IS 15 MINUTES A DAY ENOUGH?

                   Sure it is!  Because that’s almost enough time to get your books out (and those pencils to mark with)! 

I know what you say when you put your book on the book on the piano.

How about this?

“Which song is it, anyway?”

“This silly book won’t stay open.”

“Now, where do I put my hands?”

“Yesterday, I had trouble with that place at the end of this line.”

“O.K.  Are my 15 minutes up, yet?”

          Come on, now – when you finish your practicing today, do you know your piece better than the last time you practiced?

          Well, how about another 15 minutes right now?  Book and pencils are in place – why not stick around?

          O.K.  Tomorrow, why don’t you plan to spend 10 more minutes – just as an experiment?

LESSON TIME:

  When you are playing your piece today, stop for a minute whenever you come to a trouble spot and circle or check that place and keep playing to the end.

Now go back and work on just those trouble spots.  How do you do that?  You look at every thing in that spot and see if you have your fingers in the right place and if you have the correct notes.  Then play it very slowly 5 times.  Now, go back one measure from that place and play that, then the trouble spot and right on into the next measure only.  Is it better now?  If not, try it again and then go on to the next trouble spot.

Yes, it’s that easy!!

One of my teachers told me about this one time.   I had a hard part in one of my pieces and when I finally got so I could play it in my lesson, she said, “Now play it 4 more times.”  Sure enough!  It got better every time!

          Now, I told one of my students that, he did the same thing in one really hard part. He got so excited and said, “I’m going to do it a couple more times.”  You guessed it!  On #7, he started messing up and the tenth time was really bad.

So, if you have a hard part, (practice it until you can really play it).  Do it 5 times.  Now, STOP!  Try it again at another time.  Weird, isn’t it?  TRY IT!

LESSON TIME:

Write down the numbers like this on a piece of paper (which you always have with you when you practice):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

         Put a check mark next to the number that you thought was perfect.