With so many tips for amateur pianists out there, available to us and ready to try, you can boost your practice up to new levels. Even if you are only dedicating a few hours a week to practicing playing the piano, implementing the right tools and recommendations can bring major advantages to your overall piano experience.
It isn’t only about learning faster but having more fun while playing the piano. And to help you with these goals, this is the first entry from Hidrau summarizing top tips for amateur pianists.
If we are missing any good tips on this entry, rest assured that we will be back with more recommendations in the upcoming weeks.
So let’s begin!
Structure Your Piano Practice
How to make progress without a clear direction and plan? It is necessary for both dedicated students and amateur pianists to properly structure their practice. While improvisation is great and provides its own benefits, a plan is a good way to go in most cases.
Why? Structuring your piano practice is what is going to allow you to, first and foremost, understand where your strengths and weaknesses are. With the weaknesses identified, you can double down on them and make progress where it is most needed.
By structuring the practice, you can also be more dynamic with the pieces. For example, you will benefit from varying where you start with a piece. Starting on the second half allows you to achieve more balanced learning of the piece. It is not hard to imagine that, if we always start at the beginning of a music piece, we will be better at the first half in comparison to the second. This will be noticeable when playing the piece and you will want to avoid that.
Revisit Pieces You Have Practiced a Long Time Ago
A solid tip for amateur pianists is to have a record of the pieces they practice and keep it at hand. This will be very useful to revisit old songs. It’s common and almost natural that many piano students leave behind old pieces, which causes to forget them over time.
The thing is, re-learning is a powerful tool to become a well-rounded pianist. You will be practicing pieces, notes, and techniques that you could be in the process of forgetting, only to discover that with a little bit of practice and patience, you can reconnect with that knowledge and skill once again.
So keep track of the pieces you have been learning and practicing over time and consciously practice to revisit them.
Consider Personal Lessons
For amateur pianists, the idea of looking for and paying for lessons is always challenging. Indeed, players who label themselves as amateurs sometimes question the need of getting one-on-one lessons.
However, direct contact with an experienced piano teacher is of extraordinary value, regardless of your learning goals may be. The learning process with a teacher will always be more beneficial to achieving progress at the piano. Essential factors such as posture and ergonomics can be taken care of more effectively, with an experienced player looking after you.
If you do consider personal lessons and go for it, evaluate the experience and don’t hesitate to look for another teacher if you are not happy with it. A good teacher should be correcting you and guide you on how to improve but should also provide positive feedback, striking a good balance.
Dare to Show Your Progress
Among the many tips for amateur pianists, this may be one of the most intimidating.
If you have studied another language, for example, you know that one of the best learning experiences is putting yourself out there and speaking in front of others. The key is focusing on effort and process, not an outcome.
Facing the feeling of embarrassment is a trial by fire and will give you an important boost in skill and, believe it or not, confidence in your piano practice. Go beyond the anxiety of performing in front of others, starting to feel increasingly more and more comfortable in such a setup, and you will gain the greatest benefits in your practice.
Invest Time to Understand Theory
An often overlooked aspect of casual piano practice is studying music theory. The thing is, understanding music theory will allow you to absorb new music faster and more effectively. Even if you are an amateur pianist with modest goals, learning theory should be considered part of the fundamentals of your practice.
In that same way, not knowing the fundamental theory behind every single music piece you practice will make it considerably more difficult to learn new pieces and techniques and the overall outcome of the practice will be inferior (in comparison to that that is complemented by music theory).
In your practice structuring, consider music theory as well. If you are practicing on your own, the good news is that online there is an oversupply of high-quality learning resources. Even if you only take a primer on music theory, your practice will benefit considerably. Check out this great introduction to music theory for free on Youtube.
The Bottom Line
With these top 5 tips for amateur pianists, we close our first entry on the topic. While our blog is read by piano players of many kinds, including teachers, with these articles we have the goal to help beginners and amateur pianists, and enthusiasts who love this beautiful practice.
Very soon we will be publishing 5 more tips to help with piano learning, written in a way to enable quick implementation and slowly but surely support progress in your practice.
But before we go, we must provide an extra tip that will grant you massive results: having the right equipment. With this, we are referring to using a great piano bench that satisfies your needs and preferences. A quality piano bench like the ones you can find in both Academy Series and Classy Series from Hidrau will support your practice by enabling a healthy posture, outstanding comfort, reliable stability and durability, and convenient height adjustment.