Practising One Bar at a Time

Have you heard the saying, “one step at a time”? When it comes to pianos, it’s all about one bar at a time. When you start learning the piano, you may rush to master a piece quickly to feel that sense of accomplishment. However, it’s important to work one bar at a time and to take your progress steadily, so that you can truly master a piece right.

What Does It Mean to Practise One Bar at a Time?

Practising one bar at a time means to perfect each bar when learning a new piece. Often you may try to play the entire piece at once, and while some may be simple, you might find yourself tripping up over the same tricky part. By playing and perfecting one bar a time, you are able to understand and learn the piece as a whole much faster.

Why Should You Use This Method?

Playing one bar at a time might seem a bit tedious. However, by being diligent you will find that you will play with far more understanding and preciseness than if you had tried to learn the whole piece at once. Using this method:

• Helps you hold onto any changes, or corrections you need to make each time you play a difficult section.
• Teaches you to really commit to learning the entire piece perfectly.
• Allows you to repeat the difficult section more often than you would if you played the entire piece, meaning you have more time to get it right

What is the Method?

The best way to go about learning one bar at a time is to rehearse and repeat that bar three times in a row. Once you are able to perfectly play the bar, you can move on. However, if you play it incorrectly, you will need to start again. The more you play that tricky spot, the more chance you have of getting it right. It will eventually feel as easy as the rest of the music being played. Before you decide to practise one bar at a time, prepare to:

• Decide how you want to attempt the bar today
• Play the bar and reflect on how you think it went. Don’t convince yourself it was fine so you can move on. Consider if it sounded right and whether it felt accurate

Pianoforte Helps You Practise

Pianoforte is happy to have a chat to you about practise methods that will best suit you. We also offer music lessons so we can help you practise in class and at home. Pianoforte have a large stock of perfect pianos, and offer rental, tuning and repair services. Visit a showroom in Sydney or contact us to find out more.