Dealing with Practice Difficulty
When a child studies a musical instrument, a team is formed involving the child, the teacher and the parent(s). Let’s look at their roles…
It’s useful to consider the Student as essentially blameless — especially if the student is a child. He/she came from relative innocence and ignorance and almost always starts with an innate love of music and an earnest desire to succeed as a musician. Not long ago, children learned to walk and to talk — extremely difficult undertakings! Their lives are typically tightly controlled, from the moment they wake up until bedtime. Parents are responsible for almost all aspects of development from birth to about age 14, at which point, children begin to assume responsibility for their actions and development. So, below age 14, it makes little sense to blame the child if he or she isn’t practicing. Something important is missing; something the parent should provide.
The teacher‘s responsibility is largely limited to the one hour while the student is in the lesson. The teacher’s job is to set a program of study for the student and to be sure the student is fully prepared for the next week of study, including all of the following
- Music Books
- Hard-copy printouts of any additional music supplied by the teacher or the school.
- A list of Assignments, (usually the next page in the Assignment Book) typically referencing the Music Books. The Assignment book also lists recommended materials that the student should acquire (e.g., more books, replacement strings, etc.) Also, specific notes remind the student to work on postural issues (e.g., to hold the instrument higher or curve fingers) or music to listen to.
Of course, the teacher is also responsible to motivate and hopefully inspire the student.
We try to motivate students in a variety of ways. We work to build the student’s appreciation of all types of music. We discuss technical details of music and performance to reduce the frustration associated with the difficulty. We look for signs of disappointment or discouragement and try to isolate the specific technical reason for the malaise. This is often as simple as attempting to play a piece too fast or trying to immediately fix something that requires time, practice, patience and thought. Frequently, the student needs to be told that every violin/viola player has wrestled with that same issue.
We believe in rewarding good performance whenever it’s deserved. We arrange recitals to give the student a goal to work toward.
The rest of the week, it falls to The Parent to guide the child. That might seem unfair — 168 hours in a week and the teacher is only responsible for one?!?! Let’s look at that…
Most children sleep more than a third of the day. School easily takes up another third. Add homework, meals, recreation and it becomes difficult to find 30 minutes a day for music study.
By the way. As with a college course, the ratio of time spent practicing to time spent in-lesson should be about 3:1 or 4:1. Our experience is that lessons shorter than one hour are a mad scramble. So the student should be practicing 3-4 hours/week, not including lessons. Assuming you don’t practice on lesson days, that’s an average of 30-40 minutes a day.
How to Create a Productive Practice Environment
- Set aside a time, with a beginning and an end. After dinner and homework, before watching TV, for example. Don’t make it a daily battle; make it part of the family’s routine, like washing dishes.
- NO distractions. TVs and radios off; phone conversations in a different room. This is cricitally important!
- Keep a log — maybe on the refrigerator. Some students use colored stars: gold for a successful practice session. No star indicates a missed session, which can be added later. A red star means practice was not possible: a family trip; relatives visiting; sick. Before the lesson, review the week’s practice log. You’re welcome to bring the log to the lesson and discuss it briefly with the teacher.
- Listen to your child practice. Even if you know absolutely nothing about music, you can still tell if they are being productive. Silence is usually suspicious. If something sounds wrong, ask the child about it. Try standing next to your child and watching what they do — let them explain the challenge. You don’t need to be able to do it yourself, just understand their struggle and praise them if they make even slight progress. NEVER CRITICIZE! Give them space if they ask for it; many kids practice with the door closed. Always be supportive — this is very, very hard work. Reward success!
- If your child becomes emotional, consider ending the practice session early. This is neither punishment nor reward and what follows must be neither punishment nor reward. Somewhere in there, your child still wants to succeed. Let the steam blow off — DON’T ENGAGE; this is likely an internal struggle. Keep calm. You may need to lower your own expectations. Tell the child you admire their effort and success so far. Even if you are met with a frown, your praise is candy-coated gold!
- After the first half-year or so, lessons typically consist of 5 subjects. Your child will do best to visit each subject every day. It’s easy for them to get stuck on one difficult subject, and then become frustrated. It’s even easier to skip a subject they dread. Learn what these subjects are and how to recognize them. If you hear your child skipping a subject or getting stuck on one subject, let them know and urge them to move on. The subjects are:
Scales (and arpeggios): If you don’t know what a scale or an arpeggio is, have your child explain it to you. This is very simple, elementary music; the goal is to play perfectly. Typical scale books: Flesch, Hrimaly/Mogill
Double Stops: Recognizable because most of the time, they are playing more than one note at a time. Typical double-stops books: Trott
Positions: You probably have to watch your child. In position work, the left hand slides up and down the neck of the violin/viola. Typical positions books: Whistler
Etudes (“studies”): these short pieces are musically less interesting and likely sound bad (especially at the beginning of the week) because they emphasize particular difficulties with playing the instrument. Typical Etude books : Wohlfahrt — Kayser — Mazas — Kreutzer — Dont — Dancla (the list is long and ends with Paganini)
Repertoire: These are “real” musical pieces which typically bring the other 4 disciplines together. Examples: Suzuki, Bach, Vivaldi, Bruch — (this list is definitely endless!)