Practice Tips - How To Turn a Dreaded Task into Joyful Music Making

I remember my elaborate schemes for pretending I had gotten my practicing done, back when I was in middle school. My parents often went for an evening walk after dinner, and I was supposed to practice piano while they were out (or walk with them, and who wants to go for a walk with their parents around the neighborhood when you’re thirteen?). So I would set out my books, and start warming up, and watch out of the front window, and as soon as they turned the corner of our street, I was off that piano bench faster than you could say Beethoven. Usually the TV flipped on, or I would go read, or maybe even call a friend. I knew I had about a 40-minute window before they would be back, and as soon as I knew the time was approaching, I hopped back onto the bench and pretending to be deeply immersed in some difficult passage, muttering an offhanded “hi” as they entered the house. “How’s it going?” my dad would ask. “Fine, I’m almost done,” I would say.

Obviously this was hurting no one except me, even though I thought I was being so clever. When I was much younger, my dad would sit and practice with me, and we had all sorts of fun games to play at the piano to help get our tasks done. We had a set of index cards that were labeled with different activities to choose from, and I liked having a variety of options. But as I got older, I wanted more autonomy, and didn’t appreciate being told HOW to practice or WHAT to practice and pretty soon I was resenting being told to practice at all.

How can families avoid these pitfalls? With my own kids, I started them on instruments very young - age 3-5. It’s true that a lot of time in the early years is spent encouraging them to stay on the bench, or learning to hold their instrument properly (in the case of strings), but my philosophy is to create an environment where playing an instrument has always been a part of their life. We had their music CDs playing in the car every time we went someplace. We all walked around humming the Twinkle Variations ad nauseam. It was a family affair.

Finding a regular, routine time to play the piano is absolutely vital to your child’s success. In the case of my 4-year-old son (the only one of my kids playing piano, so far), we have piano time every day, at the same time. I don’t even call it practice. We do it in the morning, when he’s fresh, right after breakfast, before school, and as a reward for playing piano I give him stickers (extras if he has a good attitude) and he gets to play on the computer after his piano time is finished. This is what has worked for us - obviously schedules differ greatly, but the point is that we have a routine and we stick to it, and there’s no argument involved. He knows it’s piano time and we just do it.

It doesn’t have to be for a long time, either! Young children have a limited attention span. 10-20 minutes per day is fine. Consistency is the most important piece of the puzzle - for children to gain the muscle memory needed to feel comfortable playing the piano, they need daily piano practice. As parents, it is our job to create a learning environment at home for them to be successful with their practicing, so they can ultimately feel good about their skill as a musician.

My 4-year-old now regularly climbs up on the bench and plays his pieces, unprompted by me, and proudly boasts "I played it all by myself! Did you hear it, Mom? I did it!”

Music to my ears.