The Magic Number for Your Keyboard Success

by: Ed Mascari


Are You Looking for a Magical Solution?

Are you struggling with trying to figure out how to play well?

Are you feeling overwhelmed by so much to practice, so little time?

Are you looking for a way to know what to practice so that you will improve quickly?

An adult student named Liz told me that she finds that she can’t decide what to practice because there are too many choices.

Sue often complains that although she’s learned many songs, she can no longer play them.

She’s frustrated because she loves practicing her new pieces every day, and wishes she could pick up something from the past and just play it.

Has this happened to you?

It’s Not Rocket Science

When the young man asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

the elderly New Yorker responds, “Practice, practice, practice.”

Notice that the word practice is stated three times.

It takes 3 weeks to establish a good habit, but only 3 days to lose it.

Every time you focus on one specific musical goal for 21 straight days, you will establish a new keyboard success habit.

Establishing Your Keyboard Success Habit

Here are the three things you need to do to establish your keyboard success habit.

1. Make a choice

Success does not come from practicing all of your songs, exercises and/or classical pieces all the time. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for this.

In order to get great results, you need to pick one piece that you really like and want to learn to play well. You will still practice your other music, but now you have selected one special piece that you want to master, memorize or both.

2. Focus on your number one priority

You need to practice your selected special piece every single day. Sometimes this will be the only thing you practice. Other days, when more time is available, you can give attention to your other musical material. The most important thing is that you concentrate single-mindedly on your number one priority: to practice your special piece daily.

3. Make a commitment and stick to it

Promise yourself that you will keep your commitment to practicing this one special piece for 21 consecutive days, just three weeks. You will amaze yourself when you hear how much better you sound. Your confidence will improve too!

Action Exercises

Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, select one special piece, practice it every single day for three weeks. All of your other music can receive your attention after you focus on your number one priority.

Second, remember that once you see the great results of your efforts, you’ll be so excited that you’ll repeat this process with another one of your favorite pieces.

Third, take this method up one more notch by practicing your special selected piece every day for three months. Your musical success is guaranteed!

How to Increase Your Return on Investment by Organizing Your Music

by: Ed Mascari

How many times have you said to yourself?
* This music keeps falling off the piano.
* Where is that song? I can never find the page.
* When am I going to do something about this music?
* I'm tired of stopping in the middle of the piece just to turn the page.
* I can't believe it, the recital was only three weeks ago, and I forgot how much I liked that piece.

Think about how frustrated you have been by trying to deal with the majority of your musical material constantly in such a mess!

Think of how many times you couldn't face going to the piano simply because the thought of pulling your music together was far too overwhelming.

Wouldn't you like to maximize the return on the investment that you have made and continue to make in your musical development?

As they say in the business world:

What's your ROI (Return On Investment)?

After countless hours of practice, many years of piano lessons, hundreds of dollars spent on instruction and sheet music, you're stuck, frustrated and immobilized.

Why not take advantage of your freer summer season schedule to stay connected to your musical favorites?

Here's how: just follow this simple step-by-step method:

1. Pull all of your music books together into one place
2. Look through one book at a time to remind yourself which pieces you enjoy playing and mark each piece with a post-it note or paper clip
3. Make photocopies of each selection
4. Sort all of the music into stacks of categories.
5. Here are some suggested types of groups:
a) Classical and popular styles
b) Fast and slow tempos
c) By composer, group or singer
d) Key signature
5. Pick an organizing system
a) Looseleaf books with non-glare page protectors
b) Pocket folders (put labels on the front)
c) File folders: staple each piece onto a folder and put these into a portable filing system
6. Experiment: once the music is organized in one of these three ways, you can change the order or arrangement of music for a few practice sessions until it feels satisfying.

One Final Note

Organizing your music is a surefire method for increasing your return on investment.

Yes, it will take some effort, but it will really pay off.

You will have created a dependable tool which is guaranteed to energize your musical growth and development.

You will gain a whole new perspective on practicing the piano, and you'll feel great about yourself!

It's Not Too Late!

Classical Guitar Music

by: Chris Kettlelson

Classical guitar music can be located on the internet quite easily if you know how and where to search for it. Whether you are looking to make a purchase or download some free music you can find it on the net. Of course it will be a little trickier to try and locate the free stuff!

All it takes is a little elbow grease and some proper search techniques and you should have no problem locating the sites that offer free classical guitar music. A good start is to try typing in the sheet music your looking for and then add a “+” and the word free. This will bring up some good results to start with.

>From there you should be able to search through the sites and pick to the ones that are going to let you have some free classical guitar music from the sites that are going to ask you to pay a few dollars for the music. A lot of the sites that offer the free classical guitar music use tablature instead of sheet music.

Sheet is great but it can have a large learning curve and that is simply not what most people want when they are looking for classical guitar music, they want to play something!

Keep in mind that if it’s just the free music you are going after you will have a hard time finding some of the really good songs that you are probably wanting to play. The good thing is though that it does not cost too much to purchase classical guitar music and it is usually not more the five dollars on most sites.

Before you go out and make any purchases however make sure that you are a skilled enough player to attempt to play the songs! Some music can be very difficult and you will end up getting frustrated and mad that you wasted your money. Of course it is a good incentive to practice harder! After all in order to play the really beautiful classical guitar music you will have to practice quite a bit but it will pay off when you are playing for all your family and friends!