The Practice Revolution: Getting Great Results from the Six Days Between Music Lessons. - book review

American Music Teacher, June-July, 2003 by Ivan Frazier

by Philip Johnston. PracticeSpot Press (52 Pethebridge St., Pearce ACT 2607, Australia), 2002. 324pp., $28.99.

So, why do music students need a revolution in their practicing? As I understand the question from Philip Johnston's book, it lies in what he calls the ages-old tension between teachers who want lessons thoroughly prepared and their students who tend to spend as little practice time as possible. (As prevalent as this may be, I'm certain many teachers can identify significant exceptions.) The "Revolution" proposed by Johnston is designed to diffuse that tension.

Crucial to his new plan is recognition that students need to be taught about practicing in such a way that they have a clear understanding of what is expected, as well as the tools to make their practice more efficient. The happy result, he predicts, is both teachers and students may get what they want. Johnston has assembled an attractive "cookbook" sporting a wide and varied array of ideas, techniques and games for improving teacher-student-parent communication, encouraging student initiative, and defining and solving problems. Each entry is short, generally one to three pages, much like a "recipe" for a specific, well-defined outcome, such as "Headgames" or "The post dress-rehearsal analysis." The titles are arresting, and the strategies are couched in inviting, easy-to-read language. Humor is ever present, as in "Speed Demons" or "Red Light Runners" in the section on practice flaws, but plenty of serious headings appear for balance, such as "The words with the power to shape their week."

An experienced teacher with a very large piano studio in Australia, the author is obviously imaginative and inventive by nature. This volume must be an outgrowth of years of jotting down his "brainstorms" in spare minutes between lessons. While Johnston is a piano teacher, he carefully has targeted the material so a teacher of any instrument--even voice, I suppose, can make use of it.

Although there is a general progression of topics through the book's seventeen chapters and many sub-headings, I find myself wishing for a grouping of similar chapters into units so a specific topic might more easily be located. The table of contents alone is eight pages. Moreover, the style is so colloquial in places, the reader must, for example, tolerate some disagreement in pronoun and number. For example, this hypothetical student's reaction to a teacher's critique is found on page 26, "If my teacher wanted dynamics ... they should have said so."

Yet, for what it is, The Practice Revolution is a great success. It can be a valuable resource for studio teachers in its wealth of strategy and stimulus to creativity.

Ivan Frazier, Athens, Georgia.