Piano Lessons Tulsa | Practicing Through to Completion
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
A common problem with specific students that are taking piano lessons Tulsa is that a lot of times when working on a song it’s very exciting and fun. At the beginning of the song and making progress is actually quite easy because from the point of knowing a song, 0% to 10% is as little work as just running through the song a couple of times and then from 10% to 20% is also fairly easy. It doesn’t take a ridiculous amount of effort to basically get to 40% of knowing a song and then from 40% to 70% also it takes a little bit more work, but it’s still relatively low level practicing. However, where a lot of students get stuck is moving from 70% of the song to 100% of the song and that’s really where the bulk of your practice will be when learning a song.
You may practice a song and if it takes a normal person 10 hours to learn a lengthy song, it wouldn’t be my estimation in that the first seven hours would be learning 90% of the song. And the remaining three hours would be finally getting that last 10% and that’s where a lot of students stop practicing a song, or at least just reviewing the parts that they do know. And so in that same scenario of practicing a song for 10 hours, a lot of times after about five hours of practicing a song and getting it better, even if they continue practicing that song, what typically happens is they’re not actively practicing to further develop the song. This is common with piano lessons Tulsa, as well. They are simply practicing that 50% of the song that they know because it’s a lot easier. They don’t have to continue working on it if they’re only practicing the parts that they know.
And because of that, it causes that song to actually never be finished. And this is a very typical thing for musicians. And the amazing thing about persevering and pushing through to that 100% of the song that you know, by pushing through it causes the student to learn quite a bit of life long skills that will benefit them for their entire life. Some of these skills and lifelong goals that they could achieve while taking piano lessons Tulsa is simply persevering. And putting in the painstaking part of the enjoyment of a process. And so this could be helpful with work ethic in the future and all sorts of great things. But let’s go back to our main purpose of this, which is the point that if you are moving forward and you are familiar with this song, 70% of the song that say pushing through and practicing those last percentages of the song is what really takes the song to the next level.
A lot of students are more than happy to say that they know a song, if they know 70% of it and they may play just one section of the song, like the intro and the verse, but then they don’t know the song to completion. So what we do with piano lessons Tulsa is we want to make sure that each and every one of our students are putting in the diligence and enjoying a song from start to finish no matter what. This is a great thing for those students to be able to do. So now we’ll talk about some tips that can help you achieve the remaining 10% of a song and how you can effectively get through the song.
Typically, one thing that happens is we practice from start to finish and a song that we’re learning, we open it up and we start at the very beginning and we practice all the way through. And what this ends up happening is that we tend to be very awesome at a song at the beginning, but then by the time we get to the end or the middle section, it’s pretty bad or we just don’t know it and we certainly wouldn’t be able to perform it in front of people simply because we just don’t know the end well enough. And one thing that you can do during piano lessons Tulsa is actually start your practice at the end and do this just as often as you would start at the beginning. And periodically you can start right in the middle, say at a chorus section or a bridge section and make sure that each and every time that you sit down at the piano to practice the song that you are consistently playing at different sections of the song so that you can make sure that each and every section of the song is exactly as good as the beginning.
A second thing that you can do to maximize the effectiveness of your practice as you take piano lessons Tulsa is that you can actually focus your attention on one specific concept of the song. So for instance, there’s many elements of music. There’s so many different things that you can add to your songs to make them sound phenomenal. One of the most common things that we would begin working on is the dynamics. And so as you’re practicing, allow yourself the leniency and the grace to make mistakes on notes because you focus your attention on dynamics for a little bit. And one thing that we always talk about with our students is as a student begins, including something new into the music, whether it’s dynamics or syncopation or Sillars and stick Kardos, all of those things will typically cause a few note mistakes here and there and that’s perfectly acceptable.
Just keep practicing. And eventually as you continue using the dynamics and progressing through the song, you will make less and less mistakes with your notes and with your rhythms while including the dynamics. So because of this, that’s a very useful thing to be able to practice throughout the course of learning a song. The whole point of this is that as a musician we want to help you to move from learning a song and being able to play it okay. Or being able to play it mediocre, to really being able to dive in and progress in a way that dominates and makes the song effective. And the listener genuinely appreciates all of the hard work that you have accomplished in your piano lessons Tulsa. And this is huge. It really does show when a listener is able to hear all of your hard work and appreciate the painstaking hours of moving past 90% of the song that is known to 100% with all of the awesome things that you are playing. So keep at it, persevere, and you will be successful in your songs and in your practice, especially when you’re taking guitar lessons Tulsa.