Mental rehearsal (or practice away from the piano) of a piece of music you’re working on can be extremely beneficial. It can help you to memorise the piece of music thoroughly, get it more fluent, and to focus on nuances of expression. It can be helpful in solidifying the music in your mind, and getting more familiar and confident with it. If you are going to do a recital or an exam, you are less likely to find things going wrong with your performance if you have supplemented your normal practice with mental rehearsal. Normal practice at the piano is good for developing the muscle memory needed for learning a piece of music, but over reliance on muscle memory can have disastrous consequences for your performance. (That is not to say that normal practice only develops muscle memory, but muscle memory is a big part of it.) It only takes a slight slip or distraction for it to all fall apart if you are over reliant on muscle memory for playing a piece of music, because you are dependent on a sequence of automatic actions. One action leads to the next action in the sequence, and any accidental alteration to one of these actions disrupts the flow of the sequence, like a link being taken out of a chain. Muscle memory is all about unconscious and automatic movements and muscle actions. Of course, this kind of automatic movement is not a bad thing at all, it is how you learn technique. It is a very important part of learning an instrument. But, if you only ever play your pieces completely automatically, with no conscious awareness of where you are in the music, or what notes and harmonies you’re playing, it is impossible to pick it up or keep going if a slight slip occurs. Mental rehearsal allows you to strengthen your conscious memory of the music, and this will greatly enhance your performance by complementing your muscle memory.
There are various ways of doing mental rehearsal:
There are various ways of doing mental rehearsal:
Imagine the melody
Sing the melody in your head, and see how much of the melody you can remember aurally without referring to the music. The better you remember the melody without the music, the better sense of direction you will have when you play it, because you will be able to anticipate where it is going, get it flowing even more, and put more shape and expression into it.
Visualise the sheet music
Here is a form of mental rehearsal that will help the music seem easier when you play it: try and visualise the actual page of sheet music, particularly for any troublesome sections, and see how accurately you can remember the actual notes on the page. Imagine that you’re listening to a recording of it whilst following the sheet music. Test yourself - look at the sheet music of a section to remind yourself of what the notes are, then put away the sheet music where you can’t see it, and see how much of it you can remember without playing it. This is quite difficult, and don’t worry if you don’t get it very accurate, or you can only do a bit at a time like this. But, if you can start to remember some of it this way, it can seem a lot easier when you come back to playing the music as normal with the sheet music in front of you.
Tap the rhythm and mime playing
Take the music away from the piano and tap the rhythm of both hands on a table top, using correct fingering. So, it will be as if you’re miming playing it, pretending the table top is a piano. While you’re doing this, it is very important to try and hear the correct sound of the notes in your head. Try and conjure up the sound of the music in your head as clearly as you possibly can - this needs a lot of focus. This kind of mental rehearsal away from the piano is very effective for helping you really get to know a piece of music inside out, if done correctly. In order to play a piece of music up to speed, under control, and without stopping, it has to be very well known, so this practice method can help. Of course muscle memory of techniques and how the keys feel is extremely important for learning to play a piece fast enough too, so this mental rehearsal practice is not enough if done alone, but it can be a very helpful addition.
Visualise playing the music
This is similar to the method above. Take the sheet music away from the piano and imagine playing it, but this time you won’t be miming playing it. Instead, keep your hands still and just try and imagine the feel of the keys under your fingers, as if you’re playing the correct notes with the correct fingers. Again, try and imagine the sound of the music too as you’re going along. This type of mental rehearsal doesn’t exercise your fingers, but it does strongly exercise the appropriate part of the brain for playing the music, and is good to do when your fingers need a rest.