Small moments big impact: teaching first-year students how to practice

American Music Teacher, Oct-Nov, 2004 by Ted Cooper

Imagine we could somehow magically give our students all the qualities to be excellent independent learners ... just by wishing it so. If that dream could somehow come true, what qualities would you choose for your students? At the top of many teachers' wish lists might be concentration, a healthy work ethic and an appreciation of accuracy. When considering these qualities and then considering the average seven-year-old piano student, a problem becomes obvious. These are not the innate and natural qualities of most seven-year-olds. In fact, if we were to consider the exact opposite of all these traits, we would probably be more on target when describing the average beginner. So, how do we teach a young child to practice when many of the essential qualities of effective practicing are so un-childlike?

The best piece of advice I ever received about teaching how to practice came from Frances Clark. She believed everything we teach our students can be organized into just three subject areas: musicianship, technique and practice habits. In practical terms, this idea doesn't tell us anything specific about teaching practice habits. It doesn't tell us how our students should practice or what they should practice. It doesn't illuminate any particular process or pedagogy. What it does do, however, is something as important. It gives learning about practice habits a position in the whole scope of a student's musical education. It elevates practice habits to the same level of importance as technique and musicianship.

If we are to teach how to practice effectively, it must a part of the very fiber of the lesson. It must be a core subject area our students live with in the same way they live with musicianship and technique. What can we learn from how we teach musicianship and technique that we can apply to teaching how to practice? Here are four observations about how we teach musicianship and technique that may be helpful models for teaching our students how to practice.

1: We teach these subjects from the first lesson. A large part of our success in teaching technique and musicianship to our beginners is we do it from the start. Our students sense the subject's importance and realize, "This is what piano playing is about." It is much more difficult to convince students that an idea truly is important if it is not somehow present from the beginning. If learning how to practice is fundamental to the ultimate success of our students, it must be present in the first lesson.

2: We begin by teaching a few core ideas that are broad enough and flexible enough to incorporate all that follows. The first core idea I teach my beginners is that what they do before playing a piece will determine if the first performance is as excellent as possible. It's a simple idea, but for students taking their first lessons, it can have an important impact. We are planting a seed that can grow into a lifelong habit that will help them avoid problems.

For me, the first step is always rhythm. Beginning students may point and count or clap and count a new piece before playing. After the idea of beginning with a rhythm step is established and becomes part of the lesson, other preparatory practice steps are introduced. The sequence I have come to adopt is this: rhythm, intervals and moves. If students become familiar with these three aspects of a new piece before they play it, the first performance is going to be pretty good, and it may even be excellent.

3: We allow students to explore the subjects apart from repertoire. When new rhythmic or reading concepts are introduced, we generally explore the subject first away from repertoire, and then after students have sufficient experience and expertise, we introduce music that uses the same concepts. This way students have a "lived" experience of its meaning before they encounter it more abstractly in a score.

We generally teach practicing by solving a specific problem in a specific piece. Our introduction to practicing is so situation specific, that important lifelong concepts about practicing are reduced to how to fix just one problem in just one piece. It is difficult for a child to see the larger principles at work whenthe application is so specific so soon. When exploration of a larger principle is reduced to simply fixing a problem, any future independent application of that idea by the student is almost zero.

How do we teach "how to practice a piece" apart from the actual piece of repertoire? One helpful strategy is to teach an appreciation for accuracy and excellence apart from the music they are studying. We can't expect students to practice well if they don't recognize excellence in the component skills of their repertoire. So, one of the most important jobs when teaching practice habits is to teach what it means to be excellent in reading, technique and rhythm. If students understand what it means to be excellent in all the individual component skills of practicing, they are going to practice with greater success and accuracy.