Have you just began your piano learning lessons, are finding it difficult and are making mistakes? This page is a perfect guide for you to learn about these mistakes and how can you avoid them and learn more proficiently. Many of the piano students make some common mistakes and these mistakes make your piano learning extended and less result-oriented. Knowing about these mistakes would give you ease of avoiding them and you will learn and improve at learning good piano playing skills quickly.
Common Mistakes by Piano Learners!
Irregular Practicing:
This is one of the common mistakes that piano learners make. Many of us are truly busy in our lives and do not really get time for other activities. However if you really have a goal and are focused/dedicated for learning piano, you must prioritize your piano learning practice sessions. You need to struggle and take out time for practice each day. If possible allot specific time duration for piano practice, same time each day and with time this practice session will become a part of your daily routine.
Incorrect Placement of Piano:
Many of us make this mistake of putting your piano at a place or room which is rarely used. Those who use portable digital pianos may be storing them at a place that can be easily ignored and may be thinking of taking it out at the time of practice. Pianos places at such places remain out of sight and thus you can easily forget practicing. Thus it is important to have your piano placed in a position that is prominent so it keeps you reminding of your practice session.
Incorrect Body Posture for Practicing Piano:
Proper body posture and positioning is extremely important for learning good piano skills and habits. Playing while sitting in a comfortable place and position would surely result in an improved performance as opposed to is sitting in a stressed position. In order to avoid this common mistake, you must have a proper bench that could give you absolute comfort level and make you sit in a relaxed position. Bad posture makes piano playing difficult and you will find yourself progressing really slowly.
Extended Duration of Practice Sessions:
Some of you may be so obsessed about learning piano quickly that you may be spending 8-10 hours each day for practice sessions over piano. This is incorrect. Continuously practicing for so many hours can give you stress which in turn is not good for your learning and performance. You must take breaks within a practice session. For beginners it is good to have a session of 30-45 minutes each day or maximum an hour. During these sessions you should take short break too. For children, one or two short sessions of learning each day would be good enough. Don’t stress yourself out as you cannot and don’t need to learn all piano skills in one day.
Not Doing Revisions or Not Trying to Learn Something New:
Addiction to completely piano learning levels and sessions may be encouraging you to forget about a piece that you have learnt. Many students make this mistake that when they know to play a piece, they forget about practicing it ever again and hurry ahead to learn new pieces. Learning new forms and notes is good but do not forget about practicing and revisions.
Likewise some of you when make progress by learning to play something correctly, you may feel so excited that you continue to play that piece only and do not think about learning something new. Continuously playing same piece would make you feel rather bored with piano so it is important to keep exploring something new and creative that makes piano more fun and challenging for you.
Thus you need to maintain a balance and should dedicate separate time for practicing already learned pieces and for learning some new ones too.
Practicing Notes Too Fast:
Slow and steady wins the race, holds true for piano learning sessions too. Playing a piece faster would result in slow learning and you may end up making a lot of mistakes without realizing in faster mode. Go slow with your practice. Try to memorize notes and phrases in a slow tempo so that you would have everything in mind and then slowly you can increase speed.
Incorrect Use of Fingers and Hands:
Placement of fingers is set for each piece and this sequencing must be followed in order to get consistent performance. The idea behind it is that when you use correct fingering for a piece, your muscle memory will retain that sequencing and thus every time you will play that piece you will get stability. For reliable and more confident performance, correct using of fingers is important.
Before you begin to practice with both hands, play a segment with one hand first and then with the other hand. Do it multiple times and then use both hands for practicing that piece. This would make you feel more comfortable at playing a segment.
Moreover learn a piece and avoid looking down at your hands too much. Try to have your eyes on the music sheet however you can occasionally look at hands. Limiting this practice would prevent you from making mistakes.
Do not Realizing your Mistakes:
Early learners usually do not focus on learning the skill to listen while you play. This is extremely important in order to become your own critique and to find out your mistakes where you need improvement. Try to get a grasp on this listening skill and till you get a hold of it, you can record yourself and listen to your performance.
In order to become your own critique, concentrate on your practice sessions and keep your mind away from all the distractions. Just focus on your piano practice and go in the flow to improve yourself by identifying your mistakes.
Conclusion
All these common mistakes would give you comfortable and more enjoyable learning piano sessions with improved results in the form of learned skills and enhanced performance. Having knowledge of these common mistakes would enable you to correct them and thus you wouldn’t be wasting more time and efforts but would be learning quickly with more ease.
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