GETTING YOUR CHILD TO PRACTICE

Your child has chosen an instrument and anticipates playing it day and night. You’ve found the best teacher around with a slot for your budding Mozart or Miles Davis. However, the biggest challenge is yet to come—getting your child to channel that energy into her daily practice. Your encouragement, persuasion, and guidance will most likely be needed at times to get your child to practice. “Repetition” is the French word for practice or rehearsal: good practice by nature should involve lots of repetition. In the long run, hard work and effort are as important as talent for kids who excel in music.

• Most kids have a universal opinion about practice: they don’t like to do it. Not only do you have to contend with daily practice, but you also have to help your child get through the boring parts of mastering the basics. Once she reaches a level of proficiency, she can start playing music that interests her most.

• You may be lucky and have a child who loves music and practices on her own initiative. However, you’ll likely find yourself with a resistant student at some point along the line. There are bound to be dull, tedious moments for your child, but her persistence will be tied to her passion for her instrument.

• In the early stages, you should be in the room with the child during at-home practice periods to offer encouragement and praise (“That was really good! Would you play it again for me?”).

• Schedule practice time for your child on the calendar just as you would soccer practice.

• Make sure that your child’s practice sessions are as free as possible from distractions.

CREATING THE IDEAL PRACTICE ENVIRONMENT

• Help encourage practice by creating a quiet, well-lit setting. Hopefully, this will facilitate the concentration your child needs. In particular, make it a space free of siblings, TV, and other distractions.

• Determine whether your child likes to practice in her room, alone, or where you or the rest of the family can hear her. If your child craves privacy while she practices, make sure she has adequate space in her room. Set up a little “nook” with appropriate lighting and a music stand.

• If your child enjoys you listening to her while she practices, create a space for her in your living room or study so you can be present without the added distractions of a common living area (i.e. television, noisy siblings).

• If your child relies on you for motivation, play an active role in structuring practice sessions and rewarding effort.

• If your child is self-motivated, provide encouragement by praising her progress.

• Refer to practice time as “playing time.” Your child will respond better to music if it does not seem like work. Making practice a game is much more appealing.

• Positive reinforcement helps most in your child’s progress. Try awarding points for every part of a piece she masters. Encourage other family members to applaud your child’s efforts.

• Don’t hover over your child or give her constructive criticism—let your child’s teacher correct problems. Also, don’t make judgments about the musical quality of your child’s practicing. Listen and show enthusiasm for her efforts and achievements. Learning an instrument requires lots of squeaks, scratches, and incorrect notes.

• Explain to your child that learning often happens in stages. Your child may be working on her music for what seems like a long time with no apparent improvement, and then will suddenly make a breakthrough. Reassure your child that sticking with it and practicing during these learning lulls will pay off.

SCHEDULING THE TIME

• Find a regularly scheduled time for practice during your child’s preferred time of day. Pick a practice time that also coincides with your child’s peak hours. Some children are at their best right after school, while some do best in the evening when they’re relaxed, but not tired.

• Some children prefer to work continuously until a practice session is completed. Others prefer to take breaks. The goal is to have focused practice time. Figure out which works best for your child. If your child can concentrate better for ten minutes at a time, that’s the best schedule for her.

MAKING PRACTICE FUN

• Keep in mind that practice is not naturally a childlike activity. Children love to play instruments, not practice them. Acknowledge up front that practice and lessons will not always be fun or enjoyable for your child.

• Practice can be very tedious. Feel free to encourage your child to play silly games to make it more bearable. For instance, if she’s decided to play one passage four times, have her play it once normally, then once standing on one leg, then once looking out of the window, and once with her eyes shut. Encourage experimentation.

• Throw an informal “jam session” where children can get together for treats and games that involve playing the instrument they are studying.

IMPROVING TECHNICAL ASPECTS AND MEASURING PROGRESS

• When your child finds a place in a musical piece that always goes wrong, have her decide which notes are at the heart of the problem. Encourage your child to work on the difficult bits separately over and over before playing the whole piece through.

• A half-hour practice routine might go like this: warm-up for a few minutes, play a fun, familiar piece for a few minutes, work on a new or difficult piece for a few minutes longer than that, work on scales or arpeggios for another few minutes, and end with something fun.

• Point out to your child that while playing familiar songs may be more fun or comfortable, playing nothing else will not help her improve.

• However boring and pointless they may seem, scales are crucial to your child’s learning. Nothing else gets a student’s fingers into such good shape, and helps a student to practice patterns of notes that will occur over and over again in all sorts of musical pieces. Once she knows her scales, your child will be glad she spent all that time perfecting them.

• Both you and your child need to be patient with her playing. Everybody makes mistakes, and many of us make the same ones over and over. Remember that those mistakes are a large part of your child’s growth experience.

• Have your child set realistic goals. Be wary if she says, “I’m going to play this whole piece with no mistakes at all,” and encourage something more like, “I’ll play the third line four times over, and then I’ll stop even if there are still mistakes.” It’s a good idea to record the problem areas in a notebook so she can remember them for the next day’s practice.

• Give your child a gold star on the days she’s practiced her scales for you or learned a new segment of a piece. This way, not only is she reminded that she needs to practice, but she can also see how her work is paying off.

• Help your young musician set practice goals. Keeping a journal, not just a practice chart, helps track the peaks and valleys of learning a new piece or improving fundamental skills.

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