Trying to find better ways to get your music students to practice more?
My last blog, “Are We Stressing Out Today’s Kids With So Many After-School Activities” generated a lot of great discussion and comments. I want to expand on this discussion with some tips I have used and also learned from a lot of the comments received.
Many readers mentioned that we are in a sense “competing” with sports, dance, art, etc. A colleague of mine made a great point: she said that kids show up to sports practice or ballet and do the work there. They are usually not expected to go home and work more (unless they are going to be Olympic athletes). So there’s this expectation that students will learn whatever they need during their music lesson and not need to put extra time in at home. This is reinforced at home because as music programs get taken out of schools, less people are exposed to performance programs, and do not know what is involved with creating music.
What can we do to get our students to practice more?
Here’s some ideas that I have used or have heard other well-known teachers implement. Some of these ideas will take time, but are worth it in the long run…
- Get to know each of your students. This is a tall order, but showing interest in your students’ lives builds trust. When you bring the conversation outside of music, it shows you are interested in more than one aspect of who they are. It shows you are about them as people. This can be as simple as noticing and talking about a special sticker on a student’s folder to complementing them on an accomplishment in another subject or sport.
- A great tip I heard from a colleague (Mickey F.) was this: He tells his students making mistakes is fine, but make NEW mistakes! He doesn’t want to hear the same OLD mistakes over and over. To reinforce this, he uses different colored pencils to show them that they made an old mistake and he doesn’t want to hear that mistake again.
- If the student keeps coming up with the excuse that they don’t have time, and they are of elementary school age, I wouldn’t hesitate to contact the parent via email or phone to find out more about the situation. I would explain that their child is falling behind in their learning and try to come up with a practice plan with that parent.
- When you get to the upper middle or high school level, contacting the parents will not be as effective. Using groups or teamwork for the upper grades can be helpful. Some teachers have had “competitions” amongst the sections in their ensemble to see who has been able to perform specific examples or pieces the most accurately or the quickest. Think of having prizes, possibly an end of the party during a group’s lesson time.
- When I teach my beginners, I know the main reason they took an instrument was to learn to play songs. I use concepts from the well-researched Music Learning Theory to teach students how to play songs by ear while they are learning playing technique. I have seen some amazing results from this, and it is very rare when I have a student drop Band during this time. I keep it simple, and introduce small achievable steps in each lesson.
- Many teachers use external reward systems with a lot of success, whether it’s stickers, prizes or earning sheet music to popular songs for the student’s particular instrument.
- Lastly, educate the parents. As stated above, with each generation, less and less people are getting exposed to the joy of performing music, and do not understand the effort involved in mastering a piece of music. Meet with parents on Open School Night, hold a special meeting for parents during Band/Orchestra Recruitment Time, or create a monthly newsletter that keeps parents up to date on the events in your program. (I use monthly newsletters to keep parents informed and to outline what pieces we are working on, exercises to be accomplished, and I place a practice log so students can write in their practice minutes.)
Action Steps:
- Do any of these ideas resonate with you? Tell me about it in the comments below.
- Looking for a teacher for your beginning music student? I offer Skype lessons, and a new Online Video Package with lessons that can be completed on your own time frame. Here are the links: Skype Lessons: Skype Lessons Online Video Lessons: Online Learning
- Sign up for my site and get the Free video, Three Tips to Fatten Up Your Saxophone Tone. Just click in the box below.
Great blog. I appreciate knowing which tips you use and like and then also learning what others do. Regarding competition, I think the best is to compete with yourself, driving for self improvement.
Thanks Robert – and I appreciate all your great tips and knowledge! It took me years to realize that I should be competing with myself and not others. Excellent advice, especially for youngsters….
Donna Schwartz
Have you any advice on forming choirs in a musical therapy program? We are organizing choirs at Senior Centers as a means to attempt to isolate and or determine if any of these people have an early stage of AD. This is a new approach that I am promoting as a means of early recognition. Seems that seniors and family members do not recognize the signs of this dreadful disease and our crew will be in a better position to make assessments outside of the doctors office and to advise family members. With the lack of any pre-screening we must try something, anything, to make an effort to diagnose early. We will employ professionals who are music connected.
That’s a fantastic idea Norman! May I suggest, if you haven’t already, join some of the Music Educators and Choral Groups on Linked In. There, you will have access to many professionals who can not only give you advice, but others may be doing something similar. Good luck to you!
Great tips! This is definitely a tough subject. Kids are distracted these days more than ever and practicing always seems to come last. (Great segue from your last post about too many after-school activities.)
#7 is great and obviously much easier fro private instructors, like myself, than school educators. #2 – didn’t even think about using different colored pencils. brilliant!
#1 seems to work the best for me and my students. I always spend a couple minutes at the beginning while they’re setting up to ask what’s new in their life, how school’s going, what hobby they’re working on…anything BUT music. I try to find ways to make them laugh throughout the lesson and enjoy being there. Overall, just continuing to encourage them and let them enjoy their instrument and the music they create.
Constant encouragement and having fun is a great tip – thanks Ryan for commenting!
Great tips and I really think educating the parents on what is expected and spend time addressing ways to help practicing are key. I have a blog about this topic on http://www.healthyandconfidentsinging.blogspot.com which I also print out and give to all of my new students.
Thanks Susan! I would like to check out your blog, but the link sent me to “blog not found”. Could you resend?
Actually What I am doing that I join to every lesson and I learn how to read and play technics. I don’t play but at least I can correct him when he run in to any problem in practising. I also record the plays with mobile phone and show him his mistakes and share it sometimes with the teacher to make a discussion about solutions.
Hi Ismail, it sounds like you are a music parent. Recording practice is a terrific idea! Thanks for sharing.
This tips are very useful and effective, I believe that every music coach should try and interact with their student outside the music piece. It’s a great day
Students are people too, and they need to know we care about them. Thank you Edim!