Your new piano student arrives for the first time like a ball of passionate energy. Big smiles and keen interest give all indications that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship! And then the second lesson arrives…
Everything you introduced in the first lesson is forgotten, homework sheets have been ignored, and your new student struggles with the simplest concepts. You encourage your new student to practice every day and hope for the best next week.
But nothing changes, and here’s why…
Piano is unique to almost any after-school activity because students must take it upon themselves to actually practice. Soccer, baseball, dance, and even art classes include practice time as part of the schedule. Kids aren’t required to practice soccer by themselves at home… it is simply a given that they attend a practice several times a week. If piano students were required to attend a practice session even just twice a week with their teacher, most of our practice woes would be behind us!
But this is simply not an option for most piano teachers and their students. And so, students are left to their own devices to not only learn how to practice but also learn how to commit to practice.
This is not an easy task. Learning to commit to daily piano practice is no different than developing any other positive habit. And for anyone who has ever decided to start running… flossing… or eating more green vegetables, they know that forming a new habit is not an easy task.
So instead of getting frustrated with new piano students who don’t practice, we instead need to help them develop a new habit for piano practice… and this takes time.
21 Days To Consistent Piano Practice
There is a misconception that creating a positive habit or kicking a bad habit takes 21 days. In truth, it may take more, it may take less… but we think 21 straight days of piano practice for a brand new student is a pretty good start.
To kick off this habit-building exercise with a new student, invite the parent in to the last 10 minutes of the very first piano lesson. During this time you’ll want to do the following to help encourage the Piano Practice Habit:
1. Explain the importance of daily practice.
2. Have them commit to a consistent daily routine (before school, after dinner… it doesn’t really matter when, but it is paramount that practice happens at the same time each and every day for the next 21 days.)
3. Encourage them to practice for just 5 minutes a day for the first week, and then 7 minutes for the second week, and 10 minutes for the third week. At this point, it is important to make building the habit the priority and not practice quantity.
4. At the end of your practice chat, send your new student home with a practice log that must be initialed daily by her mom or dad. Be sure to have a weekly reward for each full week of practice.
5. After the second piano lesson with your new student, invite her mom or dad in for the last 5 minutes. Use this time to simply check in with how the daily practice is making out and reinforce the importance of piano practice.
6. Repeat Step 5 after the third lesson. At this point, a new habit is probably well on its way to being formed, and you and your new student are off to the races!
What To Do After 21 Days?
If you want to keep the motivational ball rolling consider introducing your piano students to our practice resource, Shhhh… Your Piano Teacher Thinks This Is Practice. This fantastic book provides an additional 88 home practice activities that are absolutely, positively, most definitely, NOT BORING!
Milla Gotlib says
Thank you for the great suggestion! I”m going to implement it and remember a reward for a completion of a weekly practice log. I”m already using assignment journals with the practice logs in them, but what do you do with a teenager who only reports 10 min. of daily practice 4 days this week? At least they are being honest!
Eleanor Baldwin says
What kind of reward do you suggest? Van Cliburn’s mother used cookies but today’s kids have more allergies than we ever had and obesity would trade one problem for another.
Speaking of allergies, what do most teachers do for food at recital time? One Asian teacher in Irvine serves
sushi that the mothers make and bring. Charming and resourceful but not me. Any suggestions?
Eleanor
Cheri says
I used to fix refreshments for my piano recitals. However, 2 years ago I began sharing a recital with another teacher who suggested having the parents bring the goodies. What a great idea! Can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. So much less stress, and if students have specific dietary needs, their parents can bring what they are allowed to eat.
Sandra says
Hi Eleanor, yes I’ve organized successful potluck sessions after recitals and they work very well! Great conversation starter to break ice amongst parents too.
