Beyond the Notes: Why Feedback is the Missing Piece of Piano Practice

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Have you ever spent time practicing a difficult passage and still weren’t sure whether you made any actual improvements?

Maybe you played it several times, after which it felt easier to play.

But did it actually improve?

For many pianists, the concept of effective practice is closely tied to repetition.

Repeat something enough times, and surely it will improve.

Although repetition has its place as a practice tool, it’s actually feedback and not repetition that prompts lasting change.

Effective practice relies on a simple formula:

Play something.
Evaluate what you played.
Make adjustments.

Feedback tells you whether you’re progressing toward your goal.

If you’re not progressing as you’d like, feedback can point you in the right direction.

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Practice Without Feedback is Mostly Guesswork
What Counts as Feedback in Piano Practice?
The Most Important Question: "What Am I Listening For?"
Why Recording Yourself Can Change the Way You Practice
Feedback Turns "I Need to Practice" Into a Specific Problem
You Don't Need a Teacher Sitting Beside You
A Simple Feedback Experiment to Try This Week
The Bigger Lesson: Become Curious About Your Own Playing
Final Thoughts on Why Feedback is the Missing Piece of Piano Practice

Practice Without Feedback is Mostly Guesswork

I spent a long chunk of my playing career stuck in a cycle of mindless repetition.

Each practice session was a series of repetitions, with little goal-setting or evaluation of whether I’d achieved them.

It’s only in the past few years that I began to realize repetition doesn’t automatically lead to improvement.

Indeed, my hunch was confirmed in the book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise in a story about Benjamin Franklin.

Although wildly successful in many areas, Franklin proved somewhat mediocre at chess.

It wasn’t through lack of trying.

In fact, he could often be found at all hours of the night facing off against any number of chess opponents.

And yet he never came remotely close to grandmaster status by today’s standards.

Despite hours spent playing chess regularly, he lacked one vital component that might have turned it all around for him.

Franklin lacked feedback.

Feedback transforms mindless repetition into calculated improvement because it helps you:

Identify the issue.
Develop a plan.

A calculated process for reviewing your piano playing engages your cognitive function and helps improve the quality of your learning.

What Counts as Feedback in Piano Practice?

Feedback can come in several different forms.

At its core, feedback is the gap between what you intended to play and what actually happened.

Your Ears

You may find that as you play, the voice in your head gives almost constant feedback.

It’s tough to separate the musician from the musical instrument, so there will always be a fair amount of this happening in the moment.

If you can make adjustments in real time, it can be a great way to give yourself feedback.

But this constant chatter can significantly affect your ability to stay in the moment with the piece, especially in a performance situation.

Most advanced players learn to balance immediate, in-the-moment feedback with all other aspects of their playing, a skill that requires practice.

Your Physical Sensations

As you play, paying attention to how your body feels can give you further details on what’s working and what might need adjustment.

Paying attention to your body can give you clues about whether you’re using proper technique or if you need to alter fingerings to play at a fast tempo.

Other valuable questions to ask yourself about your physical sensations during musical practice include:

Am I tense?
Am I holding my breath?
Is my wrist stiff?
Does this movement feel unnecessarily difficult?

Recording Yourself

This one is a game-changer.

Recording yourself is the only way that you can give yourself really accurate feedback.

Yes, in-the-moment feedback has its place.

But it’s often skewed because you’re splitting your attention between playing and feedback.

Recording lets you stay fully engaged in playing while still focusing completely on feedback.

It’s one of the best ways to continue making steady progress without regular piano lessons or a piano teacher.

I can’t emphasize enough how critical recording and listening back to myself have been to my own progress.

External Feedback

Getting feedback from others also helps you improve.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own playing that we need feedback from an outsider.

It might come from a piano teacher.

Or a friend.

The feedback may come from fellow pianists.

In college, we had a dedicated class every week where all the piano majors and minors would play for each other.

We’d then give each other feedback.

I would take the feedback, make changes, and then present the updated version at the next session.

Giving feedback to others is just as helpful to your own playing because it allows you to hone your feedback skills.

The Most Important Question: “What Am I Listening For?”

As we’ve been exploring in the Beyond the Notes series, becoming a well-rounded musician is more than simply identifying wrong notes.

It’s about learning how to showcase the sound of the piano for emotional and artistic expression.

As you progress in your playing, you’ll find yourself asking questions such as, “How do I make this melody more lyrical?”

Broadly speaking, here are a few other common areas to consider when evaluating your playing.

Rhythm: Is there consistency? Can I feel a pulse to the music?
Dynamics: Are there clear contrasts between different dynamic markings? If the music wasn’t in front of you, could you tell that the dynamic level you’re playing is the one the composer intended?
Phrasing: Is there a clear beginning to the phrase followed by building and eventual release? Does the music seem to go somewhere?
Tone: Is there consistency between notes? Or do some notes seem to come out of nowhere?

Learning to give feedback is an incredibly valuable skill that takes time to hone.

If you’re confused about where to start, I highly recommend the Modacity app.

Modacity’s deliberate practice mode gives you ideas about what specific area you’d like to improve.

It then suggests ways to practice to improve.

The app also has recording features which are especially helpful as a regular part of your practice.

