Piano practice routine for beginners

Most beginners need only 20 to 30 minutes of piano practice a day. Teachers usually suggest a short warm-up and a scale first. After that, most of the session goes to the few bars of your piece that you can't play yet, and you finish by playing the whole piece.

Piano teacher Melanie Spanswick says a beginner "really doesn't need to practice for more than 20 – 30 minutes a day," and that you can split that time into two sessions. Yamaha's practice guide suggests at least 20 minutes. Pianote teacher Lisa Witt is more relaxed. She says 3 to 5 sessions a week are enough, and that even 10 minutes counts.

What should a daily piano practice routine include?

A warm-up, some technique such as scales, and the pieces you're learning. That's how Witt and most other teachers split a session. Here's how it can look in 20 or 30 minutes:

Part	What you play	20 minutes	30 minutes
Warm-up	Something you already know, or the chords of your piece, slowly and loosely	3	5
Scale	The scale your piece uses, such as C major for a piece in C	4	5
Bars you can't play yet	1 to 4 bars at a time	10	15
Whole piece	The piece from the beginning, without stopping	3	5

A bar, or measure, is the section of music between two vertical lines on the sheet music.

Yamaha's guide suggests working on the bars you can't play yet before you play the whole piece. If you start at the top every time, most of your session goes to bars you can already play. Playing the whole piece at the end then shows you which bars still need work the next day.

How do you practice piano effectively?

It helps to go slowly and work on a few bars at a time, so that you play every note right. The teachers at Washington State University's Piano Pedagogy Lab School say "only correct repetition actually produces improvement." If you play a bar wrong ten times, your hands learn the wrong version.

Here's how teachers suggest working on the bars you can't play yet:

1. Pick 1 to 4 bars. Witt says even a single bar is fine.
2. Learn the notes first, then add the rhythm. Write the fingering into your music, so you use the same fingers every time.
3. If playing with both hands falls apart, play each hand alone until it feels easy.
4. Set a metronome slow enough that you don't make mistakes, then speed it up a few clicks at a time.
5. Move on once you can play the bars three times in a row without a mistake. That's the rule the WSU teachers use.

Spanswick also reminds students to keep their wrists loose and their arms light. If you notice your shoulders creeping up, it's a good moment to stop and shake out your hands.

How do you practice scales on piano?

Slowly and one hand at a time, with extra care at the moment your thumb passes under your hand. A scale has seven notes but your hand has only five fingers, so your thumb passes under once in every octave. Once that move is smooth, you can play long runs in your pieces evenly.

Most beginners learn C major first. It has no black keys, so you can think about your fingers instead of the notes. Your thumb is finger 1 and your little finger is 5.

• Right hand, going up: play C, D and E with fingers 1, 2 and 3. Tuck your thumb under to play F, then play G, A, B and C with 2, 3, 4 and 5.
• Left hand, going up: play C to G with fingers 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Cross finger 3 over your thumb to play A, then play B and C with 2 and 1.

Coming back down, you use the same fingers in reverse.

Try to keep your wrist level as your thumb passes under. If your wrist dips, the thumb note comes out louder than the others. Once every note sounds even with each hand alone, you can play with both hands and speed up a little at a time. G, D, A and E major use the same fingering as C major, so they're good scales to learn next.

How many hours a day should you practice piano?

Most beginners need 20 to 30 minutes a day. That's Spanswick's advice, Yamaha suggests at least 20 minutes, and the WSU piano school asks students to practice at least five days a week. Longer sessions make more sense once your pieces get longer and you can stay focused for more than half an hour.

At 30 minutes a day, 0.5 hours × 7 days = 3.5 hours a week, and 0.5 hours × 365 days = 182.5 hours a year. The 10,000 hours calculator shows how those hours add up over several years. That's a long way from the 10,000 hours you may have heard about, but the 10,000-hour rule came from a study of the best violin students in a music academy. For most personal goals, you need far fewer hours.

How do you practice piano every day?

A set time helps. Spanswick suggests picking a time of day that works for you and putting it in your calendar. It also helps to leave your music on the stand, so you can sit down and start right away. Witt says "the hardest part is often just sitting at the piano," and on a busy day, even 10 minutes counts.

How do you track your piano practice?

Spanswick suggests writing each session in a notebook, with what you practiced and how it went. If you time your sessions as well, you can see whether you're keeping to your routine. At 30 minutes a day, that's 3.5 hours a week.

In timespent, you can create a Timed Activity called "Piano" with a weekly goal of 3.5 hours, and start the timer when you sit down to play. timespent adds up your time for each week and for all time, so you can see if you're on track.

Common questions

How long should a beginner practice piano?

Most beginners need 20 to 30 minutes a day, on at least five days a week. Most of that time goes to the bars you can't play yet, and the rest to a warm-up, a scale and the whole piece.

How do you practice a difficult piano piece?

A few bars at a time. Most teachers suggest working on 1 to 4 bars, learning the notes before the rhythm, and playing each hand alone if both hands together fall apart. A slow metronome helps you avoid mistakes, and the WSU teachers suggest moving on once you can play the bars three times in a row without one.