Practice TIP of the week:

Here are the most recent practice tips I have covered:​
​🎵 June 22: Create Your Pre-Performance Ritual​
​🎵 June 29: Practice Performing for an Imaginary Audience​
​🎵 July 6: Keep Your Eyes Moving Forward​
​🎵 July 13: Recognizing Landmarks and Patterns​

Each month, I focus on a specific theme for practice tips. This month’s theme is Confident Sight Reading.

Today's Practice Tip: Don't Fix Mistakes

One of the most difficult habits to break in sight reading is the urge to stop and fix mistakes. In regular practice, that makes complete sense! You are working to refine, correct, and polish your playing, and so if you make a mistake you need to stop and fix it. But sight reading is not about that kind of careful practice. It is a performance skill, and in performance, stopping can be more disruptive than playing a wrong note.

Skilled sight readers are aiming for continuity. Their goal is to maintain a steady rhythm and preserve the basic harmony and musical contours, even when some notes go astray. Mistakes are not a crisis! What matters most is the ability to keep moving forward, despite making mistakes.

One of the most effective ways to develop this mindset is to dedicate a few minutes on a regular basis to a "no-fix" sight reading session. Choose a short, unfamiliar piece that is well within your technical comfort zone. Set a slow, steady tempo with the metronome and commit to playing from start to finish without stopping, no matter what happens. If you hit a wrong note, keep going. If your hands feel uncoordinated, keep going. Even if you have to drop out one hand for a few notes or beats, keep going and try to jump back in when you can. The only rule is forward motion.

Once you reach the end, take a moment to reflect. Where did you stumble? Did you hesitate or interrupt the rhythmic flow? What helped you stay on track? After you've played it once through without stopping, you can then go back and work more carefully through the trouble spots. But treat that as a separate step. The goal of the first run is not accuracy, it is fluency.

Sight reading improves most when we start treating it like what it is: a real-time skill that is more similar to performing than regular practicing.

If you’re looking for a great way to build this “keep going” mindset, I recommend trying Piano Marvel. Their SASR (Standard Assessment of Sight Reading) feature gives you instant feedback on your accuracy and fluency, and if you connect a MIDI keyboard, it even assesses your playing in real time, giving you a score from 1-100 after each piece you sight read. A built-in metronome and on-screen cursor help you keep up and see exactly where you are in the score. This is great practice for no-fix sight reading sessions.

If you sign up using my affiliate link (here), you will get $3 off per month if you decide to continue after your free trial.

💜 Some of My Favorite Things

1. 🎹 Performance: Einojuhani Rautavaara – Piano Sonata No. 2 (“The Fire Sermon”)
   ​Rautavaara’s “The Fire Sermon” is a bold, atmospheric journey for solo piano. Composed in 1970, this sonata channels the Finnish composer’s signature blend of lush harmonies and mystical intensity. The piece takes its name from a sermon by the Buddha, and you can feel that spiritual searching in the music, ranging from meditative to fiery and dramatic. It’s a mesmerizing, modern classic from one of Finland’s foremost composers. This is a wonderful recording with score, performed by Laura Mikkola.
2. 🎙️ Interview: Einojuhani Rautavaara Reflects on Life and Music.
   In this rare and thoughtful interview, the late Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara looks back on his creative journey, describing how composing remained the heart of his life, even as he worked more slowly with age. He shares memories of finding his unique musical voice and discusses the recurring theme of angels in his music—an idea inspired by vivid childhood dreams. Rautavaara speaks candidly about unfinished projects, public scrutiny, and personal challenges, all with a sense of acceptance and perspective. It’s an inspiring glimpse into the mind of a major composer, full of wisdom, honesty, and humanity. View it here.​
3. 📚Book - Heinrich Neuhaus – The Art of Piano Playing. ​
   ​Heinrich Neuhaus was one of the twentieth century’s legendary piano teachers, shaping a whole generation of artists at the Moscow Conservatory, including Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, and Radu Lupu. This book is widely regarded as a classic and remains an essential resource for pianists and teachers around the world. Neuhaus writes with in a conversational style, sharing nuggets of practical advice alongside reflections on musical interpretation, technique, and the life of a pianist. If you’re interested in the Russian piano tradition or looking for inspiration in your own playing, I recommend checking out this book. Buy it here.​

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