The Top Five Things That Prevent You from Advancing in Piano Playing

​Have you ever heard the saying “I keep taking 1 step forward and 2 steps backward”?

​Sometimes piano playing can seem that way just like other things in our lives do. It’s actually a very normal part of the process of learning something and incorporating those new ideas into our thoughts and bodies.

Don’t feel too discouraged when this happens…you might find yourself dealing with this very situation right now and feel frustrated because you seemed to just be blocked.

Remember…there is always a solution to any problem we encounter in our piano playing and learning…they key is knowing how to identify the problem and then knowing how to correct it.

Today we’re going to look at the top five things that prevent us or at least slow down our growth in our piano playing.

1. Skipping important skills in your practicing and learning won’t equip you to play all of the piano music that you will encounter or want to play. Things that you really need to have a good grasp of to succeed are note reading, counting note values, knowing where notes are on the keyboard while you read them off of the sheet music, learning key signatures…all of these and others are important to really understand and know thoroughly so you can play what you want to and advance as much as possible.
2.  Not practicing efficiently can cause you to waste time at the piano and can even make your playing seem to go backwards because you’re not really accomplishing your goals and using your practice time wisely. Make sure that you practice at a time when you feel alert, there aren’t any distractions, and you have a set plan of action and know how to work out specific passages, and keep track of your work and how well it is paying off. It really helps to take a monthly review of your work…see what you accomplished and see where you need to improve the following month. Make sure too, that you are including material that challenges you instead of staying at the same level or even lower than your current level.
3. Playing pieces that are too easy or too difficult will not benefit your piano growth. Pieces that are too easy will keep you from advancing and pieces that are too difficult will feel overwhelming and could even discourage you from practicing at all. This is why it’s important to build upon your beginning foundation in terms of music that you or your teacher picks out to play. You want it to present a couple of new things while also including what you’ve already learned. This way you are reviewing your knowledge while adding to it with a couple of new concepts – say a new key signature and a new rhythm. Easier pieces are great for reviewing previously learned concepts and just relaxed playing. It’s important to incorporate them into your daily practice routine but you don’t want to have all of your pieces be so easy that you aren’t learning anything new.
4. Not practicing consistently over a long period of time is one of the most important concepts that all students need to grasp in order to truly grow in their piano playing. When we study for a test, we’re training our minds to understand and/or remember specific information…but our bodies don’t have anything to do with it. In music, we not only have to grasp each new concept mentally, we then have to train our bodies how to do it; and this part takes much longer than the mental/intellectual part. This is why we can’t cram for a performance like we can for an exam. You will see the greatest growth in your piano playing if you do consistent ongoing practice rather than sporadic – play what you want to kind of practicing.
5. Not correcting mistakes when you play is going to halt your growth very quickly. This is so important! Not only do you need to correct your mistakes, you need to train yourself to listen for them and be aware of what you are actually playing so you can fix something when it happens instead of later. While there are times you want to play through a piece from the beginning to the end without stopping, this comes after you have really worked on all of the mistakes that you were making. The last thing that you want to do is repeat mistakes because when you do this you are simply training your body to play it wrong and it will take a long time to undo that pattern. So pay attention and really listen to what you’re playing and stop to fix anything in your practicing as soon as you hear it.

​I go over these five points in the following video and give you some examples at the keyboard to help you understand everything clearly.  

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 your existing skills to that next level, the online music courses on my website https://www.pianolessonsontheweb.com will help you do just that.