How to Play Jazz Piano: Staying Motivated to Continue Your Lessons

By | July 17, 2011 | Education

Even when you’re really passionate about your music learning how to play jazz piano can be a challenge, but, when you start to lose interest, quitting altogether is probably not too far in your future. If you really want to learn music and keep up with your piano lessons, you’ll have to find a means of keeping those lessons interesting and new so you stay motivated. Once you’ve grown bored with what you’re doing, even playing music, you’re just not going to want to keep doing it anymore. That’s human nature. You’ll soon find other more exciting things to do with your leisure time. But, later looking back on the money and time you invested in studying and practicing to play piano could cause you to have regrets.

One of the best ways to keep your music lessons interesting is to add a little variety to your practice routine. While repetition is generally the best method for learning an instrument as time passes, it can quickly get to be very tedious studying and practicing the same song again and again. When you find that you are seriously struggling with a piece of music, just put it down for a while. Pick up a different piece to work on for your music piano lessons, may be one that you enjoy playing. Just this simple change in your focus can help ease your frustration and let you regain your enjoyment. When you go back to your original piece, you’ll probably be surprised at how easily things just start to click into place. Setting aside a frustrating piece for awhile is a much better solution than pushing yourself to a point where you become resentful and completely lose the motivation to continue learning.

As much as this information applies to adults taking piano lessons, it goes double for kids. As a parent, you want to be very careful not to push your kids so much with their lessons that they become resentful about studying and practicing piano. Learning how to play jazz piano can and should be a challenging and fun activity for your child. It should also create a love and respect for music that lasts their whole lifetime. If your child is having a really hard time with a song and is becoming more and more frustrated and resentful about working on it, let them work on a different piece of music instead. Even if they don’t get back to their original piece in the near future, they’ll still be working on their lessons and they will still grow to love music more and more.

There are other things you can do besides adding variety to maintain interest in your piano lessons. One thing you can try is using different locations. If you always have your practice in the same location, trying a new place to add new elements to your session. Moving the piano is not required to try this technique. You can divide your practice session into parts – perhaps watch the video lesson in one room, practice the piano in another, and even listen to playbacks of your recorded sessions and take notes at a third location. Listening to recordings and taking notes can even be done at your favorite diner or coffee shop with a good set of headphones. Think ahead and you’ll find many places you can do parts of your lesson to keep boredom from setting in.

As soon as you decide you’re going to learn how to play jazz piano you should get busy figuring out your strategies for combating boredom. Of course, starting music lessons are fun and exciting and you can’t wait to get started. But once the newness and sense of adventure starts to wear off ,you’ll need a plan of action to keep your motivation strong. One technique you can try is keeping a journal. Write down everything you love about taking lessons and playing the piano, do it early while you’re still passionate. Then when your passion starts to wane and regular practice starts to be a struggle, you can look back at your journal to rekindle the flame. People who are successful at long-term romantic relationships learn how to recapture the magic that existed when their romance was new. You need to make it your goal to do the same thing with your instrument.

If you plan established strategies ahead of time to defeat boredom, frustration, and disinterest as you move forward with your lessons over time, you will be a step ahead of the game and easily develop new skills and eventually mastery over the piano.

Author Bio: To get additional information about learning to play piano at home, visit how to play jazz piano. The biggest hurdle you will need to overcome when studying music piano lessons is keeping yourself motivated and interested in the lessons. Studying DVD lessons in the comfort and privacy of your home can help

Category: Education
Keywords: how to play jazz piano, music piano lessons