How to learn difficult / tough music pieces quickly

Here’s how to learn difficult / tough music pieces quickly. These tips applies to any musical instrument.

A simple trick to learn seemingly difficult songs is to break the song into multiple sections before you attempt to learn it.

Most beginners usually start on a new song and try to play the song right from the first bar to the last bar, all at one stretch.

And what’s the result. The result is you don’t go anywhere; you get frustrated and give up on the song thinking that it is a difficult one to learn.

So it is important to practice in small steps, or sections, a few bars at a time!

A “practice section” is simply a finite series of motions. It can correspond to anything from a few notes, to a few bars to an entire work.

When learning a new song, it is important to practice small sections of just a few notes / bars. Practicing few bars of notes limits the amount of information the muscles have to learn at one time.

Another advantage is that it makes the mind focus and concentrate better, as it feels it can take up this challenge.

Link Them All Up
This is the next logical step once you are comfortable with the individual sections. It is time to link and play multiple sections.

So you would go from the first section to the next section and so on, till you can play the entire song together on the piano.

Increase the tempo
Though you may have started off playing the sections at a tempo much slower than mentioned, once you have learnt how to play the various sections, it is also equally important to lay them at a faster tempo.

And you think this will be difficult? Not really! Once you know how to play the pattern!

Usually as soon as muscles have learned to play a pattern, they’ll be competent at playing it without the need of conscious control.

So you need to attempt to play a song faster and the muscles will be ready to execute it in a burst. This also helps you to memorize a song better.

Pausing between Repetitions
Since we are talking about memorizing a song, an important thing to remember is to take pauses between repetitions.

When dealing with repetitive actions, the mind is much better able to focus in case the repetitions are separated by short pauses. Though there is no hard-and-fast rule, but after two or three repetitions, you can pause for about 30 seconds to get back your focus, and then start again.

So here we go!

You have another trick in your bag if you are attempting to learn to play a seemingly difficult song. You can definitely learn one for the next important occasion or to impress someone special.

This is an important tip for beginners on how to play piano.

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