7 Elements of Effective Piano Practice

July 17, 2020 Jennifer Boster

When you are learning how to play the piano, consistent practice is super important. But what should that daily practice time consist of? Here are 7 Elements of Effective Piano Practice. These are things that should be a part of your daily practice routine to help you become a well-rounded pianist with a good understanding of music. (And stay tuned after the 7 things for a free download!)

#1: Warm-Up

Technical work is an important aspect of piano practice and is a great way to warm up. Here are some suggestions of things you can do to improve your technique and to warm-up each day: scales, arpeggios, chords, Muscle Builders, Hanon exercises, etudes and other technical studies. Your piano teacher can help teach you proper technique, including curved fingers, firm fingertips, flexible wrists and more. Always remember that all technical work should have a musical purpose!

#2: Sight Read

To sight read is the ability to sit down and play a piece of music that you have never seen or played before. This is something that many people would love to be able to do, and the end goal of many piano students! So how do you learn how to sight read? By sight reading….a lot! Sight reading something every single day is the best way to get good at sight reading. You should do a little sight reading during each practice session.

What should you sight read? Find piano books or other music that is a little bit below your current ability level. Your piano teacher can help you find good sight reading material to use. I also highly recommend Piano Safari Sight Reading Cards, as well as the Note Quest app which has an excellent sight reading section called NoteFit.

#3: At-Level Music

If you are taking piano lessons you probably have some sort of method book that you are working through. It is important to work on repertoire that is not too easy and not too hard. These are pieces that you can learn fairly quickly and that will help you progress and learn.

#4: Challenge Pieces

You should always be working on what I call a “challenge piece.” A challenge piece is a piece which is harder than your method book pieces – something that will stretch your abilities and help you to improve. Your teacher will be able to find some great challenge pieces for you. Challenge pieces can be really fun, exciting and motivating, and they can really pull you up to the next level. Sometimes your challenge piece may be a difficult recital piece you are working on. Or it may be something that you are working on memorizing.

#5: Creative Skills

As you learn to read music and play the piano well, you should be sure to not neglect this important area of music learning: the creative skills! When was the last time you sat down and tried to figure out a piece of music by ear? Or composed your own piece? Or just goofed around on the piano and improvised some music? Piano should be not just something where you only learn to replicate the works of others, but it should also be a creative outlet. Playing lead sheets or fakebooks is another great creative skill – learning all of the chords and creating your own accompaniment to a well-known tune just by following the chord names. Composing, transposing, transcribing, arranging…all of these things will put your piano knowledge to the test and will help you create something that is all yours. Try to work on your creative piano skills a little bit each day.

#6: Theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. Understanding keys, chords, scales and more is paramount to becoming a well-rounded musician. You should find ways to learn about music theory and to consistently work on it. Maybe your teacher will assign you a theory book or other theory worksheets to fill out. There are also a lot of music theory apps that you can get that will teach you music theory in a fun way. Understanding music theory will help you understand the pieces you are playing and will be really important when you try to memorize a piece.

#7: Listening

Something that you may not think of when you think of piano practice is LISTENING. As you work to learn piano and become a musician, listening to great music is more important than ever. You should make sure that you listen to great music at least each week. Learn about composers, learn about different instruments and musical styles. The more you listen the more you will learn, and the more you will grow to love and appreciate great music. As you listen you will learn which composers and which pieces are your favorites. You will find pieces that you just HAVE to learn. If you are serious about learning the piano you do not want to leave this element out of your piano study!

Here are some resources you can go to to find great music to listen to and to learn about composers: listen to your local classical music radio station. Find YouTube videos of pieces you are learning or would like to learn. Learn about great pianists and find their performances on YouTube. Listen to classical music podcasts and read books about composers. Open up your favorite music streaming service and start exploring famous composers, piano music, orchestral music and any other kind of music you would like to learn about. Try out my Shades of Sound listening and coloring books, which teach you about the great composers and then allow you to color while listening to their music. Always be listening to great music!

Download my free Piano Practice Routine Tracker to help you keep track of each of these important areas of piano learning. You can download and print it out and use it as a reference as you practice each day. Or, you may want your teacher to write your weekly assignments in the white spaces of each section. Or you can laminate the tracker and use a clothespin to keep track of which step you are on!

