Successful Practice Routine A–Z for a Better Performance: A Three‑Step Strategy to Break Boredom

Practice is a process where the pain of discipline and the joy of growth coexist! Taking a piece you’ve just encountered and mastering it until you can play it flawlessly is both exciting and a long journey of training. If you’re looking for a way to navigate this challenging journey and achieve better performances, you are on the right page! In today’s practice routine, I’d like to share some of the difficulties I faced and a few practical tips I used to overcome them.

Which piece should I choose—My Favorite Piece vs. The One that Suits Me?

Robert Schumann (1810–1856), widely known for his beautiful songs such as “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” and “Widmung,” left numerous piano pieces, chamber works, and orchestral works. As an important German composer and pianist of the Romantic era, he is also famous for the rigorous training he endured in his youth while dreaming of becoming a pianist. His passion was so intense that he even practiced with sandbags tied to his fingers to build strength. Among Schumann’s “Advice for Young Musicians,” there is one line that resonates deeply with me:

“Take pains to play easy pieces well and beautifully;

that is better than to play difficult pieces poorly.”

— Robert Schumann

Some of you who have been playing piano for a while may feel the urge to go for the way harder sheet music. Perhaps you’ve experienced choosing a difficult sheet music, practicing fiercely, and still feeling like nothing improves—until eventually you lose interest or grow distant from the piano. Of course, passionately challenging difficult pieces can be meaningful! However, if that challenge keeps you from staying close to the piano, selecting a slightly easier piece, and focusing on raising its completeness may be a good way to avoid burnout. Once you regain confidence through mastering accessible pieces, returning to difficult repertoire will feel more manageable. Choosing repertoire that matches your current skill level and creating an environment where practice can be sustained—this is the first step toward good practice.

Getting Started: Make Practice Feel Like a Game

Practice for performance can be divided into three stages: beginning (preparation), main practice (training), and completion. The early stage often involves basic exercises and repetition to learn the sheet music itself, and naturally, this can feel boring. The most boring part is usually warm‑ups and foundational work that require lots of repetition. We need to admit, however, without this process, your foundation will be not only unstable but also very difficult to improve further. One strategy I tried was treating practice like a game—breaking it down into “quests.”

For example, let’s say you need to practice scales today. Instead of simply playing them fast, set a goal to beat your “personal best.” If you practiced your scale at MM=120, challenge yourself to increase the tempo in steps—122, 124, 126—each day by 2. Each time you achieve a new level, record it on a sticky note or place a sticker in your notebook.

What if it’s your very first practice session with a brand‑new score? Rather than rushing through it, I would turn on the metronome and read the music extremely slowly—sometimes at half the original tempo—like a turtle. This slow process helps you notice accidentals, tricky rhythms, and difficult leaps more clearly. Accurately reading the score on the first day has a huge impact on the following days. If you practice too fast too early, your reading accuracy drops, and you drift further away from a complete performance.

Main Practice (Training): A Strategy for Overcoming the “Repetition Pain”

Repetition requires the most time, and working through tough passages hundreds of times can be painful. I highly recommend breaking it down into four steps: isolate – modify – repeat – apply.When you encounter a difficult passage, don’t just repeat the entire eight measures. Become a detective and locate the exact beat or measure where the mistake happens. For example, imagine you’re playing a Chopin Ballade and everything is fine except a certain arpeggio that keeps going wrong. Instead of repeating the entire arpeggio, zoom in on the moment when the hand position shifts—left‑hand fingering, right‑hand weight transfer, etc. Then practice it very slowly, or change the rhythm (eighth notes instead of sixteenths, dotted rhythms, triplets), each with a metronome and gradually increasing tempo. Repeat three to five times, then re‑insert it into the whole passage.

The Double‑Edged Sword of Repetition: A Core Principle of Practice

Our brain and muscles are incredibly good at adapting to repetition. The more you repeat, the more solidly your “muscle memory” forms. Muscle memory makes your playing accurate and automatic, allowing you to focus more on musical expression. But this also means we must avoid repeating mistakes! If your brain adapts to incorrect information, the wrong version becomes ingrained—and then you’ll continue making the same errors.

Completion Stage (Application): Focusing More on the Music!

When the piece is nearly ready and you begin adding musicality, the journey changes. At this point, the difficulty is no longer boredom—it’s the pressure of “What if I make a mistake?” or “Am I really playing well?” One of the most effective ways to handle this is to temporarily become a judge observing “your own performance.” Thanks to 솓 technology of mobile phones today, you can record high‑quality audio and video anytime. Here are three steps you can try:

• Record just 1–2 pages  Filming the whole piece feels overwhelming, but filming just one small part feels manageable. And once you watch the video, you’ll start noticing helpful clues like, “Oh, the left hand is slightly late here,” or “My pedaling sounds heavier than I thought.”

• Intentionally look for “what went well”  We usually focus only on flaws, but the video also contains many moments where you’re doing better than you think. Watching and saying things like “This phrasing is beautifully shaped” or “The tone quality is nice here” boosts confidence.

• Record the same section three times and compare  Record the same spot three times in a row. You’ll notice small differences and slowly realize, “Ah, this is how performance gradually improves.” This reduces anxiety about mistakes.

Ultimately, this process is not about creating a perfect performance—it’s about shaping your music to become more authentically yours. Video is not just a tool that reveals weaknesses; it is a small mirror that reflects where you are growing and what sounds feel natural to you. As you refine each part of the piece, you will soon reach a moment where you can confidently say, “My practice is really working.”

I hope today’s guide helps you complete your practice at your own pace and with your own sense of musicality!

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