The Only Way You Should Practice Piano

There's a bad way to practice and a good way to practice. Here's the ONLY way you should practice. Find out how my students learn even difficult pieces in sometimes just 5 minutes of practice.

Are you an advocate of the AAR method (check out what it is in the video)? Let me know down there in comments. 🤓

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🕘 Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:30 The Method
1:30 The Basics
2:00 The Wrong Way
4:00 Don't Gamble
4:54 Benefits

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[jazerleepiano]

🕘 Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:30 The Method
1:30 The Basics
2:00 The Wrong Way
4:00 Don't Gamble
4:54 Benefits

[annebator]

I am a terrible piano player! Took years of lessons but was never very good at all. I’m now teaching my 9 year old granddaughter how to play. Scary, right? She is much better than I ever was and we watch your videos together. You have helped both of us. Thank you so much!

[nico-svvi]

Where have you been so long? We missed you.

[patrasy]

I use the AAR rule since I started learning and the results that I get are incredible! Yes, It takes more focus, yes, it takes more effort but the hard work and focus are the things that are going to take you to that next level of piano playing!

[aBachwardsfellow]

Excellent! I've used my own version of the "absolute accuracy" rule for years -- only I call it "sarcastically slow". My premise/mantra for "sarcastically slow" is: "I do not have to play a wrong note if I don't want to", with the corollary being, "I don't have to play a note until I'm ready to" . I decided on it when I realized that my brain was learning whatever I practiced, so if I practiced playing mistakes and corrections, it was learning mistakes and corrections. So then I decided to feed my brain absolutely nothing except the correct notes and fingers. It is much more efficient and accurate than a shotgun/gambling approach. :-)

[g.]

When I took lessons in my 30’s I was never taught this method. I was handed new music every week and told to just learn it. Now in my 70’s I am playing again and use this method. It has made a huge huge difference in my progress. I am loving the piano again. I wish I hadn’t lost all those years

[jaysire]

I've been playing for 40 years and after graduating from music school in the 90s mostly on my own. I have gone through a crazy amount of phases where I've just discovered and tried out new ways of practicing to maximise my learning potential (learn quickly and accurately). What I've landed on in all this time is pretty much what you're describing here: Practice slowly and deliberately. What I would like to add, which may not be suitable for your beginner students yet, is to introduce the metronome as soon as possible. It helps you keep the tempo consistent, it helps you learn the relative tempo throughout the piece (how fast is this part compared to this other part if I keep perfect time), it helps with sight reading and figuring out the correct fingering and just

The way I practice now is:
1. I start by playing through the whole thing to get an idea of what I'm up against
2. I slim it down to the first page or half page and start the metronome at 60 or 70 bpm, depending on the piece. Also, depending on the piece a metronome strike can be a fourth or an eighth.
3. I play the first half page slowly with perfect accuracy (so you need to set the metronome to a speed that allows for that perfect accuracy even when you're sight reading) and if I don't have perfect accuracy, I repeat at that painfully slow tempo over and over agin until I do.
4. When I've mastered the half page at 60 bpm (perfect accuracy, I know the fingering and I can keep up with the tempo), I raise the bpm of the metronome by 10 (from 60 to 70 for instance) and do it all over again. Most of the time I can do 70 if I can do 60.
5. Of course, there is a point between let's say 120 and 130 where I start struggling again, which is an indicator that whatever I did slowly in fact doesn't translate to fast playing. I then have to reinvent my strategy a bit to accommodate for the faster tempo. But this is usually easier if I have a good understanding of the underlying structure. I may have to revisit the fingering, pay special attention to relaxing my fingers, think about the phrases in a whole new way or something, but it's doable if I know the slow tempo perfectly.

Just thought someone might appreciate how this same method is actually a universal tool for learning the piano regardless of how long you've been playing.

[randyriley]

Thanks for the honest approach to piano. I am an older student who is now retired. I am really able to connect with your great advice. I am even more encouraged to forge ahead. Thank you for giving of yourself, your time, experience and your truly caring attitude.

[mindymac_does_stuff]

So happy you're back, you're my go to for when I'm stuck between lessons or I need a good drill!

This method is solid gold, but it really does require immense discipline (at least for me). I find it so difficult to slow down, or to not speed up too quickly. But truly the results speak for themselves. In the last week I really forced myself to take a piece I was struggling with to a much slower tempo, and spent a bit more time with the harder chunks. I saw my teacher yesterday and she was really happy with my progress. AAR really does work, but you have to be disciplined, honest, and very present in your practice to reap the benefits. Love your content 💜

[christianmagana]

I had an older cousin who taught me about practicing with absolute accuracy while teaching me guitar when I was younger. It definitely helped me progress much faster than I had been before that. Now here I am almost 20 years later trying to learn the piano with the same method. Great video and advice! subbed👍🏽

[mgbchoralmusic]

Revisiting my old RCM piano books I realize that there are parts of many pieces that I never learned with full accuracy. Watching your tips over the last few years has helped immensely. Accuracy is key for notes and for me, especially fingering. Glad to see you back.

[yidinok]

Happy to see you again!
Your lessons are very helpful!

[jonb]

Welcome back Jazer! 😄

I love how you took one of your ongoing topics of playing slowly and accurately, yet you were able to add new insightful elements to it. Thank you for always being so helpful!

[valeriee]

Absolutely works. Used it to learn Minuet in D Minor -Bach. It’s an easy piece to learn which also helped boost my confidence trying to sight read both left and right hand parts at the same time. Slowed down completely worked like a charm.

[marciahorton]

You are absolutely correct about going even painfully slow learning anything on piano. Before I started to just use this method of learning I was making lots of mistakes but now I have realized that by going slow you actually gain more ground faster and with a lot less frustration. But I guess all beginners have to come to this realization on their own first. Everything that I practice on the piano I now work on by going painfully slow then slowly I find that I speed up completely without even thinking about it when my body and mind decides they are ready. Practice is now very enjoyable because it is a lot less frustrating.

[BDBoswell]

You’ve alluded to this technique in other videos and this technique has had the biggest impact on my practicing of all your techniques. Slowing things down until I can find the exact moments where I slip up and then repeating those sections 7x has made it so much faster to learn pieces.

[angeladavis]

The 7 times practising the same part over certainly does work. It's so satisfying. Thanks fir the tip.

[FWilson]

Really appreciate these videos, Jazer! I took piano in high-school and then barely touched it for many years. Now I'm 41 and taking lessons again. It's really slow going when you're trying to relearn a skill in your 40's. I've wondered if my brain is just not elastic enough for this anymore.

I'm fortunate to have a very good teacher who basically says the same things you did in this video. She's always reminding me to slow down and play accurately.

I've enjoyed your videos so much. They reinforce what I'm already learning in lessons and inspire me to keep going. Thank you!

[HoopstaYT]

Yo Jazer! I hope you've been well. Looking forward to seeing you on this lesson. Cheers!

[Andredeamorim]

Thank you for really exposing the struggles and learning curve of piano and also showing us how to approach these moments and how to deal with them. I cant appreciate you enough for showing and teaching us like this on YouTube.

I love how you teach us how to approach the piano and show us that it's not about always winning and the failures are the journey to getting better with the right mindset and determination. Thank you from 🇨🇦