If you’re learning to play the piano, you already know how important it is to practice. Practice is a crucial part of a musician’s life, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been playing for years. Even if you practice for only one hour a day, you can hone your craft and sound better much quicker, but what happens if you’re planning to be away from home for a while and you won’t have a piano tagging along with you? Believe it or not, there are solutions to this problem, thanks to advances in musical products. If you’re just going away for a few days, that’s one thing, but if you’ll be away for a week or more, you can’t really afford to skip that much practicing. Instead, you need some tips and suggestions for what to do while you’re on the road, and below are seven things you can do to practice while you’re traveling.
1. Utilize a Good Piano App
Today, there is an app for just about everything, including playing the piano. When you travel, take a tablet along with you and download one of these apps, then practice on the tablet whenever you can. Most of the apps are free to download and consist of a keyboard that you can play at any time, and you can hear both your playing and mistakes you made. While it isn’t quite like the real thing, you still get a chance to practice and a good sense of what you currently sound like so that you can decide what you need to practice on the most. These apps are real miracle-workers when you’re on vacation.
2. Buy a Stand-Alone Keyboard
There are many roll-up keyboards made out of silicone that make it super-easy to practice the piano while you’re away from home. Once they’re rolled up, they take up very little space, which means you can stick them in your suitcase easily and keep them hidden until you’re ready to use them. Once you’re ready to practice, simply unroll this travel piano keyboard and start playing. While the keyboard is relatively flat, it is also electronic and therefore, each and every key you press is heard loud and clear. Most of them do not contain a full 88 keys like a regular piano does, but they are large enough to allow you to practice every day. Most, in fact, have 61 keys, which is definitely good enough for beginners and intermediate players.
3. Use a Portable Travel Piano
A portable piano for travel is perfect because it comes in various sizes, usually with 61 keys, and it is super-lightweight, which means you can easily carry it in your vehicle and remove it once you get to your destination. Some are even smaller at 44 keys, which is appropriate for most beginners. They are compact and portable and even though they do not fold or roll up they are small enough for you to take them with you anywhere.
If you’re a beginner, you can practice your scales and hand positions if you feel like the piano you bought is too small to do the more complex pieces. These are perfect pianos to practice on when you’re away from home.
4. Use Your Computer
Just like your tablet and app, you can also practice piano on various websites. There are hundreds of websites that will teach you how to play piano, and even the ones that you have to pay for are usually very inexpensive.
People tend to bring their computer with them even while they’re on vacation, so they can make good use of it and practice keyboard skills whether that may be in their hotel room, by the side of the pool, or anywhere else they may visit when on vacation.
5. Buy a Foldable Full-Sized Piano Keyboard
A traveling piano doesn’t have to be a heavy full-sized piano, and it doesn’t have to be just a flat keyboard, either. There are pianos that have a full 88 keys just like a regular piano does and which have raised keys just like a standard piano. The only difference is in the way it is made. No rolling up the keyboard or having to lug around a piano that won’t fold away when you need it. These keyboards usually fold in half and are electronic, yet they are full-sized keyboards and therefore can accommodate everyone from beginners through the most advanced piano players. You can take this one with you anywhere you go!
6. Use Any Flat Surface
Believe it or not, you can practice your piano skills on a flat surface by using the top of a desk or table. You may think it won’t work, but it does. In fact, this is a good way to practice correct hand positions, how to strike down on the keys without punching them, and how to practice your hand movements and reduce strain at the same time. As you do this, you’ll quickly learn which area you need more practice in, and you’ll even notice when mistakes are made. In short, you’ll be surprised by how well this works when you don’t have a piano nearby but you still need to practice!
7. Take Time to Learn the Music
When you don’t have a portable practice piano or keyboard to play on, you can concentrate instead on learning your music. Play your piece numerous times until you feel like you’ve learned it, and practice by tapping out the keys on a flat surface. This is a little different than merely practicing scales and finger positions on a counter top because you’re playing along with a tune that you’re just listening to, and the music isn’t in front of you. Nevertheless, it is a great way to learn your music because the more you play it on a flat surface and while listening to the tune itself, the closer you’ll get to memorizing it so that you can eventually play it by heart.
