The Correct Way to Have Your Hands on the Piano Keyboard

Don't play the piece through from beginning to end over and over again. Work on a small section at a time. Choose a few bars and polish them until they shine. .

There are lots of things to check when you are practicing - right notes, fingerings, counting, dynamics, articulation marks, pedal, accidentals, key signatures, changing clefs and chords. You can't check all these if you are playing like an express train! What happens is that you won't notice the mistakes. So practice slowly. Practice at the speed of no mistakes! Once you are confident you can speed the whole piece up.

Practice hands separately so that it is easier to spot the mistakes. When you know each hand inside out then you can put them together. When you are playing the piece really well try practicing separate hands again every so often just to check everything is still correct.

Everything you practice, you get better at. If you practice mistakes, you will be very good at producing mistakes. If half the time that you practice you get things right and the other half you get things wrong you will end up with a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Not very good odds. Don't let mistakes escape. Every time you make a mistake try and play it 3 times correctly so that your brain has a chance to remember the correct way to play it.

Remember - PRACTICE AT THE SPEED OF NO MISTAKES!!!