How to practise piano

It is how, not how much

In a 2009 study, Duke, Simmons and Cash watched 17 advanced piano students practise a hard passage and tested them the next day. How long they practised, and how many times they played it through, did not predict how well they played. What did was how often they played it correctly during practice, and how rarely they played it wrong.

So the aim of practice is not repetition but correct repetition. If a passage keeps going wrong, make it smaller or slower until it goes right, then build back up.

Take a short break

In a related 2009 study of people learning a melody on a keyboard, Duke, Allen, Cash and Simmons found that those who took a five-minute rest early in their practice made the largest gains overnight. A short pause is part of practice, not time off from it.

The practice loop

1. Pick a small chunk: two bars, or one tricky passage.
2. Play the right hand alone, slowly enough to get every note right.
3. Play the left hand alone the same way.
4. Put them together, still slowly.
5. Play it correctly three times in a row, then nudge the speed up.
6. Join the chunk to the one before it, and pick the next chunk.

Try the loop on Für Elise (Easy): its how-to-play guide names the tricky bars, so you know exactly which chunks to start with.

Your toolkit on every piece page

• Speed: slow the playback right down, hear the passage, then play along.
• The ‹ and › buttons: step back and forth a bar at a time to the chunk you are practising.
• Metronome: a steady click so the beat does not drift.
• Hands: practise Right or Left alone. The other hand drops out of playback and fades on the score.
• Loop: tap the first bar of a tricky passage, then the last, and it repeats. Ramp starts it slow and speeds up a little after each good pass.
• Listen: turn on the microphone and the score follows you as you play, turning each correct note green.

The most popular pieces also have a how-to-play guide below the score, listing their tricky bars by number.

Keep score

Track your wins: a new bar, a clean run with Listen on, a speed you could not manage last week. Signing in keeps your progress on each piece, the bar you reached and your best Listen accuracy, so you can see yourself level up. If you are just starting, try your first piano song, and if reading the notes slows you down, spend five minutes on the How to read page.