Happy practicing!

Piano Practice Trick: Highlight the Thumb Notes

June 2, 2020 Jennifer Boster

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Today I want to share a great piano practice trick that I like to use when learning a piece with a lot of fast notes.

First I must mention the importance of choosing a good fingering, and playing the section with the SAME FINGERING EACH TIME. As we learn a piece of music we should be using several different learning modes to really engage with the piece and learn it well (this is especially true when memorizing a piece of music). The easiest type of learning is through muscle memory – when you play a passage enough times in a row, your fingers just sort of automatically learn where to go next. This can be really helpful, but it’s important to remember to not ONLY rely on this type of learning. When you use the same fingering every time, it allows your fingers to learn the passage more quickly and more accurately.

I like to write in my fingerings, especially on tricky sections – it ensures I use the same fingers every time and helps me to engage and learn the section using some analytical thinking, or the “read and write” learning mode.

But I like to go one step further. On especially thorny passages I will take a colored pencil or highlighter and highlight every single note that will be played by my thumb. This adds a really helpful visual cue to my learning and helps me to nail those fingerings. If I can get my thumb landing on the correct notes each time, everything else seems to fall into place. The thumb is the pivot point on your hand as you play scales and arpeggios, and so landing your thumb at the right time makes a world of difference as you navigate a tricky passage.

Here is a section of Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata in which I have highlighted all of the thumb notes. Once I did this, this passage went SO much smoother!

I encourage you to try this practice technique with your piano students and with your own practicing. I also encourage you to find ways to use several different modes of learning and several different practice tricks on the same passages in your music. Using kinesthetic (muscle memory), aural, visual and analytical memory (not just muscle memory alone) will really help you engage with the music and learn your pieces faster.

Happy practicing!

Interested in more practice tricks? Check out my Practice Tricks Pack and my Memory Tricks Pack for tons of ideas and resources!

Points for Prizes

July 6, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Jenny Jones here. For the beginning of summer lessons, I wanted a fresh way to motivate my students to practice. Most were already in the habit of practicing everyday, though not always effectively. I felt like they were feeling in a rut, and I was feeling like I had lots of extra time on my hands, being done with school, and all. So I developed Points for Prizes.

How it works:

I made notebooks for each student with pages that look like this

and inserts that look like this (with room at the bottom for special student-specific points-earning activities)

Each week I have them keep track of what they practice each day, with the charts on the right of the assignments, as well as the number of minutes at the bottom (PI, in the notes section, is for parent initials 🙂 just to keep things honest).

When they come to their lessons, I have a chart for each student where I keep track of the points they’ve earned that week.

When they get to a hundred points, they get a sticker. When they get to 300 points, they start earning prizes.

The way I figured out the points and prizes began with what my expectations are for their practice. I expect them to practice everything everyday. That’s why that is worth so many points. I also want them to spend lots of time at the piano. I think a lot of my most valuable time at the piano was “goofing off”, not playing what I had already played, but learning new things by sight reading, picking out things by ear, etc. This way I’m rewarding both good practice and lots of it. Once I knew what I wanted every student to do every week, I started assigning point values to those assignments. I decided that 70 points a week was sufficient and sustainable (we can’t have them burning out).

Then I had to decide how much the prizes would be worth. This was trickier, and I’m still trying to figure some of them out. At first, I decided it would be by cost to me. I was willing to spend x amount per student per week if everybody was achieving those 70 points. But the challenge is that the older students are, the more expensive they are to motivate. I’m talking about the 10 to 12 year olds. Anyone older than that isn’t really interested. Plus, there comes a point when they need to be internally motivated. I’m trying to build solid practice habits now.

Things I think are working:

*Motivating younger students–the 5 to 9 year olds are eating this up.

*The expectation–I was happy to find out that many of my students already were doing some of these things. By spelling everything out like this, they are starting to prioritize they way I’d like them to prioritize (“oh, you mean, if I practice everything every day, I get a bonus of 30 points?!” “you mean, it’s not enough to just play the piano for 30 minutes every day?”).

