Do you want to:

  • Learn how to be twice as proficient in your practice, learning music in half the time

  • Retain yesterday's gains when you come back to the piano

  • Avoid technique "walls" where you THINK you've practiced well, but find yourself stuck

  • Not fall apart in your weekly lessons, saying something like "it was going so well before we started!"

  • Learn the secret method to quickly and easily reprogram your mistakes in practice

  • Practice like a concert artist, learning hours of music in a fraction of the time

This course has everything you're looking for, plus answers to questions that you didn't even know you had.  No more getting stuck in practice.  No more struggling to make progress day after day, week after week.  No more sitting down at the piano and HOPING that you're going to get better just because you're putting in the time.  This course provides the methods you need to become an expert practicer.

From one student:

“The Mastering Your Practice course is chock-full of cutting-edge ideas and specific techniques that will maximize your time and effort at the piano.  It's entirely transformed the way that I learn and practice music. My confidence has been soaring lately because I feel as though I can tackle anything. In this course, Charles gives you all the tools you need to practice smarter, not harder.”

Eric Nyman

The performance playing above?  That was learned and memorized in 3 hours of practice, and was recorded and filmed after less than one week.  That's possible not because of genius or some innate talent... no... it's possible because of all of the tools, tips, and strategies presented in this course that YOU can learn too.  

There's a free preview module inside "Middle and Late Learning." Go check it out!

    1. A Couple Personal Reflections Before We Get Started

    1. Neuroscience 101

    2. Analysis in Practice

    1. Before Your First Sight Read

    2. Quick vs Slow Practice For New Repertoire

    3. Demonstration of "Quick Practice" Technique

    4. Slow Practice Quick Tips

    5. Early Internalization

    6. Graduating to Middle Practice Techniques

    1. Blocked Practice

    2. Focus and Intention (part 1)

    3. Focus and Intention (part 2)

    4. Correcting Mistakes in Practice

    5. Error Amplification: Example Demonstration

    6. Types of Practice

    7. Blocking (Types of Practice Supplement #1)

    8. Mixing New and Old: Avoiding Interference

      FREE PREVIEW

    9. Practice Buddies and Accountability

    1. Interleaved Practice

    2. Overlearning

    3. Ultra Slow Practice

    4. Mental Practice

    5. Big Picture Practice

    6. "Spring Cleaning"

    1. Importance of Breaks in Early Learning

    2. How Breaks in Practice Change

    3. Breaks Across Practice Sessions

    4. Ideas for Structuring Your Practice Time

    5. Mock Practice Schedule

    6. How Long Should You Practice Per Day?

About this course

  • $147.00
  • 35 lessons
  • 6 hours of video content
  • Lifetime Access

"Mastering Your Practice" is for:

  • INTERMEDIATE to ADVANCED PIANISTS: It's recommended that you have achieved playing repertoire near RCM level 5 to get the most out of this course. That would be selections like some of Schumann's "Album for the Young" or Bach's "Little Prelude in C Major BWV 939." The course content will then continue to be useful through to the most difficult repertoire you'd like to learn... Chopin Etudes? The Rachmaninoff Sonata? Liszt's La Campanella? You'll find answers here for everything.

  • STUDENTS WHO EXPERIENCE "BLOCKS": If you've gone to lessons and repeatedly can't play nearly as well as you might at home, you need this course. If you practice diligently but find that each day you only retain just a fraction of what you spent time on, you need this course. If you don't have a master teacher to work with on a regular basis, you need this course.

  • STUDENTS WHO WANT TO LEARN MORE IN LESS TIME: This course is full of valuable and sometimes very counterintuitive tools that have the power to catapult your playing to new heights very quickly. Does this mean we can learn while not practicing? Well... actually there ARE ways we can do that! Does that mean it's possible to learn professional level concert programs of 60-80 minutes of music in just 1 or 2 hours of practice per day? Absolutely yes, but only if you apply the right practice tools to the right passages.

What People Have to Say...

about "Mastering Your Practice"

“Mastering Your Practice is probably the most innovative and interesting way to experience the most important and least talked about logistics of learning how to grow as a musician, how to not only practice, but how to practice efficiently. Just watching the videos is very much like having Charles as a ‘private’ teacher at one’s disposal to help and assist with one of the more controversial aspects of learning piano, proper practicing. As a retired Voice Teacher/High School Musical Theatre Teacher, I wish this type of thing was available for my students years ago.”

Joseph DiMarco - Retired Music/Theatre/Voice Teacher

“For me, this course is simply a gold mine for making my practice sessions more effective and efficient. And what I really appreciate is that the material is based on research. It is a “must-take” course. It certainly has changed and improved my practice sessions.”

Jane Epstein

“As an adult piano student, I have explored many approaches to practicing music – but nothing has come close to the clarity, depth and effectiveness of Charles new course, “Mastering Your Practice: Learn More in Less Time”. It is far more than just a collection of lessons: it is a complete roadmap for how to practice with purpose, focus and confidence. Charles has a knack for making complex ideas easy to understand. You will learn how to take any piece of music and break it down into manageable, meaningful steps. The course shows you how to work on rhythm, dynamics and musicality while also giving you concrete strategies to identify and fix problem areas in your playing. Everything is structured, encouraging and entirely practical – perfect for intermediate and advanced pianists who want to improve without feeling overwhelmed. If you are a pianist looking to refine your skills, you will no doubt find immense value in this course. I should not forget to mention, that this course will never become out-dated, as Charles continues to update the course with new insights and refinements. After three months of working with this course, I believe it will be the only practice course I ever need.”

Louise Bailey

“In this course, I learned incredible strategies for smarter practice that I had never heard of before. It has so changed the way I practice and even my private teacher says I have vastly improved over the last two months.”

Becky Schuckenbrock

“The Mastering Your Practice course is chock-full of cutting-edge ideas and specific techniques that will maximize your time and effort at the piano.  It's entirely transformed the way that I learn and practice music. My confidence has been soaring lately because I feel as though I can tackle anything. In this course, Charles gives you all the tools you need to practice smarter, not harder.”

Eric Nyman

Meet Your Instructor

Charles Szczepanek

Charles is an international prize-winning pianist, has collaborated with GRAMMY Award winners, and has taught music for over 20 years to everyone from his next-door neighbor to finalists on NBC's America's Got Talent. Through Pianist Academy, he now brings that wealth of knowledge to you: the beginner, the intermediate, the professional, or the fellow music teacher. Music for his own projects and those collaborating with other musicians has been streamed tens of millions of times via YouTube, Spotify, and other major platforms. He was a precollege student of Dr. Daniel Paul Horn, and an undergraduate and graduate student of Professor Robert Hamilton,and he also studied with such notables as Vladimir Feltsman, Alexander Korsantia, Susan Starr, Phillip Kawin, and Paul Ostrovski.