Divide and Conquer…Your Music

When you have a long piece to practice, do you know where to start? Do you usually start at the beginning and play until you have to stop and fix something? Or do you start from the hardest part, or the prettiest part, or where you left off yesterday?

The longer your piece, the more you need a solid strategy for practicing it. Often, practicing all of it, or at least practicing all of it the same way, isn’t the most effective option. 

If you’re learning a new piece it’s always best to divide it into sections and work on those sections individually. You’ll be able to focus on the details and learn the section correctly the first time. (Hooray for not having to relearn it at your next lesson!) 

If you have mostly learned the whole piece, working on specific sections can be ideal for doing extra work on tricky passages or for securing your memorization. Plus, starting from the beginning every time, means you’ll always know the end less well than you know the beginning. Try starting from the last line or two and see how much the end of your piece improves. 

Here is how to start practicing in sections:

1. Create sections of between 4 and 8 measures in your piece. Put a number above the measure where each section begins, so that you can see the sequence of sections: 1, 2, 3, etc.
2. Choose 2 or 3 consecutive sections each day. Practice those sections in depth, making sure all the notes, rhythms and fingerings are correct.
3. Then play through all the sections you just practiced, paying careful attention to the transition points where the sections meet.
4. Practice the rest of the piece as you normally would.

If you really want to know your piece “inside and out,” practice starting at different sections of your piece. Choosing random starting points will help you keep your place in your music as you play and make it easier to find your place again if you should get lost.

Extra tip: It can sometimes be helpful to number all the measures in your piece from beginning to end. It makes it simple to refer to any particular measure in the piece. I don’t put the numbers on each measure, though; I just number the first measure on each line and count from there.