*My instructions–I’m learning to be very specific in how they should practice, which is what I should have been doing all along. With some students it isn’t enough to say, “Learn this for this week.” I have to help them find the hard spots, make a plan for how to practice those sections differently, and then do some practicing in the lesson where we learn just how many times it takes them to get something solid. Since I am rewarding them for good practice, they want to know just what it takes to get the reward, so they are very interested in creating the plans for good practice. It’s kind of win-win.

Things that I still need to figure out:

*Motivating older students–one parent had a great solution. She said there was a toy that her son really wanted that they were willing to buy for him, but that he would earn it via this points system. So I sent her the points information and told her what my expectations are and then asked her to decide how many weeks of good practice she thought this toy was worth. Hopefully it helps him! The problem is that at this age, the kids are starting to be doing things by internal motivation, and then this amounts to bribery instead of incentive. If they really don’t want to practice, they won’t.

*Group prizes–I want to have a pizza party at the end of the summer. At first, I was going to have it for everyone who got x or more points. But I didn’t want to exclude anyone, especially the very young kids who aren’t practicing that much anyway. So then I decided that I’d do a group effort. If, as a group, we get x points, then we can have a pizza party. But I’m not sure what a reasonable number is at this point. This could be effective for kicking in some urgency. I will have a poster that shows how close we are to the number of needed points. If, come the beginning of August, we’re not on target, then I know at least a few of them will start some crazy practicing in order to push the numbers up.

*Long-term effects–I don’t like a lawyerly kind of “payment” for practice. Also, I don’t know how to insert a bit of new excitement into the program every semester or so. Maybe new prizes showcased every few months. Or a twist that involves some group lessons and the attendant activities. Ideas?

SHHHH…Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice: review and giveaway!

May 29, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Today I am excited to tell you about a new practice resource made available by Andrea and Trevor over at Teach Piano Today (which, by the way, is an amazing resource full of fun and creative ideas for piano teachers…I am excited to peruse their website more and I’m inspired by their creativity!).

SHHHH… Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice is a book with 88 fun, creative and sometimes random practice exercises and games that will “exhilarate, motivate, and inspire piano students to practice each and every single day… with no hassle, no struggle, no prodding, and no bribing!” (quoted from their website – sounds like a good deal to me!)

The format of the book is super fun, with cute illustrations on each page. It’s kind of like a top-secret notebook full of fun things to do; it is written in a fun and humorous way, and even includes a couple of notes to the neighbors, apologizing for the loud piano music and saying “the book made me do it!” This book seems like something I would have loved as a kid!

As I read through these exercises I found myself smiling and laughing at some of the clever and inventive ways the authors have come up with to encourage children to practice their pieces. Don’t just clap a rhythm…hop it on one leg! Call up a relative and give them a performance over the phone! Each exercise has students drilling measures, playing pieces in creative ways, identifying and practicing difficult measures, working on articulation, turning pieces into fairy tales, balancing on one foot while drilling rhythm, doing number games to determine number of repetitions for a section of a piece, coloring, cutting things out, etc. There will never be a dull practice day with this fun book.

(Here are some sample pages made available by the authors on their website.)

Not only are these exercises creative and fun, but most of them also encourage good and sound practicing techniques. I think that through doing these exercises students will not only have more fun with their practicing, but they will become better and more thoughtful practicers. This book is meant as a supplement to the student’s regular practicing. It is a perfect way to add a little excitement to the practice session.

I really think this is a fantastic resource and cannot wait to use it with some of my students. As there are 88 daily exercises in the book, I can’t help but think what a wonderful summer practicing program this would make! I LOVE that when you purchase the book, you are granted the right to make unlimited copies for your private piano studio. What a great deal!

Andrea and Trevor have been kind enough to offer to give away a copy of their book to TWO lucky Teaching Studio readers! To enter, please leave me a comment! Giveaway ends on Friday, May 1 at 11:59 pm Central time. Winner will be announced Saturday morning.

Practice Abacus

September 19, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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Hi, I’m Jedda from This Little Project. I’m excited to be here and share a {little project} idea with you while Jenny is snuggling her baby–isn’t she a darling!

