My Top 5 Practice Strategies

Danielle Braga

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My favorite efficient ways to deconstruct and reorganize piano music. I play the music like it is not to understand how and what it truly is.

If you’re ever in the mood to watch an hour of me showing how I practice, this is a video I did on Chopin’s beautiful and rarely played Variations Brillantes, Op. 12: https://youtu.be/CBTzAt3wyH4

For the purpose of streamlining this list of my 5 top practicing tools, I will use the first 3 Short Preludes of J.S. Bach for musical examples.

#1: ‘Blocking’

This requires chord analysis! Rather than looking at an endless stream of individual notes, I am constantly trying to combine thirds (e.g. C-E-G or D-F-A-C) to make chords. This helps me analyze harmonic movement related back to the key. I often save energy and understand the ‘macro’ movement of the piece by playing blocked (rather than broken) chords at the rate that those chords change in the music.
In J.S. Bach’s Prelude No. 1, each beat presents a new broken chord. I would practice this as four quarter notes per measure, to more efficiently organize these 16 notes per measure into 4 chord shapes. This makes it quicker for the brain and the hand to identify each beat of harmony as it relates back to a tonic of C Major

In J.S. Bach’s Prelude No. 3, we can see that each measure presents a new harmony. I have two main ways I could block this: by measure (essentially playing a dotted half note of c minor, c minor, f minor, etc.) or by beat to practice this motive of two eighth notes on the third beat (essentially playing a half note blocked chord, then the rhythm as written on the third beat.)

#2: ‘Grouping’

Organizing passagework based on what comfortably and logically fits in a handful. This goes well with Gluing (#4).
These boxes inserted into passages from Preludes 1 and 2 show what I would play quickly and cleanly in a ‘chunk’, then pause, then focus on the next box.
Below, measures 11-15 from Prelude No. 1. Each handful or group extends into the first note of the next beat.

Another example…

Below, measures 1-4… the well-known opening of Prelude No. 2. Again, the boxes show what would fit in a handful before having to move the hand out of position to reach a much lower or higher note. Each group becomes a miniature slur of its own to fit comfortably in the handful. Practicing like this allows me to see how Bach constructed this phrase: essentially a broken chord, then reaching up to a descending third and an ascending second with the fingering 5-3-4.

#3: ‘Skeleton’

Reducing the music to understand the ‘macro’ phrase…. Isolating the major pulse beats and/or the outer lines to understand the melodic and harmonic movement.
Measures 1-12 of Prelude No. 3 may seem like a mess of broken chords. But after Blocking (#1) these chords, I would then use Skeleton practice to understand the changing notes, hearing the melodic and harmonic movement helps me shape the larger phrase in a way the listener can hear and understand.

#4: ‘Gluing’

‘Splicing’ the music in short chunks, similar to grouping, but always adding a next note or downbeat as a landing point on the end… zooming in or out of a group of notes to practice connecting, or eliminating a hesitation in your playing.
Measure 14 of Prelude No. 2 is a scale passage that might be tricky to make smooth. Gluing practice goes well with grouping (#2). Below, each circle is a group – fitting comfortably in a handful. After playing that group, I add one note, essentially ‘gluing’ together the notes that are in a box. This helps me iron out the unevenness that might come with a movement between groups.

#5: ‘Prepared Touch’

I also call this ‘shift practice’. With the repertoire I play on 88 keys of a piano keyboard, I have a seemingly infinite amount of quick movements to calibrate and choreograph. I aim to isolate the movement between the release of the key and the next jump. I look for intervals and train my hands and arms to get that physical measurement into my muscle memory.
In Prelude No. 3, the rhythmic motive that happens on each third beat connects over the barline. During the quarter rest on beat 2, I aim to quickly ‘click’ into position for the third beat. I aim to practice a fast movement between beats 1 and 3, using beat 2 to shift to touch the three notes needed for the broken chord (on beat 3 and the next measure’s beat 1).