How to practice piano
For a beginner, 10 to 20 focused minutes most days does more than an hour once a week. Split the time: a few minutes reading something new, most of it on the piece you are learning (slowly, in small sections, hardest part first), and a little on something you enjoy. Stop while you are still concentrating.
How long, and how often
How often matters more than how long. Reading, rhythm and coordination all settle between sessions, so ten minutes on five days does more than fifty minutes on one. Learning research calls this distributed, or spaced, practice, and it holds for music as it does for languages.
These are starting points, not rules:
| Who | A good session | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Children 2½ to 5 | 2 to 5 minutes | Once or twice a day |
| Children 5 to 8 | 5 to 15 minutes | Most days |
| Older children and adult beginners | 10 to 20 minutes | Most days |
| Adults a year or more in | 20 to 45 minutes, in blocks | Most days |
If you have more time, two short sessions (morning and evening) usually beat one long one. When your attention goes, the practice stops working: end the session, and come back tomorrow.
A 15-minute session
- Warm up (1 to 2 minutes). Something easy you know: a five-finger pattern, a scale, a tune. It gets your hands and eyes working together.
- Read something new (3 to 5 minutes). Easy music you have never seen, played in time without stopping. This is what keeps reading improving. Sight-reading explains how.
- Work on your piece (6 to 8 minutes). The main event: the measures that are hard, slowly. See below.
- Play for fun (1 to 2 minutes). Something you like, all the way through. End on it.
How to practice a piece
- Hardest part first. Find the two or three measures that go wrong, and start there, while you are fresh.
- Small sections. One or two measures at a time. When they are right three times in a row, join them to the measure before.
- Slow enough to be right. Choose a speed where you can play it correctly and in time. Practicing mistakes at full speed teaches the mistakes.
- Hands separately, then together. Especially the left hand, which usually gets less practice. Playing hands together has the order.
- Count out loud. At least at first. Counting keeps the rhythm honest through the hard bits, where it usually falls apart.
- Speed up in small steps. Once a section is right, a little faster. If it falls apart, go back one step.
- Fix the spot, not the start. When a note goes wrong, repeat that note and the ones round it, not the whole piece.
Reading versus memorizing
Most pieces end up partly memorized, and that's fine. The problem comes when memory becomes the only way you learn: every piece from a video, the page ignored, and reading stuck where it was months ago.
To keep reading moving:
- Read new music every day, a little below your playing level, music you don't know by ear.
- Keep your eyes on the page while you play, even in a piece you know. Find the keys by feel and by the black-key groups.
- Learn from the page first. Listen to a recording afterwards, if at all.
Falling notes or sheet music? goes further into this.
When you feel stuck
Every learner hits weeks where nothing seems to improve. Usually one of these is true:
- The music is too hard. Everything is effort and nothing flows. Go down a level for a while and read a lot of easy music.
- The same pieces, over and over. You are polishing, not learning. Add something new.
- The same mistake, practiced. A spot that goes wrong every time has been learned wrong. Slow it right down and play it correctly ten times.
- Too little rest. Sometimes a skill arrives after a day or two off. Tiredness looks like a plateau.
Keep a short practice diary: the date, what you played, one thing that went better. On a flat week, it shows how far you've come.
Common mistakes
- Always starting from the top. The opening gets practiced most, the hard part least.
- Playing, not practicing. Running through pieces you can already play feels good and teaches little. Keep it for the last two minutes.
- One long session a week. It feels like a lot; it teaches less than short sessions spread out.
- Stopping at every mistake when reading new music. In a first reading, keep the beat and keep going.
- Practicing through pain. Stop, check your posture and tension, and ask a teacher if it continues.
How Octotune helps
Octotune is built for short, regular practice. Each sitting on the adult path takes three to six minutes, so a session is two or three of them. You can set a daily goal of 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes, or none. The streak is off unless you turn it on.
The Practice button makes a sitting from your weakest and most overdue notes, across everything you have met, so review happens without planning it. In Songs, you can slow a piece to a quarter of its speed, loop the measures that give you trouble, and play one hand while the app plays the other. After playing along, it shows which measures went wrong and loops the hardest ones slowly.
Open Octotune to try a sitting.
Next: Playing hands together: the order that makes two hands work.
Questions
How long should a beginner practice piano each day?
About 10 to 20 focused minutes most days is plenty for an adult beginner, and a few minutes is plenty for a young child. Practicing often matters more than practicing long: five short sessions a week do more than one long one.
Is it better to practice every day or for longer less often?
Short and often. Skills like reading and coordination settle between sessions, so spreading practice over many days works better than cramming it into one. Learning research calls this distributed or spaced practice.
Should I always start a piece from the beginning?
No. Practice the hardest measures first, on their own, slowly, then join them to what comes before and after. Always starting from the top means the opening gets the most practice and the hard part the least.
I keep memorizing pieces instead of reading them. Is that bad?
Memorizing a piece is fine, but if it is the only way you learn, your reading stops improving. Read a little new, easy music every day, music you have never heard, alongside the pieces you are learning.