A child should never leave the piano feeling frustrated.
That’s my goal for home practice. That’s one of the main things I work to achieve during lesson time.
It’s probably what all teachers should aspire to. And whether they know it or not, my guess is that most successful teachers consciously (or subconsciously) create practice routines and habits that support this goal.
I’m not saying students shouldn’t or won’t experience frustration… but rather that students shouldn’t leave a practice session feeling frustrated with the piano.
I suppose it’s kind of like the old marriage cliche, “Never go to bed angry”…which is corny, yet pretty good advice.
Applied to piano, this becomes, “Never leave the piano angry.” I like it!
Yet, as you likely know… this is not an easy task. I love the piano… but even I regularly get mad at it… so I know my students probably go toe-to-toe with the piano every now and again too.
Today, I wanted to share with you some “Never leave the piano angry” strategies that your students can use to deal with those occasionally frustrating practice sessions. These strategies are not intended to solve problems occurring in particular pieces. Those can be easily solved with your guidance at the next piano lesson.
Instead, these strategies are alternative activities that your students can use when they need to “take a break” from whatever it is that is making their musical blood boil. These are activities that keep them at the piano long enough for the negativity to seep away and those warm, fuzzy “I love the piano!” feelings to return.
6 “Safety Nets” To Rescue A Frustrating Home Practice Session
The truth is, your piano students are going to get frustrated during home practice. In some cases very frustrated! Even if you have prepped them perfectly for home practice… they will still get frustrated.
But this post is not intended to encourage your students to give up when things get tough. It is important, (in fact it’s essential!) that students have the skills to problem-solve and keep moving forward.
Yet there will always be times when piano students get so frustrated that they will want to walk away and admit defeat (we’ve all been there ourselves, yes?) It is during these times that piano practice safety nets should be employed… or deployed 😉
Here are 6 piano practice safety nets to try:
- Getting goofy with an old piano piece: Nothing builds confidence like playing a previously-mastered piece from the past. However, merely reverting back to an old piece often isn’t exciting enough. Instead, during a “break from frustration” tell your students to take an old piece and mix it up by adding pedal, changing the tempo, replacing the dynamic markings with their own, and/or creating a powerful and dramatic ending.
- Creating a clap, snap, tap rhythm: If you students are feeling the frustration, have them clap, snap, and tap the treble clef rhythm of any piece of their choosing. All they have to do is assign “clap” to quarter notes, “snap” to half notes, “tap” to eighth notes and launch into some powerful percussion.
- Composing a tune: All of my piano students know how to create their own music. Why? They have all used our composing resource, The Curious Case of Muttzart and Ratmaninoff and they all have copies in their binders. This means turning to composing when practice gets frustrating is a cinch! Very young students can use their own invented notations to preserve their masterpieces (and the results are often tape-to-the-fridge worthy!)
- Simple improv: Using their knowledge of primary chords, encourage your students to find basic left hand patterns to which they can add simple right hand melodies. This doesn’t have to be anything difficult… even just a held chord in the left hand with a simple repeated motive in the right hand can evolve into something magical.
- Play a piano game: If you have a huge collection of piano games (as our PianoGameClub members do) you may want to create a lending library of games that kids can take home with them each and every week. This way, if ever your student gets frustrated beyond the point of no return he can at least pull out a game, get a parent or sibling involved and still learn some really valuable piano theory.
- Create a soundscape to a children’s book: Kids love creating soundscapes. With this frustration buster, students can have a parent read a children’s story while they use the piano to make sounds and create bits of melody to represent the events taking place in the story. This is a simple and effective way of getting parents involved in home practice (and also diffuses a potentially explosive situation of frustrated child vs. well-meaning parent).
How Should You Implement These Piano Practice Safety Nets?
It’s important to frequently talk with your students about “good frustration” (where you’re mildly confused, yet still able to work through an issue) vs. “bad frustration” (when you’re feeling angry and upset and are not learning anything). Your students need to know when they should take a break and how to “employ a safety net”.
How your students choose to use these “safety nets” is entirely up to you! In the past I have sent students home with a “safety net of the week” and other times I have sent them home with a checklist containing a variety of safety nets from which they can choose their favorite. You will know what works best with you and your students.
Do you have any activities that guarantee a smile during home practice to add to our list? We’d love to hear it! Share in the comments below.
Elaine Cleveland says
How about some ways of breaking the frustration cycle with adult students?
Andrea says
I use number 1, 2, 3 and 4 with adults still Elaine! 🙂 We go one step further with the improv and I have them try to pick out the melody line of a favorite rock/pop song with their right hand and bring it to me so we can expand upon it next lesson. It’s a nice stress reducer 🙂
Elaine says
I sometimes help rhythm problems by making up silly sentences. For example one repeated dotted 8th and 16th passage that went on for a long time became the very fun lyrics. ” I don’t want to _______________. Fill in the blank. Such as ” clean the bathroom”. Or even sillier “I don’t want to clean the catbox”. or do my homework. OR have student or parent fill in the blank and see what they come up with . Laughter helps
Andrea says
This is great Elaine – it pairs it with something really memorable and light-hearted – fabulous! 🙂
Patsy says
I have a little girl who tries really hard at our lesson. She gives me her focus as we walk through the next week’s assignment. I always ask before she leaves if she has a question and if there is a special note or measure I need to mark. In spite of this, many times her mom will tell me she had troubles at home and became frustrated. Now I tell L “no tears!” That’s an understanding between us that if she can’t get the piece, I will help her again next time. I can tell if she has tried of course, but it takes some of the pressure off. I guess in her case, I AM the safety net. ( This wouldn’t work for all my students; they would just not practice and rely on me to do it for them next time. )
Andrea says
Hi Patsy – this is a great insight – thank you for sharing! Yes, we often ARE the safety net for many, many kids in keeping them from feeling defeated. Thank goodness for us, right?! 😉
Maryann says
I tell my students that if a piece gets” stuck” whereby you can’t seem to break through the problem then stop and change to another piece or warm up and then return to it later in the practice time. It’s like magic because they then can do it better.