Why Recording Yourself Can Change the Way You Practice

If you’re brand new to recording, start small.

You don’t have to record your entire practice session.

But used strategically, recording can be an invaluable part of self-improvement.

Try this:

Choose one small passage.
Decide what you’re trying to improve.
Record yourself playing it.
Listen without playing.
Identify one thing that worked.
Identify one thing that needs attention.
Practice specifically for that issue.
Record it again.

The goal here isn’t to criticize yourself.

It’s simply to collect information (feedback) to decide where you want to go next.

Instead of:

“I sound terrible.”

Try:

“The melody disappears when the accompaniment gets louder.”

That observation gives you something to practice.

Feedback Turns “I Need to Practice” Into a Specific Problem

For many years, I had only a very vague sense of what effective practice looked like.

I knew that I needed to spend time with the music.

But I wasn’t always following a clear process of:

Identifying the issue.
Developing a plan.
Repeating until the goal was reached.

Useful feedback gives you a specific problem to solve.

Unless you identify that problem, you can’t fix it, and you’ll be left with a vague sense that you’d like to improve but aren’t sure how.

For example:

Vague:
“I need to practice this section.”

Better:
“The left hand rushes during the transition.”

Even better:
“The left hand begins rushing when the right hand enters with the sixteenth notes.”

Now you know what to practice.

You can isolate the transition, slow it down, practice the hands separately, use a metronome, or change the rhythm.

Feedback transforms practice from mindless repetition into an engaging problem-solving session.

You Don’t Need a Teacher Sitting Beside You

I’m a huge fan of piano lessons and take them whenever I can.

Even professional musicians continue their studies with teachers from time to time.

But regular piano lessons sometimes aren’t realistic for me.

Over the years I’ve learned that I can be my own teacher through the process described above.

You too can become your own coach by asking a series of 5 simple questions:

What am I trying to improve?
What happened when I played it?
What did I notice?
What will I change?
Did the change work?

Using tools like Modacity has been crucial for me because it has everything I need to run through all 5 of these questions right in the app.

It will feel awkward at first, but keep at it because careful listening of your own playing makes you a much more well-rounded pianist.

A Simple Feedback Experiment to Try This Week

Hone your feedback skills this week by identifying one passage you’d like to improve.

Record yourself playing the passage you’d like to improve upon.
Define the goal: Listen to the recording and choose ONE thing you’d like to improve upon (dynamics, phrasing, bringing out the melody, etc.)
Make one change: What is a tactic you can use to work towards your goal?
Record yourself using the tactic.
Listen back to see whether the tactic was helpful.
If it was, great! Mission accomplished.
If not, do you need to try the tactic a few more times? Or do you need a different tactic entirely? Problem-solve and repeat the process.

Reflecting on your short feedback experiment can be a great way to really solidify the information you learned.

For example, did the initial tactic work? What about it was helpful?

Does this short experiment give you any information about how you learn best?

One of the most useful aspects of this experiment is that it forces you to pick just ONE thing to focus on.

Most of the time I’m trying to do too many things at once so nothing improves.

But by choosing just one, all my focus goes to that ONE thing and almost as if by magic, it improves.

The Bigger Lesson: Become Curious About Your Own Playing

For a long time, I had the vague sense that I wanted to get better at the piano.

Year after year went by, and nothing seemed to change.

And I got really down on myself.

I started interpreting every little mistake as evidence that I just wasn’t talented enough.

But after I started digging into research on the top performers in the world, I discovered that anyone can improve at the keyboard.

As it would turn out, I had been taking the completely wrong approach.

Instead of turning negative, I needed to get curious.

Curious about identifying goals, becoming more specific with feedback, and simply having more fun.

If you’ve been stuck in a negative spiral about your playing, you need to experiment with getting curious, too.

Curiosity helps you give and take feedback in a way that leaves talent behind and embraces the probability of real, meaningful improvement.

Final Thoughts on Why Feedback is the Missing Piece of Piano Practice

For a long time, I thought getting better at piano meant simply spending more time at the piano.

If I wasn’t improving, I assumed I needed to practice more.

But I’m beginning to see practice differently.

The question isn’t just “How much did I practice?”

It’s “What did my practice teach me?”

Every time you sit down at the piano, you have an opportunity to collect information about your playing. What worked? What didn’t? What changed? What still needs attention?

That information is feedback.

And feedback gives you a direction for what to do next.

Instead of playing a passage over and over again and hoping it eventually improves, you can approach practice like an experiment:

Play. Listen. Evaluate. Adjust. Try again.

Sometimes the change you make will work. Sometimes it won’t. That’s okay. Even a tactic that doesn’t work gives you useful information about what to try next.

This is one of the most exciting parts of becoming a better pianist.

You don’t have to sit down at the piano already knowing exactly how to fix everything.

You simply need to become curious enough to find out.

So the next time you practice, try resisting the urge to immediately play something again.

Pause.

Listen.

Ask yourself:

What is this attempt telling me?

That question might change the way you practice.

Curious about other aspects of piano practice?

You’ll find the following helpful on your journey:

Until next time, happy practicing!

Beyond the Notes: Why Feedback is the Missing Piece of Piano Practice

Practice Without Feedback is Mostly Guesswork

Struggling to stay consistent at the piano?