A Step-by-Step guide + Free Schedule

What a joy is to play a musical instrument, to sing, to write songs…to be involved with music in any way. But let’s be honest: IT´S HARD!

Many hours of practice, a lot of technique and concepts to learn … or even to just know where to start! It is no mystery that musical education comes with its ups and downs.

So if you are learning music, either by yourself or as a student of live or online music lessons, follow our tips below to achieve the most out of your practice:

BREAK IT DOWN

Any musical form can be divided into sections. This is visible in a song (verse, chorus, bridge, etc) but also within classical pieces. The structure can be seen in its phrases (usually 8-bars long) and also sections of elements or “themes” (or main idea). Just as a text, they usually have exposition, development, and recapitulation.

This is crucial to schedule your practice: To focus on the entire piece/song it’s a lot of info to take in. Take one section at a time.

RECORD YOURSELF

In our last blog entry, we spoke about how difficult it can be to be aware of everything happening while you play, plus be a teacher on top of all! Once you have had the first reading, record yourself playing the section through. This is very important so you can assess yourself properly, with all your attention.

ANSWER THIS: WHERE, WHY, AND HOW

Being your own teacher involves a lot of analysis, just like if you were teaching somebody else.

While watching your recording ask yourself :

WHERE is the problem in this section? Is it on the fast scale of the 3rd bar? is it on the riff just at the end of the verse?

WHY is this happening? perhaps the rhythm is not accurate? or the scale is not at the right speed? Or maybe you can hear the bow crossing the strings?

HOW can you solve this? Metronome plus slow practice? jump-repetition? hands separately?

WRITE IT ALL DOWN AND CONGRATULATE YOURSELF!

Some songs will take some weeks (or even months) to be ready for performance. So with long-term goals is easy to feel not advancing towards the result.

For this reason, write down all of your self-analysis (from the previous point) and check once the work is done. It’s nice to actually see (and hear) your progress.

We want to help you with our FREE SCHEDULE with accurate examples, so you can put into practice your self-teaching.

We also have a lot of free resources on our website like chord charts, piano exercises and more.

And if you would like to have feedback on your playing by one of our teachers, don’t forget to subscribe to our coming launch of “Music Teacher Reacts”.

Keep on playing! 🎶