{"id":80,"date":"2018-03-09T09:10:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T17:10:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-12T15:30:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T23:30:27","slug":"piano-practice-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/piano-practice-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Structuring Your Piano Practice Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re anything like me, you\u2019re probably pretty busy, right? It can be pretty hard to find time to practice the piano, so when you do you want to make sure you\u2019re getting the most out of your practice time. And that means one thing: structure.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Structuring out your practice time will help motivate you to sit down on the bench every day and will guarantee consistent results. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how do you set up your time to practice anyway? Well, I like to break my practice time down into <\/span><strong>4 sections. &nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Warm Up With Technique. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This includes anything that pertains to developing finger strength, coordination, hand dexterity&#8230;stuff like that. Practice your scales, triads and inversions, arpeggios, hand independence exercises to get yourself warmed up and ready to dive into the core of your practice time. Depending on your skill level you might spend anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour on this portion of your practice. <\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/22115434\/piano-technique.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5548\" width=\"450\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2018\/03\/22115434\/piano-technique.jpg 600w, https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2018\/03\/22115434\/piano-technique-231x300.jpg 231w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Proper technique will keep your hands sharp and your playing accurate.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Exercise Your Sight Reading. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A well-structured practice is well balanced, so you want to take some time to build your sight-reading skills as well. So what you can do is pick a piece of music that\u2019s really simple and a little easier than your level of skill and use that as a tool to keep those skills sharp. After this, you can push your skills further by singling out a particularly challenging set of bars that really push your abilities.<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/22115837\/sheet-music-pencil-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Sheet with music notes and pencil as background, closeup\" class=\"wp-image-5549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2021\/10\/22115837\/sheet-music-pencil-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2021\/10\/22115837\/sheet-music-pencil-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2021\/10\/22115837\/sheet-music-pencil-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pianote-blog.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/app\/uploads\/2021\/10\/22115837\/sheet-music-pencil.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Studying site reading can be surprisingly relaxing&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Develop Your Ears. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next up is ear training! A good practice session has to include some time dedicated to developing your ears. For this portion, I like to work on my chording or listen to a song and try to pick out the melody.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/app\/uploads\/2018\/03\/headphone-guy-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5550\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Cool young man with Down Syndrome listening to a sport podcast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>This guy&#8217;s got the right idea!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Have Fun! <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ok, this one should be obvious but it can be surprisingly easy to forget! You need your practice sessions to end in a way that inspires you to play and just enjoy your instrument. For some, that could be working on a piece of classical music, for others that could be working on blues scales or writing a song of their own. Every musician is different, so ask yourself what do you enjoy doing the most at the piano and do that! <\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<center><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:390px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/688547698\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:152.3077% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/688547698?et=wRouv8u5QK1fPKeuLJ4_1Q&amp;tld=ca&amp;sig=NlHOUp4avdWzhu6Rbw4uL8LGC6XzpE2J0HZ3lj53Iuw=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"390\" height=\"594\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>See how happy playing the piano can make you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that\u2019s how I structure my practice time! How do you structure yours? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy playing,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lisa <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/weekly-email\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How I structure my practice routines for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1108,1112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musicianship","category-practice-musicianship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10793,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/10793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}