How to practise

Many viewers have asked me for advice on practising, especially how to play both hands together properly. Here’s one of my answers:

1) Firstly, don’t think that you always have to play both hands. Separate hands practice is good for learning what each hand does properly, before you try putting hands together 😛

2) To match your hands correctly, first write the counts down in the score between the 2 staves – 1+2+3+4+. Then draw lines vertically, connecting the notes where the hands play together. Now you’ll be able to keep track of where you need to play together and where each hand plays by itself. And most importantly, which notes need to be held longer while others go faster, between the counts 😛

3) Now practise very slowly, in small sections, even one bar at a time, until you can play the difficult part correctly 3 times. You want to learn the right finger and hand movements and which direction each hand moves (e.g. RH steps up, LH skips down)

4) When it moves smoothly and feels easy, go on to the next section. When the next section is polished, combine the 2 sections. Do this until you can play fluently and at a reasonable speed.

5) Don’t always start practising from the beginning of the piece. Start from the “problem areas”. Or one day, start from the 3rd page, or even the last page 🙂 This allows you to play those sections while your mind is still fresh.