Nerves and Practicing: Note Bashing

Another method I use is known as note bashing. If you are in possession of a piano you can play and can read sheet music, it’s usually easy to purchase the sheet music online and learn the melody line on the piano.

As always, begin by warming up your voice as shown in the videos above, and then sit down at your piano, whatever it may be and begin by tapping out the beat of the first few notes of the melody line.


After you have the beat of the notes you selected in your head, play it with the melody line on the piano. Keep on repeating this until you know the bit you selected and then move on with the next bar or so. Repeat the previous step with the next bar, once you know this, go back to the first bar you learned and combine them together. Note bashing can be a tedious task, it takes patience and concentration, but it does work very effectively. Usually it's good to get somebody to play the piano for you, unless you are a very confident pianist.

If you are taking singing lessons, your teacher can easily help you learn the song by playing the accompaniment and melody on piano for you and help you learn the piece that way.

Each way varies in effectiveness for each person, finding the method that works best for you is the challenge. Over time, I’ve began to realise that nerves don’t affect me if I have practised the song or songs intensely; I am able to sing them off by heart without thinking about it.