Made mah day.

[FierceDeity]

it's quite valuable general life knowledge

^^
honestly everyone should have to take statistics, even if only to understand the fact that correlation ≠ causation

[Hero of Trains]

I agree, though I already knew many of the logical fallacies and biases addressed, due to some books I read at a very young age (I did a book report on "How to Lie with Statistics" in second grade). I think the most helpful part for me was probably hypothesis tests.

[Nebbles]

Switched majors and now I am welcomed into the world of a music major, woo!

[Olimar12345]

^I thought you already switched majors? I remember you posting about it...or is this like the worst case of déjà vu and I'm actually going insane slowly?

[Nebbles]

LOL well I made the official switch today at my school.

[Olimar12345]

Ah. I AM SANE. Well, congrats! Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I have!

[Nebbles]

Any tips you'd like to share? We could discuss this over Skype.

[SlowPokemon]

Practice twice as much as you think you need to. And legit practice, meaning you should be playing what you're assigned, not anything for fun until you've accomplished things with your assigned pieces.

[Olimar12345]

Practice twice as much as you think you need to.

^ You'll be spending much more time in the practice room than you probably conceived was possible.

[Nebbles]

Duly noted.

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

More important than the quantity of practice is the quality.
Someone who works 30 minutes on a given piece/set of pieces (let's say, this set of Rachmaninoff pieces) but does so in a manner where he's coming out understanding something more about the piece and having a firmer grasp on it is far more efficient practice.
As far as practice tips are concerned, I've found that listening to the piece constantly until it's memorized in your head is one of the best things you can do away from the keyboard, as well as study the score.
One of the biggest challenges in piano playing is connecting your mental knowledge of the piece to what your hands are doing.
For instance, I could (very terribly) sing the entire melody of the Chopin A flat ballade, from memory (I have it memorized in my head, so to speak, like you might memorize the lyrics to a pop song after listening to it enough), and it makes it that much easier to play it.
Singing whatever you're playing inside your head is also a good way of memorizing it mentally.
Some guidelines for efficient practicing-
-Be memorizing any common recurring patterns frequently (IE in the 1st piece of the Rachmaninoff, the LH patterns alone could be the target of a practice session, to have them memorized by the end of the session)
-Identify all technical problems (this should be done as early as possible with any piece- even before choosing to study it, if possible), and then find adequate solutions to them, and practice the solutions (even if it's as simple as exercises, or excerpts from another piece that work on the same technique)
-In pieces with polyphony (multiple lines at the same time) practice each line individually using the fingering you would be using in the context of the passage

I'm too lazy to think of any others right now...

[SlowPokemon]

Well yeah quality practice is key, but quantity is incredibly important and shouldn't be underplayed like that. Spend a lot of time practicing.

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

Well yeah quality practice is key, but quantity is incredibly important and shouldn't be underplayed like that. Spend a lot of time practicing.

My point was mainly that quality is far more important, and to make sure you're practicing well, but yes. Practice a lot Just practice WELL. Otherwise you're better off juggling for hand dexterity and coordination.

[Nebbles]

Another thing I need is like... stage presence. It sounds stupid, but I get stage fright very easily. What's the best way to conquer it?

[Olimar12345]

Another thing I need is like... stage presence. It sounds stupid, but I get stage fright very easily. What's the best way to conquer it?

To do it a lot. Play for everyone you can and try not to think too hard about it. Let yourself get lost in the music.