Practice: Get It a LOT Better NOW

I want to offer a disclaimer before I continue.

For the most part, what I'm talking about will not apply to stretch pieces.

For example, if you just learned Chopin's Prelude No. 7 in A major and you thought that that was kind of ideal for your level, well, if you're turning the page to look at Prelude No. 8 in F-sharp minor, which might very well be 25 times harder.

I don't think that would be much of an exaggeration.

Well, what I'm talking about is not the ideal approach for that.

I will mention stretch pieces toward the end.

I'll give you a few thoughts about that.

I do think stretch pieces are important.

I've talked about them before, but they deserve their own strategy and definitely their own timeline.

So what I'm talking about today are the pieces that are on the same level that you are or a little bit beyond.

If you're thinking of a staircase, going from Prelude 7 to Prelude 8 probably is like trying to get from Step 1 to Step 25.

So if you're on Step 1, we're looking at Step 2.

If you're on Step 5, we're looking at Step 6.

So maybe a prerequisite of this episode is make sure that you're working on the right music for your level.

Similarly, talking about techniques as well, everything that I'm going to be saying, it applies to techniques.

But if you're working on a technique, again, make sure you're trying to take it to the next logical step.

If you're a pianist and you just learned your first one octave hand separate scale, well then this is not the approach to use for four octaves hands together in thirds.

There's a few steps you should do between those two in order to get there.