Creating Some Piano Time Early in Your Day Does This…

​We all have a natural life rhythm. You’ve heard the expressions “early bird” and “late owl” before and these terms refer to just that. Some of us do things better earlier in the day and others of us do things better in the evening or at night.

Take a look at your own life. What do you do first thing in the morning? What is the last thing you do at night? When do you feel the most alert and motivated and energized? Also note…when do you feel the least amount of energy, a little foggy in your brain, or just lack the motivation to work on anything?

• Try observing your mindset and energy levels at different times of the day over the coming week to help you connect with the pattern you’re living in at the present time.

Now…here’s an important aspect to this: pay special attention to what you tend to do first thing after you wake up…don’t worry about what time you wake up. Where are you putting your energy after you’ve taken care of food and coffee? A lot of this will depend on your own life situation so no judgement needed – just observe to gather information.

There’s a reason we need to really connect with this in the beginning of our day, no matter what time of the day that is - for us night owls…because as you will see in the following video through my own experimentation, getting in some “beginning of the day” piano playing actually inspires us to practice more…not less.

I committed to several weeks of piano playing in the mornings just to see how it felt and to see if there was a positive benefit to it instead of playing later in the day or at night only.

I decided to start playing music that I like to play instead of digging straight into scales or a difficult piece. This way it didn’t seem like a “chore” and found that it really helps you to look forward to your playing in the early part of your day.

One of the first things that I did notice physically was that my hands and fingers moved slowly and didn’t flow easily from one note or passage to the next. Actually, this is very similar to what our bodies do when we start an exercise routine.

• One benefit that I saw was that my flexibility improved after a few days and continued to improve throughout the entire experiment.
• Another benefit was that my hands were much more flexible when I played the piano again later on that day. It’s as if the morning playing took care of the daily warm-up needs, and didn’t just apply to that one practice session.
• Next, I saw that I could start adding in scales and play them with ease and even some chord and arpeggio exercises.
• Beyond the physical benefits that I received, I also noticed that I had more motivation to practice again later in the day, than not.

Were there any drawbacks to practicing early in the day for me? Well…there appeared to be one and you will find the same when you do this yourself. The thing is, that it isn’t really a drawback…it’s normal.

At some point, you will make mistakes that you didn’t before and it may seem like you are going backwards instead of forwards. The key here is to remember that this is normal and it can only have a negative affect if you take it to mean that you are failing instead of growing. Persevere…and you will get over any slump.

I definitely found that playing/practicing the piano in the early part of my day had many benefits. Sometimes short playing sessions may be all we have time for, as in 10 – 15 minutes and that’s OK. The important thing that I learned was to incorporate it into the first part of my day, no matter what time my day started.

​Let me know how your own experiment goes and be sure to watch me in this video go over the different things I layered into each new day’s practice session as well as some further discussion on this topic. 

If you like my tips and lessons, you will love the courses over on my website. Whether you are a beginner looking to get a solid foundation to build on or you are looking to take you existing skills to that next level, the online music courses on my website https://www.pianolessonsontheweb.com will help you do just that.