Mental Practice
Russell Hughes
choreographer, dancer, poet, anthropologist
"The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself"
Daniel Barenboim
‘A Life in Music’
"I never play a single note when my concentration is no longer at its height, for to do so would be to fall into the trap of playing mechanically"
You play because you hear,
rather than hearing because you play
If you feel uncertain about the clarity of each note,
phrasing, harmony, dynamics, form,
character, timing, and other aspects of a piece,
you remain trapped in the same mindset.
This will inevitably be evident in your performance.
As Liszt famously advised,
“Think ten times, play once.”
This means that without a vivid mental picture
of the music,
you will never feel fully at ease while playing.
I’m here to help pianists heal
Piano practice fundamentally relies on mental engagement. Over time, inconsistent or unfocused practice can become unproductive and even harmful, potentially leading to playing-related injuries and emotional stress.
You might be used to practicing for 8 hours a day, relying on your fingers and muscle memory without much mental involvement. As you begin to practice with mindful focus, paying close attention to each task, it may initially feel overwhelming.
Learning to think before you play is a process that requires mindfulness. At first, you might only be able to concentrate for short periods, perhaps just 10 minutes. During practice, you may find your focus drifting frequently. However, with patience and persistence, you'll gradually train your mind to sustain focus for longer stretches. The optimal daily practice time is around 2-3 hours, which is typically the maximum time your mind can stay fully engaged.
By analyzing and learning a piece efficiently, you'll realize how little time is actually needed to prepare it, eliminating the need for 8-hour practice sessions.
Leon Fleisher
Workshop at Carnegie Hall 2010
"Technique is the ability to produce what you want. The presupposition is that you want something. So before going to the piano and practicing, training your muscles which is a waste of time [...] because it's not in the muscles, it's in the brain, it's in the inner ear. Artur Schnabel used to say it - 'Hear before you play. If you play before you hear what you’re going for, it’s an accident, and everything is built then on an accident'. So, want something, hear it, go for it"
Not all technical challenges stem from a lack of efficient hand motion, finger strength, or practice time.
There's an element missing from centuries of teaching: our imagination.
This imaginative force carves new pathways in our brain, influencing our muscle performance.
While general advice advocates practicing in your mind or visualizing your playing, there is a lack of clear, concise instructions on what to imagine and its connection to piano technique.
So, what precisely is mental practice?
Mental practice involves vividly imagining the musical score in your mind. It goes beyond a general feeling or hearing the tune—it's about crafting an accurate image of each note, even in dense polyphonic texture. This image includes qualities like sound, motion, harmony color, dynamics, and voicing.
Additionally, mental practice entails merging sound imagination with precise hand motion. The hands become a ‘bridge’ between your intentions and the keyboard, ensuring that correct tone production mirrors your envisioned sound.
"If you have in your ear the sound of the oboes, or the sound of the violin, or the sound of the chorus, or the sound of the flute [...] it doesn't have to be that hard Beethoven's orchestra [...] the mere fact that you have that in your ear, and you have that sensitivity and the understanding of how that flute sounds in that register, will allow you - if you have the necessary manual control - to produce a sound that is much more interesting and more imaginative than the sound that is produced by simply bringing the keys down".
Daniel Barenboim
masterclass 2005
"When you control things you play then you can create the illusion of playing a glissando on the piano [...] then you dream every note between the notes. That is kind of a hypnotic thing, because people are going to hear those glissandos, if you do hear it.
They will say themselves that it doesn't exist, you can not play glissando on the piano. But somehow I hear it, from where I sit it sounds like a glissando. It will be like a rainbow: the rainbow doesn't exist, the rainbow exists only where you are".
György Sebők
masterclass 1987
Mental practice is the ability to feel and create music between the notes.
Creating music in the space between notes by training inner singing is the gateway to expressing arm weight, articulations, dynamics, phrasing, character and the form of the music, as well as confident energy when performing on stage.
Frédéric Chopin
Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by his Pupils' 1986
"You must sing if you wish to play”
Arthur Rubinstein
at 90' interview
"I tell the young people 'Sing! Sing inside'.
You have no voice - that doesn't matter. The best voice - if you feel singing in you".
Mental practice is also about mastering the ability to identify structure within a piece.
That's to say, the length and contour of motifs, phrases, sentences and elements of form.
Daniel Barenboim
masterclass 2005
“All this should be better structured. I think the more a piece of music has many different characters, colours and attributes, the more it's important to think of it strategically. In other words, to know that because of this and that I am going here. So you never find yourself in the situation where suddenly you are manipulated by the music. When you have a clear, new beginning of a sequence, like when you write and you start a new paragraph, it has to be very clearly enunciated".
György Sebők
masterclass 1987
“The next step would be not to phrase in a childish way. Child phrases are short. Like children recite poetry. Instead of separating the phrases, now connect them".
Mental practice is also about feeling the different levels of energy in each section
when you approach a new piece of music.
Nurturing this ability to create, feel and express different colours and intensity of energy is generally something that has been missing in piano training.
Instead, it has often been replaced with confusing advice to play with more emotional intensity which in turn creates compulsive tension in body and mind.
"Sometimes I am missing a pulse. You have the beginning element, which even though it is pianissimo and it's only an arpeggio, it must have already a substance. There is a basic pulse which you can alter as the music requires, but I think if you find it in a strict sense than all the expressivity will be even stronger".
Daniel Barenboim
masterclass 2005
Mental practice is also the simple ability to choose and feel the correct pulse throughout a piece, and being able to 'pull and push' timing without losing the heartbeat of the music.