Lucia says
It’s a great idea! I’ve already started to use your book ‘Shhhhh….. your piano student rings this is a practise’. I’m just wondering what to do if they don’t do it, the practise chart? Because I’m teaching at school during the lunch break, I don’t meet the parents. I’m emailing them what to practise and how the lesson went, but some of them doesn’t seem to be bothered to even check their emails…or it doesn’t seem like. I don’t want to push hard as somehow I’m scared that I will loose some students but on the other side I want my student to progress and not in the end parents will tell me that their child is learning piano for 2 years and can’t play nothing. So I guess I should start being more strict and straight about practise time.
Thank you so much for the article.
Sully says
Great post! One of the things I do is have the students use a practice log signed by the parents, and if I see at a lesson that they have done 5x 20 minute practices that week they get a jellybean at the end of the lesson. Also, for each practice they do they receive one “progress point”. Their progress points are tallied up and put onto a big chart. 25 progress points equals a minor prize, and 50 equals a major prize. They can access the points chart on their very own piano lessons website. By then, they are fully enthusiastic about their practice and the practice woes disappear! I think the practice log is a great tool, great suggestion guys! Thanks for blogging.
Leslie says
I love your incentive plan! Can you tell me how your minimum minutes of practice constitute “one practice”? (for which the student receives one progress point?) Or does the minimum time requirement depend on the student? I’m so going to do this for my kids! I’ve been trying to think of a solution to make practicing more exciting and less of a chore for my students. Thanks for the idea!
Leslie says
Just re-reading my comment and my question seems unclear. What I meant was “How many minutes must a student practice for one session to earn one progress point?” Also, what kinds of prizes do you offer?
Rebecka Dimov says
Great ideas! Practice is extremely important! I also print out a monthly calendar page for the students to mark each day they practice. If they practice at least 5 days before I come back, they get a sticker on their calendar. If they have 4 stickers in the month, they get a prize from the “goodie” bag. Prizes are small like rubber balls, bracelets, or even two pieces of bubble gum! If students don’t practice 5 times, they don’t receive a sticker. They learn quickly.
Jan Curtis says
I always tell the student and parent that each piece of music is to be played at least five times in a row each day. This does not require a long time commitment at first. As the difficulty of the pieces increases, so does the time spent practicing. I have found that the kids enjoy making the tally marks in their book to show how much they have practiced.
Nancy says
does anyone have practice logs for beginning students they can share?
Something very simple without a lot of sheets of paper to shuffle. I am looking for something for a month.
For rewards for having the log signed every week:
October – put halloween stickers on a foam pumpkin
November – put feathers on a turkey
December – put craft balls on a christmas tree
Alice says
I have a parents who don’t have their act together to check and sign practice logs. They may be able to reconstruct practice on the day of the lesson–but, several kids live in two households, and one parent doesn’t know what the child did in the other household. This makes it hard to use practice logs. Then again, there are some students who are so motivated by this that they keep track in detail.
Janice says
The practice log is a good idea – if students are honest about their minutes recorded. I can usually tell if the student has practiced as much as the log reveals, but it is hard for me to tell a student that I sense his recorded minutes are untruthful. And, many parents do not check on whether or not their student has actually put in the required practice time, and they will sign anything. How can this situation be improved?
Susan says
Practice is such a quandary. Most children’s schedules are so full with afterschool programs, Sports, dance, shopping trips with mom, and even after school daycare. I wonder how they fit piano into the schedules. Most of the time children don’t have control over their schedules.
Active parenting is mandatory in my studio for forward movement.
Parents who bench sit in my studio for the little ones, thrive! We work as a team at the piano, from the beginning. I like the 21 day, I would like to call it “the 21 day challenge”. I would like to use this as a motivational tool for students already in a rut, saving piano practice as the last thing to do, or not to do, in their day. I understand Janice’s thoughts about practice logs. This question of how can the situation be improved, really needs to be individualized student by student. Simply because each household is so different, each child is nurtured differently. My teaching style becomes very holistic because of the above. Each child is a recipe that I am writing. It is a never ending Journey for a master teacher to decide what to keep, what to fix, and what to remove.