This Practice Abacus is something we’ve enjoyed using in our home. {This Little Project} is perfect for back-to-school music practicing too.

It’s magic! really!I call it the Abracadabra Practice Abacus.

You remember what an abacus is, right? It’s kind of an old-school calculator–with the beads you move around to count things.

Well…Sometimes when I’m trying to encourage my kids with their music practice, we need a little magic to make it all happen–otherwise practicing is no {little project}. That’s where the Abracadabra Practice Abacus comes in.

Each string has a number of beads or beads that spell a word. Want to know why?

Because: repetition is magic.

Kids like to do things once. But things don’t improve much with one try. But give it a few consecutive tries and you’ll get some nice progress! It’s kind of like magic.

So, on the Abracadabra Practice Abacus you will find places to count 5 repetitions (see above), 4 repetitions, 3 repetitions, and 2 repetitions (rh/lh). That way there is a fun way to keep track of those repetition and make the magic happen!

Need some magic a your house? {This Little Project} might be your magic wand!

To make {This Little Project} you need:

a cereal box

a frame (matches the size of your mounting paper)

1/8 inch ribbon

beads (I used the same ones from {this little project}

Scissors

Brads

a piece of paper to mount it on (that fits your frame)

glue stick

binder clips

optional: overhead projector sheet (plastic)

Directions to make {This Little Project}:(hint: read all the directions before you start–I’m hoping this makes sense!)

First- cut your cereal box to the size of the paper you are mounting. Glue the paper to the cardboard.

Then decide where your lines of beads will go and mark the paper where the brads will go in.

If you think your Practice Abacus will get a lot of use you may want to put a overhead projector sheet over the top of the paper to mount the beads and brads on. It’s kind of like laminating it. Use the binder clips to hold it on while you punch the holes.

I punched the holes with my scissors, but a different tool might be nice.

Cut your ribbon lengths at least 2 inches longer than they need to be to go across the paper because you will wrap the brads. You can trim the extra at the end.

The brad will hold the ribbon in place on the abacus. First thread it through the middle of the brad like this:

Then wrap it around the brad once like this, before putting it through the hole you created on the left side of the paper. Spread the brad open on the back of the cardboard to secure it.

Now just decide how many beads you want on that line of your abacus. Next thread your beads on the ribbon.

If you have room, you can put a brad in the middle of the paper (not just on the sides) so that you can have two different counters that move on the same ribbon line, like this one.

The RH/LH line we use for when Jay needs to do 2 repetitions of something on each hand.

The reason I did 2 different counters of 4 each like the one below is so that Jay can either count the word out or count with the numbers. He can also use it for doing 4 on one hand and 4 on the other hand. It’s nice to be able to track how many and it’s fun too!

Continue putting brads into the holes you marked until you have the number of counters you would like.

For my Practice Abacus I put the “3’s” at the top, then the “4’s”, then the “5’s”, followed by the 2 (RH/LH) at the end.

Abracadabra, it’s done!

Now watch the musical magic happen at your house as you use your Practice Abacus!

Thanks again Jenny for letting me stop by and share {this little project} on your fantastic blog!

Come on over to This Little Project for more music ideas with “music at my house” and other {little projects}!

Principles of Efficient Practicing

May 2, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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In light of our current topic, today I’d like to talk about principles of efficient practicing. This topic will especially apply to busy moms with clambering children, working adults with limited time, teenagers pulled in all directions by extra-curricular activities, young piano students just learning how to practice…ok, so basically, this is for EVERYONE!!

