Sometimes it may feel as though you are practicing the piano and yet making very little progress. Don’t worry, this is very common and a lot of people that play the piano experience it. Sometimes you are getting ahead in very subtle ways that you are not even noticing.

Sometimes you are not, and have hit a flat spot in your progression that simply needs to be worked through. In either case, here are some hints to help you know if you are progressing on the piano.

If you have been playing a piece over and over again and keep making one mistake after another it may just be that you have to break that song down into smaller segments to practice. If you have already done this, then you may need to break it down even more! Some musicians have taken a difficult piece and broken it down into line by line segments. You can get it right by just taking small baby steps with the song before putting it all together.

If your fingers are just not following your directions, and seem to have a mind of their own, it may be that you need to take some time and exercise them. Even if your hands are physically in shape, taking the time to exercise them puts a communication back in place between your hands and your mind.

Take a few minutes and stretch them and work with them so that they are better able to work with you as well. You see many great pianists take the time to do simple hand motions between songs, and this is why. You need to stay in communication with your hands at all times when you play the piano.

If all else fails take a walk. Sometimes it is just a break that you really need and you need to acknowledge that and walk away from the piano. Getting your mind off of the piano may be just what you need so that the next time you go back to it you are able to play much better. If you go back and find that you are still not progressing on the piano then you’re going to have to find out what the problems really are and work on them.

You will find that one of these methods usually works. Once you are back on track you will often see that you are playing better than you were before you hit this rough spot, and have indeed made progress, but you were not able to notice it. This is how to know if you are progressing on the piano. You get through the tough times and come out better than ever.