How were you taught to learn something new, or to fix a mistake when you were a piano student? Your answer is likely “Drill it. Over and over and over and over.” Do you still force yourself to sit down and play the same thing repeatedly until it is right?
If so, then you’ll want to listen to this podcast. It will likely change the way you approach piano practice forever.
Dr. Christine Carter and A Look At Our Brain
I was surfing the internet recently and came across an article that caught my eye titled “Why The Progress You Make In the Practice Room Seems To Disappear Overnight”. This article introduced research done by Dr. Christine Carter; research that shows that the way in which we choose to practice has a significant impact on progress and retention. Intrigued at the implications this could have both for myself and for my students, I went right to the source. Dr. Carter is here on the TeachPianoToday podcast to share her insights and research on:
- What the Contextual Interference Effect means to our piano students
- What a truly effective practice session looks like
- How to structure a piano lesson to fully engage our students’ brains
- Why drill may not be the best way to learn/fix a tricky passage
- How piano teachers can use brain research to improve their students’ learning
- Blocked practice vs. random practice and which is preferable
- … and much, much more!
Teach Piano Kids How to Practice
Teaching our students how to effectively practice is as important as is anything we teach them during lesson time. But if we’re not teaching them to practice effectively, then we are potentially wasting that precious practice time they eek out each week at home. We all want our piano kids to progress in the most efficient way possible. Scroll to the bottom of this post to listen in on how it’s done!
The 88 activities in our Shhh…Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice book were designed to encourage truly effective ways of practicing at home, unsupervised by a teacher. The activities are all reproducible forever within your own studio – so you can simply send home a fun activity with your student and know that good practice habits are being made! Many of the activities include strategies that are exactly as described by Dr. Carter. Check it out here.
Listen To The Podcast
To listen, click “Play in new window” below or visit our page on iTunes.
