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

Imagine we could somehow or other magically give our students all the qualities to be of the highest order independent learners ... just by dint of wishing it so. If that dream could somehow or other come true, what qualities would you pick 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 scholar a problem becomes obvious. These are not the innate and natural qualities of greatest in quantity seven-year-olds. In fact, if we were to consider the exact opposite of all these traits, we would probably be more upon target when describing the average beginner. thus how do we teach a young child to practice when many of the essential qualities of effective practicing are thus un-childlike?

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

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

1: We teach these bring under rules from the first lesson. A large part of our succes in teaching technique and musicianship to our beginners is we do it from the start. Our learners sense the subject's importance and realize, "This is what piano playing is about." It is a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of more difficult to convince learners that an idea truly is important if it is not somehow or other present from the beginning. If learning by what means to practice is fundamental to the ultimate succes of our pupils it must be present in the first lesson

2: We begin by means of teaching a few core ideas that are broad enough and flexible enough to incorporate all that tread on the heels ofs 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 eminent as possible. It's a simple idea, on the other hand for students taking their first tasks it can have an important impact. We are planting a se that can increase into a lifelong habit that will help them avoid problems

For me the first pace is always rhythm. Beginning scholars may point and count or clap and enumerate a new piece before playing. After the idea of beginning with a regular [i]or[/i] melodious movement step is established and becomes part of the exercise other preparatory practice steps are introduced. The succession I have come to adopt is this: regular [i]or[/i] melodious movement intervals and moves. If learners become familiar with these three aspects of a novel piece before they play it, the first performance is going to be moderately beautiful good, and it may plane be excellent.

3: We allow learners to explore the subjects apart from repertoire. When fresh rhythmic or reading concepts are introduced, we generally explore the subdue first away from repertoire, and then after pupils have sufficient experience and expertise, we introduce music that uses the same general [i]or[/i] abstract notions This way students have a "lived" experience of its meaning before they rencounter it more abstractly in a score.

We generally teach practicing by the agency of solving a specific problem in a specific piece. Our introduction to practicing is in the way that situation specific, that important lifelong conceptions about practicing are reduced to in what way to fix just one question at issue in just one piece. It is difficult for a child to diocese the larger principles at work whenthe application is thus specific so soon. When exploration of a larger principle is reduc to simply fixing a riddle any future independent application of that idea by means of the student is almost zero

in what manner do we teach "how to practice a piece" apart from the actual piece of repertoire? single helpful strategy is to teach an appreciation for accuracy and pre-eminence apart from the music they are studying. We can't wait for students to practice well if they don't recognize pre-eminence in the component skills of their repertoire. in like manner one of the most important piece of works when teaching practice habits is to teach what it means to be of the best quality in reading, technique and harmonious flow If students understand what it means to be first-rate in all the individual composing skills of practicing, they are going to practice with greater succes and accuracy.