Transform Your Piano Practice with a Reflection Tool

Supporting Piano Education
Article written by Andrew Eales

Did your last practice session leave you feeling a bit like a corpse, or was your piano playing totally on fire?

Reflecting on our practice is not just a good idea, but an essential component of making the tangible progress that we all hope for whenever we sit down at the piano. Remember, it is the quality of our practice which makes the real difference, not just the quantity.

So what has your practice looked like in recent weeks?
How can you improve it, and develop a more effective approach?

A Reflective Tool

Your FREE Practice Reflection sheet is a useful tool to help you consider your approach to practice over a seven day period, including what you did, whether it was enjoyable, successful, frustrating, and physically comfortable. There’s also space to reflect on your continuing goals.

Using the sheet on your own, you will hopefully find much to consider, and even more so if you use it along with the advice about effective practice found in my book How to Practise Music (Hal Leonard, 2021).

And if you have a mentor, teacher, or fellow musical traveller with whom you can discuss the answers you give to the reflective questions posed, they can hopefully give you insightful advice based on your Practice Reflection.

You can click this button to open the Practice Reflection sheet in a new tab and download it as a PDF:

DOWNLOAD • Practice Reflection Sheet

PLEASE NOTE
You can freely use this sheet in its existing form as provided here, including printing as many copies as you like for personal use. Teachers are welcome to share the sheet with students.
The ideas, content, and presentation of the sheet are copyright, so should not be adapted, copied, or distributed commercially.

How to use this sheet

The Practice Reflection sheet includes seven sections, which you should use and complete as follows:

Weekly Grid.
Fill in how many minutes you practise each day. Because some players like to spread out their practice in more than one session, the sheet includes space for the different periods of the day: morning, afternoon, and evening.

When using the other sections, it is worth considering which times of day are most effective for your practice. We all have a different constitution and routine, and it is worth considering varying your practice session times.

Activities Grid.
Circle all the things you include as practice throughout the week. Most are self-explanatory, but my book How to Practise Music explains the value of each of these elements. Seeing some of these included on the list might inspire you to try something new!

However, it would be odd (and probably not a good thing) to circle all, or even half of them. Effective practice is focussed, and goes through different seasons depending on our goals. The purpose of this grid is in identifying your current habits so that you can reflect on them.

What did I enjoy most?
The majority of our piano journey is spent privately in the practise room, so it is important to find musical fulfillment here.

Which of the activities circled above feed our interest and enthusiasm? Also consider how seemingly less enjoyable activities usefully support your goals.

What approaches were successful?
Considering your medium term goals (such as being able to play a particular piece of music you love and are working on, or preparing for a performance or exam) which activities more obviously helped you achieve progress towards your aims? Why do you think these approaches were particularly successful?

What proved frustrating?
Frustration is a normal element of practice, and it is useful to consider any difficulties we face and discuss them with a teacher, mentor, or piano friend.

Often, the perspective another can provide will unlock the solution to our frustration, although sometimes we need to go back and reflect on whether our goals are realistic, and whether we are approaching them with a positive attitude.

Did I experience discomfort?
This is an important section, because if you experience physical discomfort when practising you need to pause, and seek advice. Injury is too common among pianists, and is most often linked to practice habits. You can read more here.

Discuss any discomfort you experience with a supportive expert asap. Further advice is available in my book, and here on Pianodao you will find additional free advice in the Pianodao Wellbeing section of the site.

Future Goals.
The final box provides space to reflect on how to approach your continuing practice in the following weeks. You should only fill this box in once you have completed all the others and reflected on any lessons

For more ideas, tips, and creative suggestions for practising, why not check out my book How to Practise Music: