How do you play like a pro? Piano exercises! And don’t forget those speed drills.
Last month we talked a bit about ear training and its relation to musical confidence. And again, we build confidence through training and repetition.
How to royally handicap your progress
I’m sure you’ve seen lots of ads for piano apps that promise you’ll be playing like a pro in X number of days, some ridiculously short amount of time, or they’ll teach you, uh, three chords and you can play a hundred songs or like my 10in5 Learn To Play challenge, where we learn 10 songs in 5 days.
While it’s true you can learn the theory to play chords relatively easily, or you can mimic what they show you in piano apps, you really can only execute what your hands can handle.
You can know all the theory in the world, but if you can’t play the notes, it’s useless.
You’ve gotta do the piano exercises
So just like when you learn any new sport, or if you do strength training, or yoga, or dance, or gymnastics, etc, you have to strengthen your muscles. Even when you learn how to knit or crochet, or any new skill, you need strengthen your hands to achieve the dexterity needed to make your pieces look the way you want them to.
You have to strengthen the muscles that you use in order to execute artfully.
When it comes to music, you can know all the theory in the world. You can take all the masterclasses, do all the Challenges, but until you properly train your hands, you can’t play them.
Well, at the very least, you’re gonna be handicapped by poor technical skills.
That’s why it’s important to, to incorporate drills and piano exercises into your routine.
Speed exercises can help you win
Today I’m going to touch on speed drills because it’s a departure from my usual harping on doing exercises sloooowly and methodically. 🙂 Find some speed drill exercises and incorporate them into your practice. You don’t need to do them every week, in fact I’d use them no more frequently than once a month, generally speaking.
It’s still better to focus on drills and exercises that will build dexterity, longevity, strength and muscle memory and for that you MUST go slowly and methodically.
But today I’m opening the gates and inviting you to race!
Here is a fun speed drill for you to cut your teeth on. Take a scale and SPEED. IT. UP. You’ve been practicing the thumb tuck and 3rd finger crossover this past month, use those new skills to speed up your scales! See how fast you can get a C scale, going up and down, hands separately. Then put your hands together.
Enjoy!!
Weekly Challenge 💪🏻
You already know what I’m going to say. 🙂
But here is it anyway.
Take yesterday’s speed scale variation and RUN with it! Practice that this week and then post a video of your success in Tuesday’s Brag Box.
For my overachievers, apply the speed variation to as many scales as you can!
Practice that this week and then post a video of your success in Tuesday’s Brag Box.
Drill of the Week! 🎶
This week’s drill is… you guessed it… a speed drill exercise!
This speed drill is purposely simple so you can really amp up your speed. We will be using a contrary motion C scale to start. You will start with both thumbs on middle C and then have them travel up (RH) and down (LH) the C scale simultaneously. This is called “contrary motion” and is very simple to do in the key of C. Then you’ll move your thumbs up to D and repeat the pattern, using only white keys.
Check out the demonstration below:
https://www.limitlessmusiclessons.com/dotw
Be sure to play as fast as possible! Mistakes are ok here. 🙂 Just have fun, speed racer.
Practice this full exercise 1x daily.
That’s right, only once.
You’re welcome.
LOOKING AHEAD
I’m in the process of planning the next free Masterclass and would really love YOUR input! What would you like to see offered next?
If you would take a second and fill out this quick questionnaire, I’d be really grateful. 🙂 If you have a topic you’d love to see covered that isn’t on the questionnaire, just hit reply and let me know!
And don’t forget to join our Worship Community group. We’re going to be learning a lot together in the coming weeks!
