Yes, the ideal is to practice every single day, but we all know that while that might be the ideal, it just simply doesn’t always happen. There are genuine reasons why piano practice doesn’t happen in the short term. Those reasons are often because of sickness or due to travelling.
The very first thing that you have to do when you haven’t practiced for a day or two, a week or two, or even a month or two, is to make sure that you are not giving yourself a hard time, even if you don’t have a really good reason for not practicing. This is because guilt will not help you and it might end up distracting you from getting back to practicing again.Guilt over not practicing will just keep you focused on what you haven’t done, rather than allowing yourself to move forward and getting back into good habits.
If you have stopped practicing because you have been sick and have needed time to recover, then make sure you are not jeopardizing your health by getting back to practicing before you are well enough. Any doctor’s advice and guidance comes before any information or recommendations that I give you.
Once you are able to return to practicing, like coming home after a holiday, then get started getting back into your usual routine as soon as you possibly can. Don’t procrastinate about getting back into the piano practice – you are really not going to do yourself any favors by procrastinating.
You also need to remember that it is important to practice as regularly as you can, even if each practice is not as long as what you normally do. Even 5 – 10 minutes a day will soon get you making progress again, even if you are used to doing more than this on a daily basis. It might not seem enough, but I guarantee that it is a whole lot better than nothing at all AND better than practicing sporadically.
What you do need to know is that when you start practicing again, you won’t be as good as you were before you had a break in your practicing routine. If it has only been a couple of days, then you may just make the odd mistake or two, but if you have had a significant break of a few weeks or more, you are going to sound pretty ordinary and you are going to make several mistakes. Please don’t get annoyed about the mistakes you made – the progress you made before you had a break, can be made again. It will take a bit of time, again dependant on how much time you had off. Don’t worry about this at all as it literally happens to everyone.
So to get started after having this break in practicing, no matter the circumstances that caused the break to happen, be kind to yourself and don’t expect too much. Start with something that you know well and that you have played for quite sometime. Make sure that it is something that you really enjoy playing, then gradually get to the point of where you are tackling music that you don’t know that well. You don’t have to get yourself back to the point where you were before in just one practice – especially if you haven’t practiced for a few weeks or more. This process may take up to a few weeks.
Basically, don’t worry about the gap in your practice and get back to practicing the piano as soon as you can, while being patient about having to regain any lost ground.