Practicing, Performing, and Lesson Time

One of the most important things a music teacher should teach is how to practice effectively at home. It's also one of the most difficult. How can we prepare the students for successful practice at home so that they can have success in their next lesson?

I sometimes find I take for granted the notion that the lesson is a kind of performance. At each lesson, the teacher assigns things for the student to prepare at home, and then present at the next lesson. Ideally, the student would have given the best effort throughout the week and each subsequent lesson can move forward from the last lesson. Often, however, students come to the lesson having haphazardly plunked through their pieces for that week, and then they just sort of ride the tide, letting the teacher do all the work for them.This needs to happen in the beginning, of course. Teachers need to guide students through the problem spots in a piece so they can experience success. But then, somehow, we need to get the student to understand that the steps we are taking in the lesson are things that they can make happen at home.
I still have piano books from when I took lessons as a kid, and when I flip through them now, I notice my teacher wrote things like "Think!" and "Practice, don't just play." I find I am always telling students similar things - including other classic lines like, "slow down," "Be careful," and "count!"

Here are a few strategies I've found useful in different ways:

• Writing out specific steps to carry out: Rhythm 
• I'll write a sequence of steps so they know exactly what to do. This can be for a piece they'll be learning all on their own for the first time: 1. Write the counts 2. Point and count 3. Tap and count 4. Play on one note and count 5. Play the notes slowly and count
• Build "walls," then break them down
• I use this to help students fix their "pause spots" - places where they had to pause when they were playing. First, they have to identify exactly where they paused - between what two notes. Often it is at a barline. Then, they have to build a wall (draw a line in pencil) just after the note they paused before. They must play to the wall without stopping. If they can do that successfully a few times in a row, then they can break down that wall (erase the line). 
• Try to get it perfect the first time
• This won't work with more advanced students, but with beginners, their pieces are often easy enough that if they really study it and prepare, they can play it perfectly on the first try. They can tap the rhythm, do any of the counting exercises listed above, play it on the lid, or play silently on the keys. If they can play it perfectly on the lid, then all they have to do is find the starting notes and they're good to go. Sightreading is a great skill - even when you start doing pieces that are impossible to sightread, you'll be much better off from the beginning. The lasting principle is to look over and notice things about the music before trying to play it.
• Practice Performing
• While it's true that one shouldn't just play through their pieces from beginning to end and count it as practice. In fact, that isn't practice at all. However, this does not mean that practice should ONLY consist of drilling the trouble spots, practicing small sections very slowly, tapping the rhythm, and note naming. Once you have taken these valuable practice steps, then you NEED to play the piece in its entirety, to see how it's come along. That is the goal of practice - to be able to play. During a practice performance, you must play from beginning to end without stopping. Then you evaluate what the next steps are based on that performance. It's a checkpoint. I know I've belabored the concept of "practice, don't just play" so much that I've forgotten to remind well-meaning students that this does not mean NEVER "just play," and they've come back saying they only worked on a certain section. 

These strategies are far from all that needs to be done. In fact, the work that needs to be done to achieve accurate performance varies greatly from piece to piece. The trouble spots must be identified, and then they must be practiced correctly. Sometimes a lot of repetitions are needed, but if you're having trouble with something, you repeatedly try it and are not getting it, you may end up practicing your mistakes which negates the point of practicing.

Fenwick Piano Studio has a document called Practice Techniques with a lot of great ones! I like how the techniques are presented like a game. Instead of telling a student "say the note names," we can "play the name game," for example. The whole process more fun - students are like detectives and need to figure out what practice strategy would work best for their current situation, and then just pull it out of the toolbox.

One thing I want to explore in more depth is note mistakes, most of which I find are from students being not careful enough, or not sure how to use their eyes and ears together. I haven't yet found the best way to help a student prevent note mistakes on their own at home, other than insisting that they "be careful," "make sure you know what the note is before you play it," "don't go too fast too soon," etc. I will explore this issue in more depth in my next post.