10x Your Practice with THIS 10x Challenge - How to Practice: Quick Tips Ep. 3

The 10x Challenge! Can you do it? And can you do it daily? Or even better, multiple times a day? Lots of teachers advocate for practicing something "many times in a row," but not many teachers stress the importance of absolute perfection on each repetition. Most of the time, especially the first handful of times you work through a technically difficult passage, finishing this "10x Challenge" on the first go will be impossible. And that's exactly the beauty of it. By the time we've finished a single "10x Challenge" we will most likely have played the passage in question 30, 40, or even 100 times... a far cry from a simple "repeat this 10 times to make it better" solution. PLUS, we learn how absolutely focused we must stay on the bench in order to accomplish this task, which perfectly translates into better focus during all practice, better focus during lessons, and of course, better focus on stage and in front of an audience!

Other "Practicing Quick Tips"

Charles Szczepanek GRAMMY Award winners, and has taught music for over 20 years to everyone from his next-door neighbor to finalists on NBC's America's Got Talent. Through Pianist Academy, he now brings that wealth of knowledge to you: the beginner, the intermediate, the professional, or the fellow music teacher.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:02 - Quick Tip in short
01:20 - Tip explained in 4 steps
02:22 - Tip explained with Rachmaninoff's Elegie Measures 26-27
06:46 - Why this can make you a 10x better pianist (4 examples)
08:55 - Conclusion

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#charlesszczepanek

[antoniomaccagnan]

Hi Charles, this is an excellent tip. I've actually been doing something similar (though a bit less strict) and it totally changed my progress. I use 10 beans (Hey, I live in Mexico), and pass one from the left to the right side of the piano every time I play the passage correctly or return one to the left if I make a mistake. It also greatly helped me to use a metronome, starting very very slow and increasing 10 bps every time I completed the 10 repetitions. I was amazed how having a beat helped my brain to focus and my fingers to play precisely.

[Fair-to-Middling]

I just tried this today. Wow! It's great. I did do one more step though. I added the first note from the third measure, and/or the last note of the measure before the group of two. I always have a problem pausing at the end (or beginning) of each measure. In addition to 10 perfect play-throughs, this extra step will hopefully improve the flow of the whole piece. Yay!

[toddandrews]

So practical and makes sense! I'm going to use it starting in my practice tomorrow. Love it! Thank you.

[aBachwardsfellow]

An excellent approach! 10x or start over is "brutal" -- but professional and effective -- especially for a small passage. And graduating it down for larger passages also works great.

Similar to this (and like Antonio's comment), for my students (mostly beginning and early intermediate) I use a "3-bean" approach (jelly beans, M & M's, beans, checkers, whatever) -- usually for an entire section or piece -- especially when preparing for a recital or performance.

- place the beans on the left side
- move one from the left side to the right side each time you play through with no mistakes
- you must play the entire section or piece all the way through each time even if you make a mistake.

I use two "levels":

"recital" level - if you make a mistake you do not get to move a bean, but you leave the ones on the right as they are -- this makes it "do-able" for younger students

"concert" level - if you make a mistake move all the ones on the right back to the left -- a fair challange for a late beginner/early intermediate -- especially for an entire piece.

I think I may start using some variations of this approach for smaller sections as well to introduce it to my students sooner so they're familiar with it -- again, keeping it a bit lighter considering their age and playing level.

Thanks Charles!

[cutiejumps]

yes, I also use this method but only 5 x challenge, already find it works well. Will definitely try 10 X

[AdoptableDogVideos]

Please share more tips! This is excellent.

[lawrencetaylor]

Merci for this tip. I'll put it into my routine immediately.

[janeS]

This is a neat video! Thank you as always for helping me to move along and make my practices more productive!

[susiemartin]

goodness, this is so very helpful. I am an older, intermediate pianist and learning "how" to practice is more important than people realize. THANK YOU. 😃

[annykwok]

Thanks. Very practical and useful tips that anyone can put it into action!

[Cj.M]

Rach’s elegie is one of my favorite pieces! Im glad to hear that more people love it too. Great videos, thank you for all of your great tips.

[juliahallman]

Watching this made my day! What a fantastic tip! Thank you 🎉

[briandang]

Nice video, ill try to apply these into my practices

[ericaatkinson]

Charles, this is great advice! I should have followed this advice a month ago for all the reasons you already know. LOL :) Ironically, I just ordered a copy of this Rach piece last week. I love it so much and thought I may like to slowly work through it as a longer term project.

[charlesloving]

I can guarantee you there is not a single piece I know, where I can play two bars 10 times in a row without a mistake. I will literally play a phrase 200 times and still make a mistake on it the next time through.

[Feldspar__]

I splat a lot. Seems like a good method to focus on fixing parts.

[danielj]

Great videos! I’ve always found voicing really difficult on piano; I need to practice that more often 😂. I should have kept learning piano after I switched to organ. Organ and piano technique are so different and it’s so difficult to switch back and forth.

[jasonmanley]

Yet another excellent video. Keep pumping out the high-quality content Charles. It is greatly appreciated! Perhaps you could do a master class for this Rachmaninoff Elegie? It's a wonderful piece. You recently did the master class for Clair de lune. How does this piece compare in terms of difficulty? I would imagine it's moderately more difficult.

[haydarkhattar]

Thank you so much Charles! So far I've only been able to play the first 2 measures of un suspiro😂

[serwoolsley]

mmm procede with caution, i feel these tips are a good road to ragequit 🙃