Have you ever taught a piano student with a “busy brain”? I have.
She was a fidgety student, but it wasn’t just her body that was in motion. Her brain was in constant motion too (and this meant that her mouth was also in motion). She was eager to learn, but her lack of focus got in the way of her progress.
When I decided to employ the four strategies below, everything changed… for the better.
Teaching Piano Students How To Focus
Many piano students who appear to have behavioural issues are likely children who simply haven’t been taught how to focus. There are, of course, students with diagnosed (or undiagnosed) disorders like ADD and ADHD but then there are others who just need more guidance when it comes to managing their own learning. Today I’m sharing four tools I use with students who have the ability to focus, but do not yet have the necessary strategies to do so predictably…
1. Body Check – Before beginning an important task during a piano lesson, teach your students to do a “Body Check”. A Body Check is a verbal assessment of what their body should be doing when it is time to focus. For example “My hands are in my lap, my words are put away, my legs are still and my eyes are on you.”
The above Body Check became a bit of a mantra for my student mentioned at the beginning of the post. Just this quick moment of awareness was often all that was needed so that her brain could focus on the piano lesson.
2. Self-Assess Distractions – An important part of teaching students to focus is to have them self-identify what is causing their distraction. Asking “What is it that is distracting you right now?” is a great way to bring awareness to the fact that they are a) distracted in the first place, and b) affected by their environment.
Some children are stimulated by noise, temperature, light, sounds, and smells more than others. If they are taught to stop and identify what is causing their distraction, then a lot of frustration can be eliminated for both the students and the teacher.
3. Visual Timers – When you need your student to focus for an extended amount of time (keeping in mind that a child’s attention span is equal to their age plus 2-3 minutes) it really helps to have a visual timer. This could be a typical hour-glass filled with sand, a countdown clock, dimmed lights, or anything that is easily identified as being an indicator of required focus.
For example, if you would like your student to play through his piece from start to finish without interruptions or distraction you would first dim the lights to signal a time of uninterrupted focus. When the task is completed, the visual timer is removed (lights are brightened again etc.)
4. Practice Concentrating – Turning concentration practice into a game is a great way to teach your students how to focus on one thing at a time. With my student, we practiced concentrating on what I was saying as I gave her verbal directions. She knew that our secret concentration word “fascinating” would sneak into what I was saying. When she heard the word “fascinating” (inserted at random while I talked) she would raise her hand and earn a point. We’d add up the “fascinating points” at the end of the lesson and it would mean extra time for the parts of the lesson she found particularly enjoyable (piano games, whiteboard drawing, bean bag games etc.)
One Extra – Sometimes a little time off the bench is all that is required to keep your piano students focused. But to make sure this “off-bench” time keeps the learning in motion and is not simply a “lesson break”, consider using a resource like Pssst… My Piano Teacher Thinks This Is Theory with 88 theory activities that are absolutely, positively, most definitely NOT BORING!
Help Your Students Learn to Learn
In addition to the strategies listed above, it is also important that piano teachers sympathize with our active students’ need to move, to change focus frequently and to share stories. I recognized this in my student and therefore designed my piano lesson structure to suit her personality. Occasionally it meant that less was accomplished than would be with a child who had mastered the skills to focus, however it also meant that my student absolutely adored her piano lessons. And, she was learning how to learn… and that to me as a teacher was the greatest triumph.
Barbara says
July 2, 2015 at 5:43 amThank you, thank you. I have a little boy who needs for me to know these strategies! I especially like the “fascinating points”! What great ideas. You all never cease to amaze:)
Andrea says
July 2, 2015 at 12:49 pmSo glad it will help Barbara! 🙂
Jan Gray says
July 2, 2015 at 6:27 amI love this post and I so identify. One day I’m going to do a comedic video of everything that can be done during a quarter rest!
