Are you taking way too long to learn your piece?
And because you're taking so long,
you've actually get bored
a few weeks after learning the piece.
Do you wish there was a more
organized and effective way to learn your pieces?
Hi, I'm Jazer.
And today I'm going to give you five steps
on how you can
learn your piece as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Let's get started.
The first step,
is to listen and watch the score
on YouTube.
We live in an amazing time,
Chopin and Mozart and Bach,
they never were able to do this.
They never were able to sit down,
go online,
go on to YouTube
and watch
a score
unfolds as the music happens at the same time.
We are so lucky in that we have the opportunity to do that
and I think you should make
full utilization of this.
This is something very, very useful to do
because
these black dots that you see on your music,
when you are able to listen to it on YouTube,
they actually
become things that your brain can make sense of
instead of just black dots.
Now you see them
and you have a 90 about what they represent
and what they sound like when it's played through.
I recommend listening to your piece on YouTube
with a score at least once a day.
Step number two is tied to the first step.
Step number two is to study the score.
Now that you've watched the YouTube video at least
hopefully a few times,
now you have the ability
to try and
look for patterns
in your piece.
So often at the start of a piece you would have
a theme.
What I like to do is I would grab a pencil
and I would just write the word theme there.
I would scan the piece
and to see what are the parts.
That theme comes back again.
And I would write the word
theme again on there.
And
often composers,
when they write
the theme
in other sections of the piece,
not always,
but sometimes they like to change little things
to keep the piece interesting.
And when that happens, I also like to do little circles,
little notes to myself,
and I write simple words like same
or different,
just a
little notes for myself to,
to for my brain to go,
okay, this part,
that little thing is the same as before.
That part, it's a little bit different.
So
Write the word different there.
So my brain just
has more of
an idea
of the organization of the entire piece.
My brain's not sort of going into it
without really knowing what's happening next.
[Music]
So very simply, let me just
do a quick example here of
my Nocturne in E-flat beautiful, beautiful piece.
Now the theme happens over here
and it happens here again.
So I might write
here
that the theme happens again.
I'll just write the word theme so I know
it's playing again and it's slightly different.
So if you see, actually how
the word,
it's a bit faint here, but
if I've got the word different here as well.
I also want to know where
it comes back
again.
So if I look,
I can see
that it happens
over here
again.
Because I've listened to the score many, many times.
I know that it happens here again.
So on my right
word
theme
over there.
It's
got a little bit of variation to it,
but on the whole,
that's where the
theme
comes back again.
So just little things like this,
you want to be able to
make some notes on your page
and study it.
Know exactly what's coming up,
notice exactly what the different sections are in your piece.
Step number three is to practice
hands separately.
Hand separately
is very,
very important.
I like to do
little sections in sets of seven.
So I might take,
maybe it's one bar or
maybe if it's like two bars, if it's,
if you can see that's one particular little phrase
or you can see how
those little things belong to one thing.
Practice that one section
for seven times.
So when you do it the first time,
obviously it's going to be pretty rusty,
but a third or fourth time
you can kind of feel like your fingers are starting to understand.
and by the seventh time,
you realize that you're not really thinking about
playing it so much anymore.
It's just kind of happening.
If you need to do it more times,
do more times,
my recommendation is to do
the sets of seven every day.
You're going to see
incredible results if you do that everyday.
A rookie mistake is people
try and rush to hands together straight away.
Don't do that and your brain
probably doesn't have the capacity to comprehend
so many things happening at once at this point.
Learn to do it hence separately first.
Allow your brain
time and space
to really understand a piece to know it inside out
before you put them together.
Step number four,
is to practice
hands together,
but
in sections.
So
Rookie mistake is where people,
once they've learned hands separately,
they start to do the entire piece hands together.
They start to run through the entire piece.
Doesn't help you brain.
Your brain loves something called repetition,
whether it's sport,
whether it's music.
If your brain can see a pattern
in what you're doing,
it will stick
and it will reward you
by
Being able to perform what you want to perform
when you need it.
So give it what it wants.
Repeat little sections seven times
and you will start to feel like I was saying before,
the first times rusty.
About the third or fourth time, it gets better.
By the seventh time, you can feel it
going into your hands.
And that's where you want to get it.
You want to give you a brain dose moments
where it's really starting to get it.
It's bit hard to explain
through a video
when you
do get it,
when you're practicing, you'll know what I mean.
Give it repetition so that it has the time and space
to
Understand what you're doing.
And the last step is to record yourself constantly,
so that you can improve.
I love recording myself.
Whenever I record myself,
it exposes me to little mistakes or weak parts that I have
because when I record myself,
I tend to get a little bit more nervous when I play.
So
It's really good to just put the camera onto the side.
I start to play
and then
some of the weakest parts in the know
I probably should have practiced better.
They tend to expose themselves.
I tend to,
I tend to make more mistakes there.
It's a really good idea to record yourself,
constantly.
Record yourself constantly and try and keep improving
after every
recording.
So there you go.
Those were my five steps on how you can learn
a piece quickly and efficiently.
What kind of advice would you have
for other pianists who are wanting to
learn the piece as quickly as possible?
Let me know in the comments below.
I would love to learn from you as well.
My name is Jazer.
Remember to like subscribe,
comment down below.
Share this with someone who needs some
better organization to their practice.
We all only have 24 hours in your day.
A lot of
the pianists here, you've
practiced
between 30 minutes to two hours.
So we want to be really smart about that time
if we want to know exactly what's happening
in that time that you practicing.
So that you can maximize your results
over the longterm.
That's all for today.
I'm Jazer.
I'll catch you in the next video.
[Music]