Regardless of whether you’re an adult, or somewhat younger, when you start taking music lessons for the first time it’s important to be aware of some of the most common mistakes that beginner musicians make when practicing.

In fact, most of the time, new students have a tendency to progress much slower than they need to, because they are making mistakes that use up unnecessary time. Don’t be one of those people.

Here are the top 8 biggest mistakes and pitfalls of practice, and how to work around them.

Practicing too Fast

Trying to play at a normal, performance speed from the start is one of the biggest mistakes a music student can make. You’ll inevitably make mistakes, and then you’ll try again at the same pace, hoping the end result will be different. If you’re very lucky, you might get it right about 25% of the time – but that doesn’t mean you’ve got it. As a matter of fact, you practiced it wrong 75% of the time, so which way do you think your brain is actually learning?

Slow down to practice correctly from the start – that way your brain can’t get used to playing it wrong.

Starting at the Beginning Every Time

One habit that many students pick up when they first start practicing is starting from the top of the piece every time. You start from the top, play until you make a mistake, then start all over again.

It’s not a video game that sends you back to the beginning every time you die!

Practicing like this means you’ll be playing the beginning of the song over and over and over again, and only play the part you’re having trouble with a few times. That means the weakest, least-practiced parts will be at the end – that part your audience is going to remember the most clearly.

Instead, try to isolate those tricky parts and master them – then work to get then into their proper place in the song.

Off the Beat

Another of the most common mistakes is playing through your music without a solid understanding of the song’s rhythm. This means playing fast through the parts you’re familiar with and slowing down – or outright stopping – at the parts you’re more unsure of.

It can be easy to not see what you’re doing wrong because, after all, you’re getting all the notes right! But what you may not be seeing is those changes in rhythm and tempo are happening because you haven’t yet mastered the transitions. Once again, the best way to proceed is to slow down the entire piece so you can play through at one common tempo without stopping. Another option would be to isolate those transitions and master them before putting them back where they belong.

You can also consider tackling notes and rhythm separately – make sure you can tap out the rhythm correctly, then get to work on getting the notes right. Once you’ve got both parts down, you can combine them.

Too Eager to Put it all Together

Trying to put all the parts of your piece together before you’re ready is another common practicing mistake. In most cases, the music you’re currently working on is more difficult than the last piece you were assigned, and you might not be able to sightread your way through it easily at first. Start with trying to tap the rhythm properly, and getting the notes right without the ryhythm. If you can’t do either of these yet, then you’re not ready to put the pieces together yet.

There’s nothing wrong with taking your time! Carefully read through and work out each difficult part before putting it all together.

Avoiding Recording

Today, recording devices surround us – so there really isn’t any excuse for not recording yourself regularly! You can use your phone, tablet, or computer to easily record your practice sessions.

You will most likely be your harshest critic, and when you listen to yourself practice, you’ll be able to more easily see the flaws in your performance. Both audio and video work well – though video also offers the advantage of seeing your technique and posture.

Practicing Without a Plan

Practicing without a plan is basically when you sit down to practice just for the sake of practicing – all you do is play through the piece with no specific goals in mind. You should always try to have at least one goal in mind, and a plan to reach it, for each and every practice session.

If you’re pressed for time or energy, it can be a small goal. Here’s a quick examples:

• Goal: To play measures 8-11 without stopping, at tempo.
• Plan: Isolate different parts within those measures, and master those first. Then play the whole piece through slowly enough to get it right, and increase your tempo slowly.

Not Practicing Enough – or Consistently

If you don’t practice much, you won’t improve very quickly. Did you know that many professional musicians practice for more than 4 hours a day? Do you think you can practice that much? If you’re an adult, you probably don’t have the time, and if you’re younger you might not have the attention span – but that’s okay. You’re most likely not interested in making music your career.

But that said, you should still practice as much as you can. If that means only 15 minutes, that will do.

Expecting Result too Quickly

While this can certainly be a problem for students of all ages, it tends to be a bigger problem for adults.

Why did you start your musical journey? You probably weren’t inspired by classics like “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” or “Hot Crossed Buns,” yet, that’s the kind of music you start with. You need to learn to read music, and reading notes is actually one of the easiest parts of playing music, once you learn it. If you can’t read music, a lot of other aspects of playing music become more difficult. Reading music may not be hard once you’ve got the hang of it, but it can be a massive barrier to getting started.

On the other hand, your hands are capable of making music that is much harder than what you can read. You can see this in videos that teach complete novices to play real music. This is called “learning by rote.” If you’ve never tried this, you might be surprised at how easy it can be. You can learn to play music pretty quickly this way. So why isn’t it taught more often?

In a nutshell, while learning by rote isn’t a bad way to teach, it is incomplete. If you rely on learning by rote, you’ll need someone sitting next to you, or you’ll have to watch a video if you want to learn anything new.

You must learn to read music first. This does mean that you’ll be practicing boring “kiddie” music for a while, but don’t get discouraged! You’re laying down an important foundation that will help you build up to the music that inspired your journey!