It seems logical that if we spend time working on improving our ability to play an instrument, then we should be able to see how we are getting better. To some degree, you might be able to see some improvements as you notice how a particular piece of music becomes easier and easier to play. But why is it that when you start a new piece of music, it can feel like those improvements haven’t transferred over and it feels like you are starting all over again?

When I was first learning the piano it didn’t even cross my mind that I could choose my own pieces, scales and other things to do in my piano practice. I thought that piano lessons were there to provide you with exactly what to do to improve…and playing piano for the sole purpose of enjoyment rather than improvement never crossed my mind either (that probably says a lot about my personality type).

After a recent video where I reacted to a video entitled “Learn Piano as Fast as Humanly Possible”, I realised that some people might believe that stopping to fix mistakes might make it more difficult to play with fluency. If you are constantly stopping in practice to solve a problem, how do you know you will be able to play it through?

Learning a piece of music comes with many challenges. Pressing the correct notes and trying to include all of the different dynamics, performance markings and other features of the music can take up quite a lot of brain space.

There are many moments when playing the piano when your brain seemingly empties out onto the floor. There’s often a feeling before playing something of “I should easily be able to do this”, yet sometimes, when you try to do it, it doesn’t quite turn out to be as easy to play as you thought.

My aim with many of these articles is to challenge assumptions that many have about what learning the piano actually is. Many of the beliefs we hold about learning music aren’t true at all, and these can very much slow down progression as you inevitably go through the same journey I did of discovering that it’s actually easier and harder than you think at the same time.

In many of my Monday Music Tips I’ve drawn a distinction between what is “playing” and what is “practicing”. For many players these two ways of approaching the piano either get mixed into one or inadvertently become “playing” heavy.

There are some types of players (myself included when I was learning) who attempt to make big jumps in piano progress by attempting difficult pieces. The belief is usually something like: “If I just have the willpower, which I definitely do, if I can learn a difficult piece then I can get better at the piano so much quicker and skip playing a bunch of easy music”.

There is a subtle but important difference between being able to play something and trusting that you can play it. Many pianists can technically “get through” a piece, especially if they have played it and practiced it for a while. They can probably even play it quite well on a good day. But underneath that ability, there’s often an uncomfortableness that feels like you are on the edge of making a mistake the entire time.

Learning a skill like the piano appears to be (sometimes at least) a long-term game of self torture. Every time we play a piece of music, we can’t help but mentally point out all of the errors that we are making. Yet, we don’t do the opposite and pay an outsized amount of attention to all of the things we do correctly.

Playing slowly is one of the best tools for fixing many problems when learning music. Many players (knowingly or unknowingly) have some inherent belief that being able to play a piece of music is more about being able to play at speed than it is being able to play with control, musical precision, and enough time to make choices.

For some people, learning an instrument can lure you into a false sense of progression. At the start, it can feel like you are moving fast. You learn how to count, how to read notes, how to play some chords, and it might feel like music isn’t so tough to grasp. There are several reasons for this.

One of the biggest complaints from those beginning to learn the piano is that their fingers don’t want to do what they are asking of them. This is particularly true for the weaker fingers on the hand, the 4th and 5th fingers. Most people assume that this is a strength or an independence problem that will get better with time and practice; however, that isn’t strictly true.

Keys are one of the fundamentals of music and are amongst the first things that many players learn. Typically that’s via the proxy of learning what key signatures look like or by learning scales. However, key signatures play a much more interesting role in demonstrating how music actually works and the web behind the logic of music theory.

It’s always fascinated me how one note in one context can feel completely different to the same note in another context. It’s easy to assume that notes determine the feeling of a piece of music. For those that watch my videos or read these Monday Music Tips regularly, you will also know that I talk a lot about how different types of chords often determine the feeling of a piece of music. However, that isn’t strictly true.

When writing these Monday Music Tips, I’m always in search of the most valuable thing I can write about to help improve your playing and understanding of music. The truth is, learning an instrument is made up of many different things that you need to learn at different stages of the process. However, there is one thing that I think is the single most impactful change any musician can make.

When I was much younger, I believed that practising more always meant more improvement. So much so that I lived by the thought, “If I’m not practising, then someone else is, and they are getting better than me.” Clearly, I wasn’t competitive at all!

It’s pretty widely known that around 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail before reaching February. However, what is less widely known is why!

For many players there is a big difference between what you can do in practice by yourself and what you can do when a teacher or an audience is watching. At home, you are relaxed and not “performing”, whereas when you are in a lesson or a performance your brain shifts from a more exploratory, creative mode to a preservation and performance mode. I too have experienced this many times and I also used to say in my lessons, “I played this better earlier.”

One of the most impactful techniques I use when both practicing myself and teaching students is to approach a piece from both ends. Early on in my playing career I would typically start a piece at the beginning and slowly but surely work my way to the end of the piece bar-by-bar. However, a teacher of mine once suggested learning the final phrase of the piece of music and working backwards one phrase at a time as well. Now, this is a fundamental part of how I approach a piece of music.