Better Practice Blog- The 7 Most Common Mistakes in Music Practice
The 7 Most Common Mistakes in Music Practice
Students, this is for you. Here are the top 7 biggest pitfalls of practice I’ve seen (and have been guilty of doing) and how to work around them.
1. Practicing too fast
Trying to play at normal speed from the very start is one of the biggest practice pitfalls I see. Inevitably, you’ll make mistakes and you’ll just try again at the same speed hoping the results will be different. If you’re lucky, you may get it right 1 out of 4 times, but that doesn’t mean you got it: you practiced it wrong the other 3 out of 4 times, so which one do you think your brain is learning more? Slow down to practice right from the start, so you never get used to the wrong way!
2. Starting at the beginning every time
A bad habit many students have when starting out is practicing from the top every time. I know you know what I’m talking about! You start from the top, play until you mess up one little thing, and then start all over. As if it’s like a video game that boots you back to start when you die. This means you’re playing the beginning 20 times before you play the tricky parts only a few times. Unfortunately, this means the weakest, least-practiced parts will be near the end - the parts freshest in your audience’s memory as you leave the stage. Isolate those tricky parts and master them, and then rework it back into the surroundings.
3. Rocky rhythm
Another common mistake is playing through pieces without any solid rhythm - going fast through the parts they know and then slowing or stopping at tougher parts. You may not see what you’re doing wrong because you’re getting all the notes! What you don’t see is that this is happening because you haven’t truly mastered those transitions. You need to first (once again) slow down the entire thing so you can play through at one tempo without stopping, or to isolate those problem transitions and master them first. One of the best ways to fix this is backing tracks! They are fun and they make it easy to tell when you get off beat. Another way is to tackle notes and rhythm of a song separately: first make sure you can tap out the rhythm correctly, then work on getting all the notes.
4. Putting it together too soon
Trying to put everything together all at once before you’re ready is another issue. Most likely the piece you are assigned is more difficult than the last and you’re probably not going to be able to sightread your way through it easily. Make sure you can tap the rhythm properly even thinking about the notes and you can play all the notes even while ignoring the rhythm. If you cannot do either, then you aren’t ready to put it together. For example, jumping in with two hands when you can’t even play one hand well is a mistake often made. There’s nothing wrong with taking the time to carefully read through each hand and/or work out difficult parts in each hand separately before putting them together.
5. Not recording
In this day and age, coming across recording devices is so easy that there should be no excuse for not regularly recording yourself! You can easily record on your phone, tablet, or computer - which, if you are reading this article, I know you have! You know you are your own harshest critic, and many flaws become apparent when listening from a third person perspective. Audio or video both work (video would obviously be better for technique and posture). Here is a guide to recording video for piano players.
6. Having no plan
Practicing without a plan is when you go to “practice” for the sake of practicing but really, all you do is just play through the pieces with no specific goals in mind. You should always have at least one goal in mind and a plan to reach it for every practice session. It could even by a tiny goal if you’re pressed on time/energy. Here’s an example:
- Goal: be able to play measures 4-5 without stopping, a tempo.
- Plan: Isolate difficult parts within those 2 measures and master those. Then play the whole thing through slow enough to get it, then incrementally increase tempo.
7. No reflection
Students often think going down their practice list is enough. They played all the assignments and did all the worksheets. What more do you want from us?? But really, one of the most important factors of growth is self-reflection. An often-missed step, this consists of asking the question: “Was this a good practice session? Why or why not?” Did you reach the practice goals you set for the day? Did you improve in something? Make sure you know the difference between practicing and playing - practice is working to improve, so self-reflection is necessary to assess how efficient you were in your practice.