Why Stopping Practicing Piano Can Help

This exercise is all about making sure that you deliberately interrupt the muscular memory. You play a predetermined section (a bar, a phrase, or a bigger section) and imagines the next section with the hands removed from the keyboard before rejoining the keyboard and playing the next section. It is important that the hands not drum on the lap during the silent passage, as this is making sly use of the muscular memory. Hear the music in your head; imagine the hands on the keyboard. Variants of this process are:

• Play the left hand alone for one bar, the right hand alone for the next, and so on without pausing. Then repeat the process, playing the bars you have previously imagined, and imagining the bars you have previously played

• On command, remove one hand and continue playing with the other. On the next command, rejoin the keyboard with the other hand, and so on. This is difficult, as the commands will come suddenly and in unexpected places (this needs the presence of your My Piano Lessons teacher).

Let us know how you get on.