What's the best way to learn a new piece of music?

Question

I just got a new teacher. My old teacher made me practice my right hand, then my left hand, then both hands together. Easy-peasy!

My new teacher makes me analyze the piece first. What's that all about?

Why do I need to know whether the song is ABA, or AABA? Or ABA with a bridge, or ABAA with a keychange at the final A, or whatever?

Can't I just learn it one note and a time and play it like I feel it?

Answer 1

Learning one note at a time is great for shorter pieces, but if you want to learn anything longer and more complex, then this approach is impractical. Think of learning chords like reading: you don't read each individual letter in a word because you've learned how to interpret the letters as a unit (this is also why music theory is important). If you're learning hands separately, you'll miss out on the whole picture, since the left and right hands are working together. Furthermore, there actually is a lot of repetition in music, so doing an analysis beforehand often simplifies the piece. Analysis shows repeated sections, patterns, and gives a more comprehensive view of the music. It also help with memorization because you'll always know exactly why things are happening and where you are in the structure of the piece. Memorization via analysis is much more solid than using muscle memory alone, and will lead to more effective performances where you will feel much more confident.

Answer 2

The main reason you should learn the form is to understand the structure of the piece. Let's take a pop song for example. These ABA and AABA forms etc., are the equivalent to the verse, chorus/hook, bridge, etc. in a pop song. These are the parts of the song. When we listen to our favorite tunes, we hear these same divisions. They help us know the road map of the song. The same goes for classical music. When you understand the form, you can learn the piece easier and you have a better understanding of the piece.

As far as, learning the piece, practice one hand separately then together. Try learning a measure at a time. It that is too difficult, cut the measure in half. If that is too difficult then one note at a time. MOST IMPORTANTLY....GO SLOW!!

Answer 3

Your new teacher is likely making sure you know what to anticipate. Taking a moment to look at a piece before you play it can help you expect any key changes, time changes, etc, and potentially avoid the "crash and burn" during a sight-read.

However, the best way to learn a piece of music is the way that YOU feel most successful. If that means jumping right in without glancing ahead, great! But, it is important to analyze the music at some point during the learning process - the more you do, the easier it gets, and the more nuanced your performance will be.

Answer 4

The short answer IS "one note at a time". And yes, hands separately then together is traditional. But so is analyzing. Don't be frightened of analyzing a piece of music. It saves time when it comes to memorizing and achieving performance level quality.

I recommend doing both — analyzing AND practicing the notes.

Answer 5

In my experience teaching and playing, learning hands separately and then putting them together is not beneficial when you are unfamiliar with the piece. That should be reserved for when you are comfortable with playing the piece with both hands, so that you can isolate any technique issues.

As for your second point, analyzing the piece can accelerate the learning process for new pieces. I think of music as a foreign language that you learn to speak (or play) and read. Understanding the basic building blocks of what you are hearing (chords, tonality, cadences, etc.) helps you to give extra memory aids. If you are learning "note by note," you indeed learning the piece. However, you are only trained through muscle memory. In order for you to truly understand the piece and for you to play it well, you need to have more to supplement that. This can be through visual memory (seeing what you are playing), intellectual memory (understanding the form of the piece, etc.), and most importantly, the aural memory (what the piece sounds like).

To answer your question: yes, you can learn one note at a time and play as you feel. Though I feel that by analyzing the piece beforehand, you can gain so much more enjoyment from learning and playing the piece. I hope this helps!

Answer 6

Your "job" as a musician is to interpret a composer's piece. I like to imagine being the composer listening to my performance of their piece. What would they think? Did I do it justice? Did I play too fast or too slow? Did I interpret the emotional content of the piece?

A common method to teach students a new piece is to first listen to a faithful interpretation, on YouTube or live.

Now you have a good idea of what the piece should sound like. As a student, you won't be able to play the piece from beginning to end the first time you see it. If you can, good for you! I like to break the piece down into sections that the student can learn in one lesson, even if it is just a few bars with the right hand only, then bring in the left hand and integrate the two to start developing "muscle memory" for the piece.

In conclusion, once you are "done" with the piece, you add that to your library of compositions to use for a recital or just to revisit and share it with a friend.

Answer 7

I really liked everyone elses' answers, so I won't repeat them. That said, even when I have a very beginning student with very short, simple pieces, we do some analysis. We point to each note and say the letter names until it is easy. The we clap, and maybe tap if there is a lot of hand switching, and count the rhythm until that is easy. THEN we play the song and playing it is pretty easy because we already figured the hard stuff out and got good at them!

This approach works well for All levels of music, except that once the music get longer and longer, we break the pieces into bite sized bits that are manageable to swallow, and then practice section by section.

WHY? Practice does Not make perfect, it make Permanent! You see, you have 2 types of memory: head memory and muscle memory. The head memory learns pretty quickly, but it can forget just as fast. Muscles are dumb. They have no brains! Muscles learn very slowly, but they also don't forget easily. Be patient with your muscles - they are not very smart - but be sure to teach them right every time. If you make any little mistake, it can take over 10 times of playing it correctly just to erase making the mistake 1 time! If you practiced one note wrong all week long, well just think about how many times you will need to play it right! It is Much easier to get things right in the first place. The best way to avoid making most of the mistakes is by analyzing the music and figuring out the trouble spots and what you will do about them Before you even touch the piano. As your music grows longer and more complex, there will be more and more details to think about so that you can play them in the Right way.

In the long run, by analyzing your music First and playing each song slowly at Practice Speed (the speed at which you can play almost everything perfectly the first time), you save a lot of fix it time and learn your songs much more quickly. The mistakes you might have made will also not come back and bite you when it comes to performing them!