Week 3 - My Practice Routine

There are two main ways I practice playing my instrument - the first being when I am learning/practicing an actual written piece of music (a composed song on a score) which involves me having to learn the piece absolutely correctly note from note, and the second being a more casual way of practising that would work with more independently driven, improvised pieces.

During 'classical practising', I will go through the piece bar at a time, fill in all the fingering according to what's comfortable for me (in pencil), and repeat hands separately until I've learnt it.
I think writing on the music is a very effective way of making the music "yours" and when there is an especially challenging piece it's very helpful to write out all the problems and parts to watch out for. (e.g a note with many ledger lines).

During 'creative practising' I will usually find a chord chart for a song online and experiment with different chord voicing/extensions, seeing what works, what sounds interesting or different - and generally having fun with it! When I feel like I'm not making any progress, I usually look at an arrangement by some other artist on youtube and take ideas from that or try to analyse what exactly they're doing.


Above all else, the most important elements to practising in my opinion are the following:
- fingering
- repetition
- learning hands separately

Week 2 - Music Theory and Me

I was fortunate enough to have instrumental lessons from a young age - including learning to read music in both piano and saxophone - although I pursued piano more as I really liked the classical tunes that were on my keyboard and I always wanted to learn them!
So moving on a couple of years, at the stage I am now I would consider myself to be an accomplished pianist. By that I mean with practice I could play any piano piece that I wanted to, because I feel that I am at the level of understanding that enables me to confront any piece given to me, with a confident mindset to complete it.
The areas that I feel I am strongest in (in terms of musical theory) are chord relations, for example referring to chords in a key by their number ( IV V III etc.), and how they work with each other, what progression the song/piece is likely to take, recognising a modulation in a piece.
Areas in which I'm least confident include extensive knowledge of popular music, as I have mostly been into music from anime, obscure genres such as IDM, music from games and more recently jazz and Bossa Nova - I think the main reason for this is that as my main instrument is the piano, so perhaps I was drawn to music that was more satisfying to play on the piano.
I am very excited about opening up my musical vocabulary, as I am taking drumming and singing lessons and am planning to take guitar lessons when they are available, I think this will be a good way to feel more in touch with a wider selection if music.