So maybe you’re thinking about starting piano lessons with a teacher, or maybe you’re in the early stages of lessons and are wanting to know how you can make the most of them. Piano lessons are a little different to lessons in school. Yes there is still a lesson, a “classroom”, a teacher and you’ll still get set tasks to work on at home, but there are also some key differences that you, as a student, need to consider before diving head first into your practise. 

The Time Commitment 

Nobody gets good at anything by only doing it once a week. As a beginner you will be expected to commit to 4-6 independent practise sessions per week outside of the lesson. These sessions do not need to be long (20 minute long sessions are a good starting place for most people) but they do need to be frequent in order for you to make optimum progress. A little and often is the best approach to get you going and then, as you progress, we can work on making these sessions longer. 

Of course there will be some weeks where frequent practise is just not possible. Maybe you have gone on holiday, have exams or work is feverishly busy and you just can’t squeeze in regular practise sessions. However, if a lot of these “off weeks” happen in close proximity to each other then maybe you need to consider creative approaches to getting some piano in to your life. 

These creative approaches to making piano practise a habit are a topic for a whole other post, however one tactic that I’ve personally found super helpful when I’m busy is to split my practise in to two or three “micro-sessions” throughout the day. Often the biggest challenge with piano practise is just sitting down behind the piano in the first place. If you remember to do this in the morning and the evening (maybe whilst dinner is cooking) and spend ten minutes in each session then that’s your daily practise done. I also find that the shorter yet more frequent sessions are actually conducive to more productive sessions that aid the muscle memory effect. 

What The Lesson Is For 

In short, your weekly or fortnightly piano lesson is for learning new ideas. It’s also an opportunity for you to ask your teacher any questions that may have come to you during the week, your teacher to observe your technique and make any necessary adjustments. 

Without sounding too strict, the lesson is not for practise! It takes a while for the mind and body to learn new pieces, ideas and techniques and for them to “soak in” so even if the whole lesson is used to learn a section of a piece it is likely to not be that useful in the long run. 

Read The Notes! 

During lesson your teacher will be making brief notes of the areas that you should be working on before your next lesson. This might be a certain section of a piece you’re working on, some new scales and arpeggios, or some pages of sight reading for example. They may be more specific such as “work on the crescendos and diminuendos in bars 35-46 of Ecossaise in G paying attention to your use of the wrist and weight transference from arm to fingertips”. 

Either way, you should read these notes before every practise session and refer back to them during the session so that you can stay on task. These notes contain the tips that are going to help you the most in the pursuit of your goals so are key to optimising your practise. 

Practise

It’s often thrown about that to get become a “master” of a particular skill you have to spend 10,000 hours doing that skill. However, ignoring the arbitrary number of 10,000, this is not exactly the case. Those 10,000 hours of practise need to be 10,000 hours of good practise. 

Practise does not make perfect. Practise makes permanent. Therefore if we practise with bad technique, whilst not fully understanding something or lazily this will be reflected in the results of our practise. That is why practising consciously, mindfully and musically is absolutely key. Perfecting this type of practise is a skilll and it’s something that has to be learned and then practised itself. Your teacher will guide you through this practise. 

On a slightly less abstract note, try and get a practise session in within 24 hours of your lesson! The sooner the better. You are more likely to remember what you have learned from your teacher and so will be able to consolidate the tips and ideas discussed in lesson. It sets a great precedent for the coming week and will make you more likely to want to practise regularly before your next lesson.