How to use the online timer
Half an hour at the piano covers warm-up, technical work and repertoire without hands or concentration running out, which they will in a long session at an instrument that asks both of them to do different things at once. Daily practice beats an occasional long stint by a wide margin, because the coordination being built is a physical habit and habits are made by repetition spread over days.
Hands separately is the piece of advice most often ignored and most reliably effective. A passage that collapses with both hands together is usually one hand not knowing its part well enough to run without attention, and five minutes on that hand alone fixes what twenty minutes of both hands together will not. Scales and arpeggios at the start are not filler either: they are the fingerings that turn up inside every piece you will learn.
Sight-reading deserves a few minutes of its own, ideally something well below the level you are working at, since the skill only develops by reading things you have not seen before. Watch the pedal, which is the easiest thing to leave down out of habit until everything blurs together, and work the difficult bars at a tempo where they are correct rather than at the speed the piece is eventually meant to go.
Common questions
Why practise hands separately?
Because a passage that collapses hands together is usually one hand that does not know its part well enough to run unattended. Five minutes on that hand alone fixes what twenty minutes together will not.
Are scales worth the time?
Yes. They are the fingerings that appear inside almost every piece you will learn, and they warm the hands up so the repertoire that follows goes better.
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