know that." I have had many students describe their previous teachers as doing all of the above. The relationship with the teacher is critically important. The teacher must be very invested in the student's progress, yet also kind and caring. They need to be "friendly" but not be "casual" about the lessons or expect you to be their friend. Sadly, there are a great number of incompetent and un-kind teachers out there.

I'm sorry if I paint a bleak picture. Of course there are many excellent teachers as well. But sometimes the student has to kiss a lot of frogs before finding the prince.