Say Goodbye To Embarrassing Mistakes!

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Making mistakes…there’s a time and place for em. After all, you can learn a lot from your mistakes. But making them in front of people, while on stage in a performance? Nahhh…let’s keep that from happening. Here’s a few tips!

Tip #1: Keep your finger and hand motions accurate.  

One of the main issues that causes mistakes for piano players is accuracy. Or lack of accuracy, for that matter. So make sure that your technique and muscle memory are strong and accurate on the keyboard. Even if you gotta practice painfully slow, it’s worth it! Practice jumping from note to note in different interval movements, and work on chord inversions in solid and broken forms

Tip #2: Make sure your technique is tight

Bad technique is arguably the leading culprit for making mistakes. If you’re not confident in your technique, you are likely to have consistent troubles at the same spot in a song. So make sure that your fingers are rounded and you’re playing on the ballpoint tips of your fingers. And watch those thumb tucks, because they’ll get you everytime during a performance!    

Tip #3: Make a mistake? Don’t stop!

So you’ve followed tips one and two to a tee, and you still end up flubbing a note or missing a chord. The LAST thing you want to do in a situation like that is stop playing. 90% of your mistakes will go unnoticed, as long as you confidently play on. But if you let that mistake phase you, you’re likely to make more and more mistakes until boom! You’re dead in the water.  

Honestly, mistakes are unavoidable if you want to improve as a musician. You should learn to embrace them when they come. They provide you with the best opportunity to learn and grow. So the next time you make a mistake, check your technique. Make sure that you’re feeling confident with whatever you’re playing, be it a simple scale or a part of the song you’re practicing.

The bottom line is that mistakes should be encouraged in a practice setting as they show you what you need to work on as a player. So next time you practice, take the opporunity to challenge yourself outside your comfort zone. Screw up a little bit – it’s good for you!       

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Jordan Leibel is passionate about songwriting, improvisation, and helping you become a creative musician! He’s worked as a composer for film, commercial, and theatre projects as well as a session musician and producer for recording work.