Balancing Work and Fun in Your Piano Practice

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about balancing work and fun in your practice. I have often said that if you’re practicing correctly, it’s hard work! There are some things that are just really tough in practicing. Things like memorization and refinement—to do these things correctly, you must be present and focused. So what is this idea of having fun in your practice? Practicing can be rewarding, but fun isn’t exactly the right word. However, if you’re so hard on yourself that every time you practice, you may get to a point where just the thought of going to a piano gives you a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you don’t even want to practice anymore; that is where you’ve lost the balance.

You have to have some joy in your practice.

How do you get this joy? By playing! Can playing be considered practicing? Well, not usually, but sometimes it can be. Let’s say you’ve been working on a piece a great deal, and you come to a point where you don’t even know what to do next with it. That is a perfect opportunity to play through it and get a feel for where it’s at. It can be fun to do that. Maybe you’ve been practicing slowly without the pedal and using the metronome. It’s tedious work! To finally just play through it can be fun, and you will have a better understanding of what still needs work.

Improvising can also be fun.

Let’s say you’ve been memorizing, refining, and working on scales. Well, maybe you just want to make some stuff up. Is that practicing? Well, once again, it certainly can be if you’re exploring new chord progressions, textures, and techniques. Maybe you always wanted to do something with a bunch of trills, just to see if you could make something up with a bunch of trills in it. Go for it; just take off and have fun! Do something wild and crazy just for fun. You may discover something that will help your playing if you let yourself go without any preconceived ideas of what you’re doing.

Let yourself have fun periodically to break up your practice and re-energize your mind.

It’s important to find ways to have fun at the piano so your practice doesn’t become drudgery. Then, you can go back fresh. You played through your pieces, you made something up, and you did whatever you wanted to do. Now you can get back to work, and you’ll be energized again because you’ve given yourself a little break. Another benefit is that you won’t feel like every time you practice, every second has to be productive.

Sometimes, productivity can be found in strange places.

For example, you might take a piece you’ve played a million times and try playing it really fast, just for fun. Maybe it’s not an appropriate tempo for that piece, but you may learn something from the experience. So break up your practice and have fun from time to time in appropriate proportions to keep your practice productive and to keep yourself engaged! I hope this is helpful for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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