effective practice session

[buffalo man]

i just hope to have some pointers and guidance from all the fellow pianists here regarding your opinions on what constitutes an effective practice session of say 1-2 hours,i'm only about grade 4 and as i don't go for piano lessons what i do in about 2 hrs is say warm up by playing some hanon excercises,learn2-4 bars of a new song,practice scales,appregios and resting 10 mins for every 20 mins of practice and working on the songs that i already know and trying to perfect it.I don't know if what i am doing might be flawed or if there is anything wrong but with working examples from you guys here i'm pretty sure it provides like some sort of template to adjust how i practice

 

[Cheez]

I'm pretty sure different practice regimes work for different people. My practice regime is simple:

1. Scales and arpeggios for all keys. I find my finger technique start to deteriorate if I miss practicing my scales for more than 2 days. If I don't have time for anything else, the minimum I would do is my scales. Without scales regularly, all my pieces start to sound bad. Others may not notice, but it's very evident to me when I play the pieces. Miss it for a week and others will surely start to notice.
2. Bach 2 and 3 part inventions and Preludes/ Fugues (I just pick my favorites - to get my fingers going)
3. Newer pieces that I need to improve on - most are fast ones (Chopin and Rachmaninoff).
4. Slower pieces (mainly Debussy).
5. Whatever I want to play - jazz improvisations (on Jobim) and/or my own compositions (so I am ready to perform my pieces whenever called for).

1-3 are standard and I try to do this schedule twice a day if possible (at least once). Because I don't have enough time practicing (work, family etc), I don't have time to rest in between pieces. I just go straight through my regime.

There's no standard "template". But I strongly advise scales at the beginning of your practice. Good warm-up. You can do Hanon, Czerny etc. But you cannot compromise on scales.

 

[Cheez]

I was just in Cambodia for about 2 weeks for work. Of course, I couldn't practice. Just got back yesterday. Today started playing and as expected, my playing deteriorated. In situations like this, I would ONLY play scales and Bach - until I my fingers get back to shape. I wouldn't even try the others (Chopin, Rachmaninoff or Debussy etc). So it's going to be step 1 and 2 for now. Things like that happen quite often as I travel quite a bit.

 

[buffalo man]

thanks cheez,will strongly take note of this,gonna start working on my half assed scales n bring it up to standard

 

[buffalo man]

oh sorry btw i would also like to ask how do you practice,as in like the sequence ,do you go through c,c#,d#,e and so on or is there some other kinda sequence? also do you like do all the major scales,then followed by minor and then the modal ones you talked about in a previous post,isit something like that?

 

[Cheez]

C major, C melodic minor, C harmonic minor, Db major, C# melodic minor, C# harmonic minor etc. Didn't do modal. I really should. Used to but stopped for a while. Just took too long, I guess. But no excuse...

Same for arpeggios - C major, C minor, Db major, C# minor etc.

Then chromatic starting at C. Then contrary motion.

All 4 octaves. Except contrary motion.

 

[kongwee]

For me I don't go chromatic. I will start circle of five or four. For major set: C-G-D-A.... Or C-F-Bb-Eb....etc. many music go from I-IV or I-V. I used to train this way.

 

[Cheez]

Kongwee, circle of 4ths and 5ths refer to chord progressions. In this case, we are talking about scales and a systematic way to practice them. Going from scale to scale by 4ths and 5ths to cover all 12 major, 12 harmonic minor, and 12 melodic minor scales are impractical. It has nothing to do with I-IV or I-V, which are chord progressions.

 

[kongwee]

Practical or not I don't really know. Cos I train myself this way. I cannot unlearn myself. If wanna force a good reason, then you start taking black key one by one rather a full black key scale from C to C#. For me, if don't read music score, I love to play black keys. Many scale book list their scale practice in circle of fifth(mostly) or fourth too.

 

[Cheez]

Ok. I guess whatever works. Some scale books do list their scales, which on first look looks like a systematic "circle of 4ths or 5ths". But in actual fact, they are just listing it down in terms of key-signatures, from zero sharp, to 1 sharp, to 2 sharps, to 3 sharps etc (ie "circle of 5ths"); from zero flat, to 1 flat, to 2 flats, to 3 flats etc (ie "circle of 4ths"). I find that helpful for people starting to learn how to play scales (which you need to learn one scale at a time because scales with new key-signatures are new, and you need to actually look at the score to play the scales), which is how most of us start to learn them. Once we know all the scales, you can still do that way, but I see no benefit.

Practicing scales is about finger techniques. Hence jumping keys has no value added, but that doesn't mean one can't do it. It's just troublesome, especially if you are playing 4 octaves. You need to jump to different positions (up and down) on the piano. As long as one systematically covers all the 12 keys, I guess that's fine. So ok, point taken.