Adult Guitar Lessons | Practicing Like A Boss

This content was created for Curtis Music Academy

 

There’s other strategies that you can use to make the time that you spend studying much more beneficial. And so they would recommend studying as hard as you can for 30 minutes and then taking a 15 minute break, doing something totally different, going outside, walking for 10 minutes, entering another room. It’s so weird. But people say that entering another room actually helps you kind of like feel like your brain has had a break. And so long story short, the people who did this study had figured out that you can spend less time studying and get more out of that time when taking Adult Guitar Lessons

And so it’s the same with piano. I want to help my students achieve that. So I usually recommend when you’re practicing a new song instead of just let’s just say you have a song that’s 32 measures. Most people who are new at the piano, they’ll think, OK, I’m going to practice for 30 minutes today. And so they sit down at the piano and they play that song from start to finish, maybe five times through. That’s actually it’s not that it’s wrong or it’s not that it’s bad, but it’s actually not maximizing the most out of what could be when taking Adult Guitar Lessons

 

So as a student, when I was a teenager, I would always take songs apart three or four measures at a time, and I would play those three or four measures and I would really get that going. What that does, it develops muscle memory and you actually learn a song much, much quicker. This is like the secret sauce to my piano playing as a student all throughout my teenage years. I accomplished so much more doing this method rather than just sitting down and playing through a song during a music lesson in Tulsa. So I would recommend that. And I tell my students that, you know, tests take four measures at a time or depending on the song that might not work out, it might be six measures, or maybe if the song is easier, maybe eight measures.

 

So it doesn’t have to be necessarily a rule. I mean, even if the song is very difficult, it might just be two measures. So just depending but just a sure enough area that you can really work through. And my number was five. I always did it five times through, so I’d work through something five times through. Then I’d go on to the next section of measures and I work through that five times through. And then I might put those two areas together. And I’ve noticed that when I’m in the studio in a music lesson in Tulsa with somebody and I’m doing this method already, by the end of it, just practicing it five times through in a little short area. 

They’re already starting to do it very confidently and very well where it sounds really, really good. So I would recommend that is one of my number one strategies for practicing taking a song apart a few measures at a time and you’ll maximize your time. What you would have taken you maybe a week to learn would actually take you maybe a couple of days to learn. So it is one of the most important strategies to use. So anyway, I will come again with more strategies for practicing, but that is one of the biggest and the best strategies. Thanks for tuning into the podcast about Adult Guitar Lessons. Have a great day.

 

So my number has always been five. I always practice things five times through, obviously not necessarily anything else on the list because it’s a long list. So everything is kind of like basically I just do once. If it’s good, if it’s kind of rusty, I might do it two or three times. But the Hannon’s and the finger powers I do, I try to do five times. 

 

 So and that is also just something that’s kind of normal. So I might sit down at the piano, I might run through all of my warm ups and then that’s it. Or I might run through all of my warm ups in my finger power or hand it. And usually that might take about ten minutes or so. The same applies to Adult Guitar Lessons and then I might just go about my business for a while and do things around the house. So later on I might come back in. My next item on the list is to refresh a difficult song. 

 

I have got some songs that I love that are a part of my repertoire that I’ve played for years and it’s just some of my most favorite songs. And so I like to keep them fresh. If you don’t play them consistently, you’ll sit down and try to play through it and it will be rusty or you might forget part of it. So I like to keep certain songs fresh and for a couple of reasons. If I want to play it in front of an audience and then say, Andrea, you play the piano, go ahead and play the song, well, I’ll have a song that’s ready to go and I’ll be like, Oh, I can play this song. You can also play multiple songs by taking guitar lessons in Tulsa.

 

Another reason is some of my more difficult, challenging songs. It also helps me stay at that level. So there was a time when I was in high school, I was really pushing myself with the piano. Others have done the same with guitar lessons in Tulsa. I was learning some difficult songs and I’m not pushing myself necessarily as much right now as an adult. But if I play through those difficult songs, it refreshes and it keeps me at a certain level. So that is another one thing I like to do. So this has been a podcast on through my routine, we didn’t quite get through the end of it. I will continue on to the next podcast with more about my daily piano practicing routine.