Most people have to practice a piece several times before they can play it with confidence. But, of course, there are people out there who just seem to be able to play anything immediately, without having to practice first.
How are these people doing it? We look at some of the tactics and strategies they’re using, and how you might be able to emulate them with the right approach.
Play Unknown Pieces Cold
Is sight reading important? It is if you want to be able to play unknown pieces cold. However, that’s exactly what pro musicians do all the time to ensure their skills remain top-notch.
The trick here is to play a kind of roulette with the music you play. You should be trying random new pieces of music every day and just giving them a shot.
This practice gives your brain a chance to adapt to different patterns and formats. Eventually, you’ll notice the same sort of motifs in other pieces of music and be able to string them all together. The result will be a far enhanced ability to playsomething straight off without having to go through endless rounds of practice first.
Go Through A Mental Rehearsal
You also want to go through a mental rehearsal if you can. Just seeing the music in your mind can be a fantastic way to get into the swing of it when you start playing.
The trick is to act without hesitation. Even if you make mistakes, just going with the flow and trying to play a piece as it is meant to be played straight off is a great tactic. Too many people slow down, believing that they need to get everything right, when they don’t.
If you’re playing an electronic instrument, it can be helpful to wear headphones during practice so that the instrument itself doesn’t emit any noise. This way, you’re not worrying so much about how it sounds to other people, and you’re focusing more on just getting through the motions and making the music happen.
Improvise Fillers
Another thing you’ll want to do is improvise on fillers. Sometimes, you’ll reach a particularly tricky part of the music which you need to practice because the muscle requirements are so different from anything you’ve come across before.
However, you can get around this by improvising with various fillers that are easier to play and already in your repertoire. It seems like cheating, but it is something that professional musicians do all the time. If they don’t know how to play what’s written on the sheet in front of them, they find another way.
Use Pattern Recognition
A lot of musicians who can simply play things straight off use good old fashioned pattern recognition techniques. For example, they can see the difference on the page between a jazz and a rock piece.
Once you know what these look like, it becomes easier to get into the mood of each song. A waltz feels very different from a high-tempo modern dance piece.
Furthermore, if you know the artist, you can start to recycle various motifs. For example, Beethoven is well known for using similar bars and chords in his music, especially on piano, meaning that once you have a library of them built up, you can often play new pieces without having to study them first.
Use A Slower Tempo
If you can start playing a piece at a lower tempo, that’s also helpful. It gives you a bit of extra time to find all the notes.
For this, of course, you’ll need a metronome. You’ll want something to keep the rhythmic beat in the background for you.
Then, as you play it a second time, you can increase the tempo until you get to the desired speed. Starting at 30% to 50% of the composer’s tempo is a good place to start. Then, you can increase it on your metronome by around 5% each time you practice the piece again. Before long, you should be playing it at full speed.
Use this practice if you’re new to your musical instrument and still trying to figure out where all the notes are. However, don’t slow down if you miss one. Just keep going and then correct the error the next time you play.
Use A Harmonic Skeleton
You can also try faking your way to success by playing the harmonic skeleton. The idea here is to simply play the bass line and chords while leaving the melody, or vice versa.
If you can get to grips with the harmonic skeleton, it teaches you how the piece is going to evolve and what you’re going to need to add to it to play it properly. It takes away some of the mystery of playing it for the first time.
Train Your Ears
Another technique is to develop pitch that’s relative to the key. You don’t need to have perfect pitch but once you select the key, you should know where all the notes are going to fall after that.
If you haven’t got this nailed yet, then use tools like EarMaster. These are handy and allow you to identify recordings blindfolded, allowing you to train your musical sense and intelligence.
Chunk The Music
If all else fails, you can chunk the music. Breaking it down into bars and then repeating the technique for these can help you get through challenging spots in the music.
These come up in all pieces and they usually occur because of an unusual pattern. However, breaking them down and just practicing them over and over is the best technique. You can break through challenging spots and really just string them all together to produce a fine piece of music.
Memorize Muscle Memory
Finally, memorising all the scales and arpeggios helps to build muscle memory and tells you what key you’re in on an unconscious level. Then, when you come to play a piece of music in B flat minor, you’re prepared.
This article is a partnered post that contains affiliate links.