Practice Tips: Young Beginners
I love teaching young students who are new to learning an instrument. The joy that comes from making music independently or together is so fun to be a part of. Students quickly pick up a load of skills in their first year of piano lessons - learning finger numbers, proper hand shape and posture, and learning to recognize key notes and intervals. In the second and third years, music becomes more complex, requiring new coordination and more note recognition, as well as learning to make music expressive.
In the first year or so, students often come to their lesson without practice and still progress because the material is short and simple. But without developing effective practice habits, they stall and become frustrated. As a piano teacher, I’m always trying to find a balance between motivating the student with pieces they enjoy, giving encouragement and grace for hard weeks, and requiring them to continue to make progress by practicing at home.
Being successful at learning the piano is a 3 (or 4) person effort:
It’s a teacher’s responsibility to teach students not only how to play the piano, but how to practice.
It’s the student’s responsibility to practice properly and learn assigned material.
It’s the parent’s responsibility to support the student and ensures that he or she practices.
Just to be clear: I’m not suggesting that students wait to develop a practice regimen until year 2. This hump is less pronounced for kids who have established a really good practice regimen.
Here are some suggestions to parents to help make their student’s practice work!
Be supportive, interested and encouraging to your child. Ask them to play for you what they’re working on!
Make sure they have the equipment they need - a well-tuned piano, bench at the right height. A music light if needed.
Ensure the environment is conducive to practice. Eliminate distractions such as television, loud talking, etc.
When your child becomes frustrated, remind them that music is a long-term process and ups and downs are normal. Kids each have their own pace for learning.
Establish a consistent practice time each day and stick with it. For some kids, this may be before school.
Don’t criticize, belittle, or despair for temporary lapses in practice. Your child will still make progress at their lessons, even if a bit more slowly for a time.
Don’t threaten to stop your child’s lessons if they don’t practice. This can backfire during periods of “growing pains,” when the material is challenging and the student doesn’t want to push through the struggle.
Participate in practice challenges that your student’s teacher assigns (I’m doing one for February! Your student should have come home with a practice sheet).
Encourage your student to practice immediately after or the first day after a lesson. Their retention from the lesson will be much higher and will help them to practice the right things.
In lessons, I teach students how to practice by telling them, showing them, and then we actually practice the music together. At home, getting started is the hardest part so I map it out this way to make it as easy as possible. A goal of 20 minutes per day, 4-5 days a week is a great goal for beginners (past the primer stage). 20 minutes 4 times per week is much more effective than an hour the day before a lesson. I break it down this way:
-Technique and/or Theory (I don’t often assign both in the same week)
-Current Repertoire (individualized practice notes are written in their lesson book and/or in the margins)
-Old Pieces to review (play their favorites for 5 or 10 minutes!)
-Sightreading (If you have the Piano Safari cards, encourage your student to do one per day, playing 3 times with no mistakes. If you don’t have sightreading cards, they can always look ahead in their book. Contact me if more is needed).
I tell students they don’t have to do all of it EVERY SINGLE DAY; there’s room for variability to keep things interesting. Mix and match what you practice until your timer goes off.
If your student needs help practicing, sit with them and have them play their piece for you. Identify the spot(s) where they are having trouble and see if they can play that one or two measures for you 3 times with no mistakes. Then have them play in context again, either from the beginning of the piece or beginning of the musical phrase.
Hope you find this helpful in supporting your beginners student. Have you found additional helpful things with your child? If so, leave them in the comments below!