Five Basic Habits for Stress-Free Practice
Most piano families know that practice is an important factor in successful piano lessons, but without clear communication between teachers, students, and parents, the specifics of at-home practice remain a mystery. Just like piano-playing, practicing is a skill to be learned and improved upon. In this inaugural entry in my Perfect Practice series (the title of which is a nod to piano pedagogue Elvina Truman Pearce), my goal is to begin demystifying at-home piano practice, working from broad to more specific ideas.
Practice Starts in the Lesson
My particular teaching style includes covering practice techniques within each lesson—when expectations are clear, and students are confident that they can meet them, they practice more readily. For each assignment, students use specific techniques for at-home practice, and I have students replicate those techniques for me so I can be sure they will be successful at home. By observing the lesson, parents of younger students can get a clear idea of what should happen in at-home practice. Some parents like to take notes while observing, and some even film part of the lesson on their smartphones! It all boils down to what parents feel will be most helpful for them at home. Even occasionally observing a lesson helps maintain communication between teachers, students, and parents.
Choose a Time and Stick with It
A tried-and-true rule for productive at-home practice is following a routine. When treated as a negotiable part of the daily routine, piano practice often lands at the end of the day when both parents and students are too tired to be productive. Elvina Truman Pearce outlines this topic in The Success Factor in Music Teaching: Making Practice Perfect. She makes two great suggestions:
“trying out” different practice times (before or after school, before or after dinner, etc.) for at least five days each to see which one clicks best with everyone
splitting up daily practice into two or three short sessions
I promise this won’t be the case. ;) Source
It’s important to note that, while practicing may happen at the same time each day, practice length may vary. I encourage students to use practice time wisely to ultimately spend less time practicing, and I don’t use studio incentives or rewards based on the number of minutes practiced each week. There are certainly broad practice time suggestions for different age groups that are helpful for new piano students, but these are starting points—not rigid guidelines.
Create a Favorable Environment
The ideal practice environment sets the student up for success; it doesn’t work against the student. Is the room quiet, or does noise make it difficult for the student to focus and hear themselves? Is the piano in a relatively low-traffic area, or do waves of activity create a distraction? Are the student’s lesson materials organized and easy to use, or is accessing those materials a task in itself?
“The point is that if practice is to become important to the student and a regular part of [their] daily routine, then a suitable environment for it must be created and respected by the entire family. This indicates to the student that all members of the family respectfully support its importance.”
Remember that Children are Children
Children are still learning to recognize and regulate their emotions and behaviors. They need patience and guidance as they learn the self-regulatory skills necessary to direct their behavior toward a goal. Self-regulation includes a complex set of abilities developed gradually from infancy through middle-childhood (up to around age 12) (Ziv et al. 2017). For piano students, self-regulating includes planning practice, changing the plan if something isn’t working, and thinking about what went well and what didn’t. That’s a lot of work for a developing brain!
It’s expected that younger students will need a parent’s help with planning and following through with practicing, and it’s normal for kids to need a reminder to practice—even if they really love piano and excel in lessons! It’s also not uncommon for there to be both good days and bad days regarding attitudes and behaviors regarding practicing, even for top-notch students. Parents who understand this can be better prepared to handle challenging days, form realistic expectations, and exercise more patience with their child.
Deep Dive: Be Organized—But Provide Choice within the framework
As students mature, independent, self-motivated at-home practice is an important goal. Experts agree that autonomy plays a significant role in motivation (Gandhimathi & Anitha Devi, 2016). The meaning of autonomy is twofold. In an educational sense, it refers to students’ ability to guide their learning; in general, it can refer to independence or freedom. Though the two definitions of autonomy are often conflated, we can think of them as two unique components that work together. For students to be interested in their learning process (autonomy), they need to feel in control of their goals (through freedom and choice).
Who makes most of the choices in the context of piano lessons? Parents of younger students usually decide when practice happens; the teacher decides which practice techniques to use (or how) to practice; method books, even when supplemented with outside music, can largely dictate what is practiced. While it’s essential to keep a steady and organized practice routine, it’s equally important to allow students to make their own decisions. Some strategies for providing choice and facilitating independence include:
allowing the student to plan the order of tasks within their practice session
incorporating improvisation into every practice session
using tools that help students keep track of (meaningful, not mindless) repetition independently (see example below)
providing opportunities for the student to reflect on their progress
asking the student which practice assignment they feel needs the most focus
encouraging the student to keep track of questions that arise during practice
Use Iwako erasers to track repetition—each time the student plays the target passage correctly, move an eraser to the other side of the music stand.
In the next Perfect Practice installment, we’ll talk more about practice attitudes, how to deal with difficult practice days, and the do’s and don’ts of reward systems—do you really need to make a sticker chart? You might be surprised!
Sources
Gandhimathi, S., & Anitha Devi, V. (2016). Learner Autonomy and Motivation - A Literature Review. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 6(3). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234674899.pdf
Pearce, E., Sale, C., & Blickenstaff, M. (2014). The success factor in piano teaching: Making practice perfect. Kingston, NJ: The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy.
Ziv, Yair & Benita, Moti & Sofri, Inbar. (2017). Self-Regulation in Childhood: A Developmental Perspective