Dear Friends,

Before we get started: a lot of you have told me that one of your biggest struggles is practicing consistently: not just knowing what to practice, but actually showing up and doing it regularly. I'm working on a video about this and I want to make sure it speaks to what you're actually dealing with. I put together a quick 2-question survey. It's anonymous, takes about 2 minutes, and your answers will directly shape the video. You can fill it out here.​

Anyway, today I want to talk about feeling "stuck" in your practice. I have heard from many of you that you feel stuck. You feel like you're practicing pretty much the same thing every day, over and over for months, but don't actually make discernible progress.

This can fall into two categories: either you’re actually making progress but you're not aware of it, because the progress is gradual and you're always focusing on what you can improve. Or, you're actually not practicing as effectively as you could and therefore truly not making progress.

If you're in the first category, I recommend recording yourself at regular intervals. For example, maybe on the first of every month, you play through all of the pieces you can currently play. Then put the recording away, and the next month, review last month’s recording. Better yet, wait a few months and then go back and listen to the recording from three months ago. That's a way to prove to yourself that you actually are progressing, and that the piece that you can now play at a comfortable tempo was something that you were just learning the notes for three months ago.

If you're in the second category, here are some common practice traps that you could be falling into that I would encourage you to investigate.

1. Playing pieces that are too difficult. If you are playing pieces that are too hard for you, your progress will feel painful and very, veeeeeery slow. If you find that you have to laboriously pick your way through a piece one note at a time, then I suggest finding an easier piece. Your goal should be to be able to play pieces at a level where you can, with consistent practice, work them up to some kind of recognizable piece of music after a few months of practice, and then polish from there. If everything you're practicing is too hard for you, you're always in survival mode and you never get the chance to actually experience what it's like to learn it and play it well. There's real value in spending time with pieces that are not too hard, where you can focus on sound, phrasing, and ease rather than just hanging on.
2. Practicing without a clear goal for the session. Sitting down and "working on" a piece for thirty minutes can mean a lot of different things, and if you're not sure what you're specifically trying to improve each time you sit down, it's easy to run the piece from the beginning, stumble in the same places, and finish your session feeling like nothing really improved. Setting a specific goal for each session focuses your mind and changes the whole experience. It can be helpful to think of practicing in the same category as studying. If you’re studying for a test, you don’t just read the textbook out loud over and over. You also don’t study every page or concept equally. You focus on the hardest things and review the easier parts just enough to keep it in your memory.
3. Practicing the same passage the same way over and over, and expecting a different result. If you've been drilling a spot for weeks and it's not changing or improving, that's not a sign to just be persistent and keep drilling. It's a sign that you need to practice it differently: change the fingering, slow down the tempo, practice in groupings, analyze the way you're thinking about it physically. Even taking a break from that passage and coming back to it a few days or a week later can make an enormous difference.
4. Never drilling the hard parts. Many pianists practice by playing a piece from the beginning until they make a mistake or hit a hard spot, backing up, fixing the mistake, and then continuing. What happens there is that you are teaching yourself to play the problem spots incorrectly first, then correctly, and you don’t repeat it enough times to stick. Flipping that ratio and spending most of your time on the parts that need the most work and drilling them sufficiently, is one of the simplest and most effective ways to start seeing progress.

Everyone's reasons for feeling stuck may be a little different. But if any of the above patterns sound familiar, changing even one of them can shift things meaningfully. And if you have access to a teacher, even for an occasional lesson, this is exactly the kind of thing a teacher can help with. A teacher will give you personalized guidance and insight.

I'm sure many of you reading this will feel like you have heard this advice before; but a lot of the challenge isn't just understanding something; it is actually applying it. Really interrogate yourself at your next practice session and ask if you are falling into any of these traps. Are your pieces at the right level for you? Do you have a clear goal for every session? Are you varying the ways that you practice difficult passages in order to improve them? Are you focusing on consistently playing the hardest spots correctly and not letting yourself just play the easy parts over and over?

I'm genuinely curious how your practice goes this week. Write back and let me know! I read every email, even if I can’t reply to everybody.

👋 Happy practicing,

Kate

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