Andrea says
So true Maryann – sometimes they just need to “sleep on it” and the next time they come back it’s like there was never any problem at all. I think we can all relate to this!
Susan says
I like to pretend they have phoned me. I hold my cell phone and turn my back to them and say “Hello. Is that you _____? Are you having problem with a piano piece? Can you describe it to me?” They always open up to that, sometimes with a few prompts, like. “Is it in the Bass Clef?” Etc…
Andrea says
LOVE LOVE LOVE this Susan – what a great idea! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Katrina Palsky says
This fall I read the book Coffee With Ray: A Simple Story with a Life-Changing Message for TEachers and Parents, and it speaks to your subject. When students choose a boring goal for practise (i.e. something that they can already do easily) they are not actively “learning.” But if they choose practise goals that are frustrating, they are not learning either. True learning takes place when students pick learning goals that keep themselves between bored and frustrated. Good learning will feel uncomfortable because it is stretching you, but it should never bubble over into frustrated. I have used a target illustration all year with three concentric circles: bored is the center, frustrated is the outside and the middle what we are shooting for. This style of goal setting keeps the kids motivated to learn– it thrives on feeling good about the piano. I enjoyed your article and will definitely use some of these goals to ease my students past “frustrated” back into active learning. Cheers! Your blog is awesome.
Andrea says
Hi Katrina – that’s great imagery and it’s all so true. Working while frustrated is actually like taking steps backwards (especially with children). Not only are you not really learning anything, but you’re creating negativity that has a lasting effect on confidence. It’s best to change gears and come back to it later when you’re in a different mindset. Thanks for sharing! Glad you can use these “come back to it later… do this instead” ideas 🙂
tyra says
I read Coffee with Ray recently as well! I too liked the author’s learning visual with the three circles. I’m trying now to answer one of his questions for myself, What do you want? This can be translated into what kind of teacher do you want to be, what do you want for your students, etc.
Piano was a frustrating experience for me. It was always work, work, work where my teachers (and parents) were concerned. It had a lasting effect. I try hard now to make sure my students know that if they can’t get a passage to put it aside and we’ll work on it together. I tell them the goal is to not get frustrated.
I love your list, Andrea, especially no. 1. How much they would learn simply by playing around with an old piece. Love it.
Marcie says
You often mention your students’ “binders”. I’d be interested to know about that. Is it something you keep for them or do they take it home every week? You have probably posted about it before, but I missed it somehow.
Thank you for all the extremely creative and helpful information and insights!
Susan says
Me too:)
Andrea says
A future blog post idea! 😉
Sunny says
Thanks for the idea Andrea! I have a 7 years old boy student who have ADHD. We spent weeks to work on a line of beginner piano piece, base on staccato/ legato touch. He didn’t practice during the week, next lesson we learn from beginning again. It went on for a months. Parent said that he was behind at school work, too many school homework/ tution homework to catch up. They decided to stop lesson, without even thinking of organising time to practice at home.
Andrea says
That’s always so sad isn’t it Sunny… I hate situations like this as I know how much music could have positively affected his life. I’m betting you were a very positive influence on his life, however and he’ll always remember his lessons happily – maybe he will return one day 🙂
Fiona Barnett says
Thanks for the tips Andrea! Would you mind if I made a practice video for each one for when students can’t make it to a lesson or just need a practice boost – someone on the Wunderkeys facebook group mentioned making a practice video and I thought that sounds like a great idea! Obviously I’d credit you with the ideas. 🙂
Andrea says
Not at all Fiona! It think it’s a great idea!
Jan Horwood says
These are some great ideas. Another thing I tell students is to take it back a step, or make it smaller. Isolate, isolate. If they can’t get a whole phrase, go back to HS and work that. Or go back to one bar. Or even one chord to the next, just those two, back and forth. I think I do this more for older students who are trying to accomplish things towards their goals, not necessarily beginners or young students. But very often in a lesson, my teaching strategy also follows along those lines. If they aren’t getting something, what level of understanding can I back it up to that they do get, and what is the next incremental step from there? So often there are gaps, whether small or large, in understanding, technique or whatever, that we need to go back and bridge before the forward progress can begin again.
I also use lyrics for complex rhythms. Once I wrote lyrics for the entire piece “The Elegant Toreador” and we belted it out at every lesson – so much fun!
Andrea says
Great tips Jan! Thanks for commenting 🙂 I love using lyrics for rhythms to – it’s a great “brain trick” that seems to work with most students almost immediately.
Marybeth says
Any suggestions for the frustrations of a student who does not want to take piano lessons, but is being forced to by her well-meaning parents? We’ve talked openly and honestly about this, and I make sure to talk positively to her about her performance during lessons and how beautifully she plays staccato, etc. but I know she still hates it. I believe in being very open about this because I want her to understand that sometimes we just have to make the best of a situation. Her frustration doesn’t really stem from performance; it’s more from the fact that she just doesn’t want to do it. (The fact that her older sister is an excellent pianist does not help AT ALL – although I do remind her that I made her older sister do all these things as well). Any suggestions?