Scheduling Practice for Success (Part 4)

Piano Practice

How to structure a successful Popular Music Piano practice regime

Popular Music can be difficult to organise an effective practice schedule for. Playing piano in a popular music context usually requires less technical proficiency than classical but more emphasis on harmony and having a well trained ear. Much more time needs to be invested in understanding the nuances of different genres within the popular music space. This involves listening sessions, practicing sound design, manipulating harmony to evoke certain emotions and learning common chord progressions in all 12 keys.

As a student first learns piano everything will look very similar regardless of what they are wanting to acheive. As students progress that is where their practice session begin to specialise.

Beginner Student Practice Schedule

20 minute session

5 minutes - scales and technical exercises

10 minutes - repertoire (Popular music song)/ Chord practice

5 minutes - Try to learn the chords of a simple song by ear

Advanced Student Practice Schedule

60 minute session

15 minutes - scales and technical exercises

30 minutes - repertoire (Songs for a Gig/Performance) Advanced chord practice

15 minutes - Try to learn the chords and melody of a song by ear

These timings are a very broad and basic outline for a well rounded practice schedule and can be changed to fit a students individual needs. For example some of our advanced students will split an hour session into 2 30 minute sessions. One of which is scales, technical exercises and sight reading, whilst the other is just repertoire. This can help students who have a busy schedule with lots of extra curricular activities and shorter attention spans.

Ideally beginner students should be practicing 4-7 20 minute sessions a week, intermediate students 30 - 60 minutes 4-7 times a week, and advanced students anywhere from 1 hour daily as a minimum to 3-4 hours daily.

In our next blog post we will discuss how to construct an effective practice session for students who are studying Jazz in piano lessons.

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