Vaughan Piano Studio


Practice Trick #1:  The Speed of No Mistakes

Practicing VERY SLOWLY is a great practice trick. It gives your brain and your fingers more time to figure out the exact right notes. It helps eliminate any mistakes. And you know what? Once you can play a piece perfectly very slowly, it is really quite simple to speed it up. But a fast and sloppy piece with lots of mistakes is hard to fix. Help your students try playing at the speed of no mistakes!





Practice Trick #2: Practice Bites

You can’t eat an entire watermelon at once – you have to do it in little bites! Help your students identify a small problem spot, or a practice “bite” that needs correcting – such as a wrong chord, some wrong notes, wrong rhythms, etc. Work with them on this “practice bite” until it is fixed and becomes comfortable. They should be able to play it several times in a row perfectly (help them keep track and be encouraging!) When they feel confident about that “bite” add it to a larger section!

Practice Trick #3: Don’t Wash the Clean Dishes!

It is tempting to practice comfortable (or clean dishes) sections over and over, neglecting the sections of a piece that REALLY need work and “cleaning”! Teach students to realize where the “dirty dishes” are in their piece and to work hard to learn those sections. Ruth Bonetti said, “We will always find something more interesting to play than the tricky passage that really needs attention. We prefer to reassure ourselves by practicing the phrases we can manage rather than face the ones we can’t.” Face those difficult sections! Have confidence – you can do it!