Effective Practising
So, you’ve decided to enrol your kiddo in piano lessons. Great! Amazing! You’re giving them a gift that will keep giving throughout their life. Good for you!
Of course, you want to make sure that you are getting value for your money. You want to know that they are progressing. I mean, what is happening in those piano lessons, anyway? Seems like they’re having a good time, but how do you know if it’s worth the money? Private lessons aren’t cheap.
One way you can ensure that your student is getting the most out of lessons is to support effective practising at home. If you’re not a musician, you may not know what this looks like. As a piano teacher, I strive to equip my students with the tools they need to be effective at practising on their own. Youngest students will need some support from an adult at home, but even young students are capable of doing a lot on their own. Here are some tips that I’ve developed over the years to guide home practice.
Consistency. I find that picking a time that will work consistently helps a great deal. Many of my students make 15-20 minutes in the morning before school work for them. Others choose right after school, or after supper. Making practising part of a routine helps make it something that is expected and normal in your child's day. 10 minutes a day, 3 times a week is much more effective than 1 hour, once a week.
Utilise the lesson notes! Hopefully your teacher writes some notes about what the homework is and what has been tackled during lesson time (I certainly do!) To encourage students to refer to these notes, I make tick boxes for them to mark off after each practice. Referring to these notes is a HUGE support for at home practice. When I see that those boxes haven’t been marked off, even though I’m pretty sure there has been practice happening, I’ll later discover one or more things. First, it’s possible that the wrong pieces have been practised because our memory is unreliable. Also likely, the practice strategies and/or errors I wrote down were not heeded, thus progress is stifled and we are bound to have to go over the same things again. Students who consistently disregard their practice notes have proven to be less likely to thrive in lessons over time. In my experience, they’re not getting the most bang for their buck.
Effective Practising. Someone who practises effectively doesn’t simply play the song through a few times and call it quits. They hone in on the spots that are difficult and work through those. However, novice players don’t know how to do this and need explicit guidance. Here are a few practice tips that I consistently impart to my students with excellent results:
Colour Practice: I highlight the trouble spots with different colour highlighters and create a “puzzle” for them to work through by rearranging the colours. This method makes repetition a little more fun by mixing the order up. As well, it encourages starting mid-phrase (a phrase is a musical sentence) and forces the player to rely on reading the music instead of muscle memory or playing by ear. There are lots of ways to use this to support practice - and it makes the page more inviting with fun colours!
Swap-the-spot: This can be used in many ways. The simplest is to switch the octave (how high or low, but on the same letter names) you play every 4 bars. You can make it more or less challenging by switching every 2 bars, or every 8. The easiest is to just play the entire song in a different location (high, middle or low) This supports the student in quickly finding the keys they need to be positioned on over and over again. The simple act of shifting the body to be in front of the higher keys, or the lower keys, seems to reset the mind and force a more direct focus. Hearing the same tune higher/lower than we’re used to jogs the brain and helps the student hear the song in a new way. Think of it like looking at an object from different angles.
One hand at a time: this may seem extremely basic, but I’m always surprised at how often I suggest it and the student has forgotten that’s an option! Even if you are able to play hands together, it is still always a great idea to play hands separately some of the time. This gives the eyes, ears, brain and body an opportunity to really focus on one hand, with fewer distractions.
Tick-Tock: use a metronome. You can find a basic one by googling “Metronome” that will work just fine. By setting a steady beat for the student to play with, it illuminates the areas where there are pauses due to tricky passages and/or tempo (speed) irregularities. However, playing with a metronome is a skill that has to be learned as well! Many students will need some support working up to it. I often make a recording of myself playing with a metronome for students to use as a stop-gap until they can readily match the beat on their own. They can either play along with the recording with one or both hands, use a drum/clap their hands along to the beat in the recording, or a combination of the two. If students are still struggling to find the beat, swaying back and forth from left to right foot, or passing a ball between hands on the beat can be good strategies for helping them find it.
The best strategy for ensuring effective practising at home, is to stay in touch with your piano teacher and stay engaged with your child. Teachers really want their students to succeed! It is both more satisfying to teach, and it’s good for business. Happy practising!