Practicing - Part 1

Rather than answer questions in some sort of chronological order of learning, I'm choosing to discuss topic by topic, as they occur to me.  For a lot of parents, practicing is the biggest challenge they have to overcome with their children while they take lessons.  I am sure this topic will come around again as the blog continues to grow.

A few points that I think are true for all students:

1.  Practicing is NOT fun.  

Okay, so it is fun for a percentage of professional musicians who find the pursuit of perfection in their craft incredibly rewarding.  Unless your eight year old really understands the benefits of delayed gratification, practicing is not fun for them.  I am sure you parents out there can recall an epic battle thrown over practicing, whether it be getting your child TO the piano to even begin, or arguing about a detail in the music.

So what's the point?  If it's not fun, why do it?  Well, math homework isn't fun either, but the child learns math, so they do it.  It is the same with practicing, except it is not just learning music.  By learning how to practice well, a student will learn how to find where a problem is, and using problem solving and critical thinking skills to find their way out of it.  There is something incredibly gratifying about discovering that they can do something they thought was going to be an impossible task.  As soon as they get the nitty-gritty-gross-practicing that they hate done, then more lessons can then be spent on talking about musicianship, which is incredibly fun and creative!

A few things parents should do to help at home (aside from knowing the details that were talked about in the lesson, which I will talk about in another blog post) include asking the child to "teach them".  Make sure they tell you in words, and not just show you.  Having them verbalize their ideas back to you will force their minds to work around what they don't understand, or hear why it sounds wrong, because in the mind of a five year old, they NEVER sound wrong!          

For older children who have need to repeat small sections and work on fixing small mistakes, I play a game in their lesson called "The Three Penny Game".  I keep three pennies on the right side of the piano.  When the student plays the passage correctly, they can move a penny to the left.  If they play it incorrectly after that, they have to move however many pennies they've earned back to the right.  The goal is to play the passage three times in a row correctly.  When I've done a quick and condensed version of this in the lesson, my own students are very insistent on earning all three pennies (or markers, or post it notes or whatever I have handy), and we all end up having a pretty good time.  It's very easy to recreate this "game" at home.  

2.  Practicing should sound bad.

If your child is sounding "good", or you continuously hear a whole piece (or large passage) being played over and over the exact same way, I almost guarantee they're doing it wrong.  Why?  See point 3.

3.  It is not about the quantity of practice, but the quality.

One of the stories that has been passed on to me by hearsay is a teacher who told their student that if they play the piece through 5 times, they will eventually learn the piece.  This is not actually practicing.  Those five times through could be littered with all sorts of inaccuracies, and playing through the piece five times incorrectly does nothing to fix it!  Even if your child's song is all of 8 bars long, quality practicing still matters!

I know I'm going to sound like an old lady when saying this, but kids have a lot more going on than I did when I was little.  As much as I would love for every child to practice every day, I know it is actually rather impossible.  Four days of really focused and excellent practicing can produce greater results than all seven days of going through the motions.  It is really more about how much the student is involving their whole head in the task of practicing, not how much the fingers are moving.

Rather than practicing something that makes them feel good about their abilities, the focus should be on things that the student has yet to master.  This is why point 2 is so important.  If you're not playing what you know, you are probably going to sound bad when you're learning it!  At the same time, they should be able to listen to themselves and see what element of their playing they are missing.  This is true of even beginning note readers.  A student should be able to hear how their playing is or is not matching what they hear in their heads as an ideal.  When it is not matching, then they can isolate what doesn't sound correct.

A few things my students hate to do, but have guaranteed good effects on their work include, but are not limited to:

1. The metronome. 

2. Counting out loud while they play.

3. Looking at the notes I've written out for them in their notebooks.

4. Playing hands separately on a piece that sounds really great hands together.

5. Practicing SLOWLY.  

6. Working in small sections

If your teacher has prescribed one or more of these things (or any variety of techniques that help tricky technical spots), please help enforce it at home!  Remember, it's not about WHAT your child has practiced, but HOW they practiced. 

4.  It will be frustrating.

It will be frustrating, and they will cry.  Naturally, one would never want to see their child feel frustrated or angry, or feel like they are failing, but it will happen.  It'll happen in life, it's really an inevitable truth that all musical mastery teaches early.  To make you feel better though, I get frustrated and angry in my own practicing too.  I tell the kids I teach to do the same thing I do.  Walk away, go do something else, and then come back.  If you don't feel like giving up your time at the piano just yet (which some persistent children don't!), work on something else.  You could take 20 minutes to go for a walk, read a book, listen to something...whatever!  You could take longer than that!  But the thing I stress is that they must come back eventually with a clear head.  Frustration gets you nowhere, and at that point, practicing is frenetic, rushed, and poor, which then leads to more frustration.  After cooling off, often times what they were struggling with will come together on its own just because they are more clear-headed.

Think about what your child has done during the day too.  If anyone is going to productively practice, it takes a lot of energy, and tires them out quickly.  Did they have a snack?  Are they well rested?  Is it the wrong hour of the day?  If you don't think you could be 100% focused at 9 PM in the evening after eating dinner, there is no way your child is ready to do their best practicing then either.

Note: Some kids just like to cry and make a fuss for dramatic effect.  Luckily, they also have parents who know when it is a copout.  A serious meltdown that needs "just walking away" to solve should not be a common occurrence.   

At the end of the day, practicing is not just for that one specific piece, for that one time recital.  It is about building a discipline.  Working hard, and fully committing your head to the task will always produce results, no matter how rough the road was in between, and that is a far bigger lesson than just music. 

Of course, I have touched on a number of other points that can be elaborated on in here too, but hey, it is only my first real blog post.  Stay tuned!