How do I motivate myself to practise piano?

Fallen out of love with playing the piano? Struggling to find the motivation to practise? I'm here to tell you that that happens to everyone, even your local piano tuner (yes, me).

So how can we get back to playing our piano, and crucially, enjoy it? Here's a few tips and tricks from my own experience:

Increase the regularity of your practise, but decrease practise time

'The hardest part is showing up' is phrase associated with the world's most famous yoga instructor, but it can absolutely be applied to playing the piano. Getting your bum on that stool is the hardest part. But the more often you can do it, the easier it gets. Instead of thinking you need to carve out 30 minutes or an hour of your time to practise, commit to 5 minutes, but do it more often. This gets you into the habit of putting your bum on that stool, without the pressure to dedicate a huge amount of time to it. You'll probably find that 5 minutes turns into 10, and then 20, and suddenly you're practising because you want to, not because you feel you have to.

Secret Santa Scales

This is a trick passed on to me by my brilliant piano teacher when I was studying for my grade 8 piano, age 14. If you have lots of (boring) scales to practise, write the individual scales down on slips of paper, fold them up, and put them into a jar. Each time you pass your piano, take out a slip (as if you were choosing your secret Santa), and play the scale. That's it! This ensures you are practising all your scales, especially the ones you are trying desperately to avoid, keeps you on your toes and provides variety. If you are studying a particularly difficult piece, you could even do this trick with bar numbers, practising a bar at a time in isolation and at random.

Play the things you love, wisely

I only really started to love playing the piano when I started to get interested in classical music, and found pieces I wanted to play. Finding music that you love to play is wonderful in and of itself, but is also vital to your development as a musician, whatever your skill level. Find music you enjoy, but crucially, find versions of it that are at your skill level. It doesn't have to be classical! Challenge is good, but too much challenge becomes frustrating, and puts you off playing. There are so many websites now selling transcriptions of music that are easier than the originals, so do some digging and find a version that you love.

A well-tuned piano

If you've found yourself on this blog feeling that now is the time to get back to your playing, then having your piano tuned might be the motivation you need. Here’s what some of my clients have been saying:

“Ruby granted my piano a late lease of life, and ditto my playing”

“I can hear the difference and I’m looking forward to being able to play again”

“I was inspired by your visit to dig out some sheet music. All I need to do now is pluck up some courage and have a go!”

Sometimes customers tell me they have put off getting their piano tuned. That they feel guilty every time they walk past it, or even ashamed that they have fallen out of the habit of playing and looking after their piano. As your piano tuner, I am not here to judge you! If today is the day you are ready to get your piano tuned and start playing again, then I'd be delighted to help you do just that. The best part of my job is seeing a customers reaction to their newly-tuned piano... sometimes they're already playing it before I've got out of the door!