Our driveway is really steep and long and parking is behind our house. One mother runs her daughter up and down the driveway a couple of times before bringing her inside, just to let her work off some extra energy. Her lessons are immediately after school and she arrives with a lot of pent-up physical energy but is over stimulated mentally; she comes in the door like a “friendly explosion.” Another thing that has helped has been suggesting that she wear her hair in a pony tail during lessons. She has long, beautiful thick hair and eyes that dance with joy… and she was constantly flipping her hair back across her shoulder with her hand. She would do it during a quarter rest, at the end of a measure, at the end of a line and then be totally lost on the page and where to place her hands. A simple hair band is an amazing tool for teaching piano. After wearing her hair in a ponytail for a while during lessons, the hair flipping stopped and now she occasionally wears it down with no problem.
During our, “how are you” at the beginning of a lesson is a great time to get every invisible scratch on a finger examined and properly acknowledged. If it isn’t covered then, it will be discussed in the middle of the first line of the first piece. Thank you for this post. I love it!
Andrea says
July 2, 2015 at 12:51 pmOh Jan – I so hear you with the “invisible scratch” examination – I get lengthly stories of every injury during the week that my student experienced AND several of her friends 🙂 Yes, quarter rests hold lots of potential don’t they – love the way you put this LOL
Mary Jo Troyer says
July 2, 2015 at 6:35 amExcellent strategies. I am certainly going to try them on several of my busy brain students. Thank you!!!!
Karen Monroe says
July 2, 2015 at 7:40 amWhat a timely post for me!!! I just interviewed a potentially squirrely child yesterday. I am going to try these! I agree with time off the bench can just be a lesson break which has frustrated me lately with my 7 yr old squirrelly student…you’ve helped me look at the whole situation differently and refreshed.
Andrea says
July 2, 2015 at 12:51 pmSo glad to hear it Karen – with a brand new student it’s even easier as you can start all of these from the get-go to establish good lesson habits. Hope it helps for you.
Valerie says
July 2, 2015 at 11:10 amI practice “pulling out non-music thoughts” with a few of my little students. At the beginning of the lesson, we pretend to reach into our brains and pull out all our extra thoughts- school, homework, playdates, etc, and put them off to the side to save for later. During the lesson, if they interrupt with an off-topic story, I remind them to set the thought aside until the end of the lesson. One little girl really took to it and would stop herself in the middle to pull out thoughts. She even brought in a box one week, “to keep my extra thoughts in.”
Andrea says
July 2, 2015 at 12:52 pmThis is a great visual Valerie – thanks so much for sharing!
Barbara says
July 2, 2015 at 7:21 pmOh, what a fabulous idea, Valerie. As Andrea said, thanks so much for letting us in on this “secret!”
Loni Spendlove says
July 2, 2015 at 11:23 amI NEEDED THIS! I have two VERY active boys and I’m sure I’ll employ every one of these techniques. Thank you!
Andrea says
July 2, 2015 at 12:52 pmHope it helps Loni – those lessons can seem to last an eternity if you are struggling to keep them focussed. I’ve been there 🙂
Julia Walls says
July 2, 2015 at 5:46 pmHow useful this is going to be today for me, with a squirmy 10-year-old beginner who goes off topic constantly but whose worst fidgeting involves constant playing of the keys while I am talking…at least she is attracted to the instrument, but I am going to try some of these strategies today…thankyou
Andrea says
July 9, 2015 at 1:23 pmHow did it go Julia? Hoping it made your lesson time with your 10 year old a little easier 🙂
Ronda says
July 13, 2015 at 10:14 amI really found that a timer helped (and helped me to keep on track timewise too). I started using a stop light timer this year to help my students focus and they really took to it. It has green, yellow and red sections and you can set each section to whatever length of time you like. I set the green section for the longest amount of time, yellow for a few minutes, and red for 2-3 minutes to signal it’s almost the end of the lesson. Each light will blink a few times before it changes. You can also set different sounds to go off when the light changes. It usually startles them when the yellow light comes on and they think their time is almost up (It usually means about 10min are left but they don’t know that 🙂 ) For those who have been “wandering” they immediately refocus. I found that after a few weeks they started watching the timer themselves. They even remind me to turn it on and are quite put out if I’ve forgotten!
(Sorry, I have no idea where to get them. My mom was a school teacher and passed it on to me. Teacher supply stores might carry them??)