Why you are practicing the piano too long

We’ve all heard it a million times. To be good at something, you have to practice.

It’s true. There is no way around that.

Matter of fact, the truth is, to be good at something, you have to practice A LOT!

For most people, the piano is an extra-curricular activity. We all have jobs, school, friends, sports, Netflix shows to catch up on, and we’d like to get some sleep in there too if possible.

How are we supposed to fit in piano practice? Even more, how are we supposed to fit in A LOT of piano practice?

Here is the answer.

Stop practicing so long.

So many of us think that in order to get good at the piano, we have to sit there and practice for hours on end. In a perfect world, yes that would be great. But here is what happens in the real world.

You tell yourself that in order to get good at the piano you have to practice at least an hour a day. You start off strong, but then life gets busy. Next thing you know, you have one full day after another and you can’t find an hour anywhere to practice. So instead of practicing a little bit, you blow it all off saying something like “If I can’t get my full hour of practice in then what’s the point?”

After a few weeks of that, you stop trying. Eventually, you don’t even touch the piano anymore. You quit taking lessons because you are frustrated and not making the kind of progress you wanted to.

Sound familiar?

Here is the truth that most people won’t tell you.

You don’t have to practice for an hour for it to count.

You don’t even have to practice for 30 minutes for it to count. Little chunks of practice go a long way.

What if you could practice 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there? Do you think you could find that time? Of course you could.

And you know what else? You would probably enjoy yourself more because you feel way less pressure to sit there for an hour torturing yourself.

And guess what? 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there still adds up to the same amount of practice. Matter of fact, I guarantee you will actually get MORE practice in this way because you are not blowing the whole thing off because you can’t get a full hour of practice in.

So here is your permission to let yourself off the hook. Stop telling yourself you have to practice an hour every day. Stop telling yourself if you don’t, then it’s not even worth practicing at all. It’s not true.

You don’t have to practice as long as you think you do.

You don’t have to be a piano practice superhero. Try getting in 10 minutes before and after work or school. Those 10 minute practices will add up fast and by the time you are sitting at your next lesson, you will see some serious improvement.

And remember, the whole reason you got into this piano thing was to have fun. Let those 10 minute practices be a break from your busy day. A little mini-musical meditation.

I’ll take 10 minutes of peace over 60 minutes of torture any day.

How to trick your brain into thinking you have practiced something longer than you have

Learning to play piano is not just about showing up to your piano lesson and playing some scales. Most of the learning actually happens at home when you practice. And really, the majority of your learning happens in your brain when you are sleeping.

Let me explain.

Have you ever had the experience where you are trying to learn something really hard on the piano. You figure if you just practice long enough, you will be able to do it, right? After an hour or so, you start to hit the wall. You start actually making more mistakes than when you started?

How can you actually be worse at something after practicing it for an hour?

When you practice, you can only practice for so long straight until your brain starts to shut off. We’ve all experienced it. We start getting sloppy, making more mistakes.

It’s because your brain has not had time to process everything you just practiced. Our brains are busy keeping us a live during the day. Telling our lungs to breathe, our heart to pump blood, taking in information, telling our hands and feet to move.

When our brains shut down for the night, that is when they finally have a chance to process all the other information, like all the practicing you did.

Most of our real learning happens in our sleep. Your brain needs some peace and quiet to connect all the dots. To create new nuero-transmitter connections and to solidify into your body and soul all that you practiced.

That is why when you come back to something the next day, you feel refreshed and you can play what you practiced just a little better than the day before.

Yes it does take a lot of repetition to get good at something. But it also takes a lot of downtime. There is no way to rush that process. Well, there is one way.

What is “Spaced Repetition?”

The answer is Spaced Repetition. All this means is having multiple shorter practices spread out over time instead of one long practice. It means doing 10-15 minute practices followed by breaks. These breaks can be minutes, hours or days, but the breaks are crucial. The breaks allow your brain to process all the information and in doing so, they actually speed up your progress.

You could compare this to a HIIT workout. These are all the rage in the fitness world right now because they work great and take a fraction of the time of a “normal” workout.

In a HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) workout, you do short bursts of high-intensity training followed by short bursts of recovery time. Each burst lasts 30 seconds to a minute. You do this cycle 4 or 5 times and your workout is done in 15-20 minutes.

And here is the best part - these workouts work! They have been proven to do just as much for your fitness if not more than a lower intensity, longer workout.

Practicing piano works the exact same way.

When you do hard cardio for shorter intervals, you are tricking your body into thinking you have worked out longer than you have. When you practice piano in short bursts more often, you are tricking your brain into thinking you have practiced more than you have.

Here is what to do…

Instead of practicing for hours and hours on end, try practicing something for 15 minutes. Then walk away for 15 minutes. Come back and practice it again for 15 minutes. Break. Repeat.

This process over a few days will trick your brain into thinking that more time has gone by than actually has. It will make the connections quicker. And suddenly you will be able to play that thing like you have been playing it for weeks or months. You basically sped up the process by getting your brain to process more in smaller chunks.

Say you are getting ready to play a recital and you only have a few days to get a very hard passage down. Is that even possible?

If you beat your head against the wall with super long practices, you will just get frustrated and you won’t be able to play it that well. But if you practice smart, and give your brain the rest it needs, you can absolutely learn something hard in only a few days.

It totally works.

Give yourself a break.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of hours of practice sometimes. But you just need to know when to walk away and give yourself a break. This is especially true if you are just practicing one little part of a piece or a riff over and over. If you practice for hours, that is fine, just make sure you mix up what you are practicing. Take breaks. And get some sleep.

I am giving you permission to practice less. I am giving you permission to take more breaks. Now it’s up to you to try it and see if it works. I think you are going to like the results.

And your brain will thank you for it.

Piano Lessons Near Me

Have you heard of this new thing called “the internet?” It’s all the rage in Europe. ;)

One of the best things about the internet, is finding products and services we need so quickly. I don’t even remember how we did that before the world wide web, but it is pretty amazing.

All you have to do is type in the thing you need with the words “near me” and you will get hundreds if not thousands of suggestions.

Need a new lawn mower, it’s there. Need a pizza STAT, it’s there. Need piano lessons for your kids, it’s there!

Before I start sounding too much like an old man and start asking you to help me program my VCR, let me get to the point. If you type into a search engine the words “piano lessons near me” you are going to get a lot of great options. In any city, you will find so many great teachers. And I know this is no exception in St. Louis.

St. Louis is a vibrant music town. It’s one of my favorite things about this city. The musical history alone is so full and robust, let the alone the current scene we have today. There are a lot of amazing musicians in this town, and what do most musicians do during the day?

They teach.

We are blessed with so many great music teachers and STL Piano Lessons is proud to be amongst them! And while some schools offer many different types of instrument instruction, we focus solely on piano because we want to be the best. It’s important for us to have the best teachers in town. And it’s important for us to value you as a student and to do all we can to help you reach your musical goals!

So the next time you type in “piano lessons near me,” know that we are proud to be a part of those search results. It can be an overwhelming process finding the right teacher, so we hope you will reach out to us with any questions you may have. We are more than happy to help you find the perfect teacher, whoever that may be.

Be sure to take full advantage of this whole internet thing. I think it may just be a fad like fax machines and cell phones, so who knows when they will take it away. Better enjoy it while you can!