When practicing time is limited, how can we accomplish more in a short amount of time? Even if practicing time is not as limited, what are some ways we can get much more out of our practicing? Here are some ideas:

Have a goal – if you don’t have a specific goal in mind during a practice session, you won’t accomplish as much! A great goal is to learn a specific, short section of a piece.
Pick your fingering – Decide on a fingering from the get-go and stick with it! I like to write in a lot of my fingerings to make sure I play it the same way each time, which helps me to learn a piece much faster.
Make it musical as you go – Learn articulations, phrasing, and dynamics as you learn the notes. Don’t learn notes and rhythms for the entire piece and THEN add in musical elements. Why not learn it right the first time?
Small sections – Learn a piece in SMALL sections, right hand alone, left hand alone, together
Memorize from day 1 – Ideally, if you are learning a piece that you love and you really want to learn it well, it is much easier to memorize it as you learn it! When I do this it helps me to learn the notes much better and more efficiently.
Analyze as you learn the piece! Notice and write down chord progressions, scales used in melodic material, bass notes, etc. This is also a great memory tool. It also ensures you are not learning it purely by muscle memory
Work on a different section at each practice session. Don’t always just start at the beginning.
Stay focused! You will be surprised how much you can accomplished in just 10 or 15 minutes.

What are some principles of efficient practicing that you have learned and that work well for you?

Squeezing In Piano Practicing

April 28, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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guest post by Heather Husted Wilson

The Seasons come and go…

We see the flowers bud – we know it is Spring.

We feel the sun shine fiercely on our backs – we know it is Summer.

We see the leaves turn shades of yellow, orange and red- we know it is Fall.

We see the clean white snow fall from the heavens and coat the Earth – we know it is Winter.

Then the snow melts and the rotation begins again.

The Seasons of our lives are the same…

There are seasons of learning and growth, pain and joy, stress and relaxation, work and play.

They come and go…and then come and go all over again.

How does this relate to Practicing?

I’m sure if you look back on your life you can see that with each season of YOUR life…

your practicing habits and schedule has changed right along with each change in life’s seasons.

So where are you now?

Are you a student? Are you married? Do you work full time? Do you have one or more children?

Are you in a season of 4-8 hours, 1-4 hours, 30 minutes, or 15 minutes of practicing?

How does your practicing correlate with the specific season of life YOU are experiencing right now?

Each one of us have different schedules and responsibilities, but one thing remains the same…

we ALL wish we could squeeze in a few more hours in each day to accomplish more!

Please tell me you are nodding your head right now…

So is it possible to create more time in your day to accomplish all the things you desire?

I believe it is.

It isn’t easy. It won’t be perfect. It will require YOU to make some decisions and work out the kinks.

But it’s possible…and YOU CAN DO IT!

First let’s figure out the things your heart most desires.

Go grab a piece of paper and a pen.

Yes, I mean right now…I’ll wait.

You back already? Wow…you’re fast! Okay, here we go…

What do you love to do? What do you do that makes you feel alive…makes you feel like YOU?

Now make a list answering these questions.

You have your list? Okay…good.

I’m assuming since you are reading this blog you love creating, performing and/or teaching music.

Is that on your list? That MUST be on your list!

Well, we all know that those three things require practice.

So how can you find time to squeeze in practicing?

You must MAKE time.

1. Break out your calendar.

If your schedule doesn’t permit practicing everyday…figure out which days you CAN practice and write them down.

I have one or two specific things each day of the week that MUST be done that day!

i.e. Monday is “cleaning house” and “laundry” day, Tuesday is a “teaching” day, etc.

I then, work my schedule from there. That way, the BIG things get done each day and I feel accomplished even if some of the smaller things get left for another day.

So go make some of those days in your week “practicing” days.

Decide what is going to work for you and write it down!

Seriously…go grab your calendar – NOW!

2. Set a specific time aside.

Don’t just wait for the perfect moment to smack you in the forehead. It isn’t going to happen. I haven’t ever found my life to work out that way…I always seem to find something else to use up my time.

Go back to that calendar and write down what TIME you are going to sit down with your music. Treat it like a doctor’s appointment – if you don’t show you will have to pay a $25 ‘no show’ fee and you are NOT going to throw away $25!!!

Don’t allow anything else to get in the way of your appointment with your instrument.

For example, a while ago I really wanted to try a new workout routine. With my schedule I just couldn’t figure out how to squeeze in an extra hour each day so I woke up early to get my work out done before my boys woke up.

Now, if you know me well, you know that waking up…especially early…is NOT something I do especially well. It’s a HUGE sacrifice!

But my desire to try the new routine overrode my inability to wake up and I did it…every single day at 6am for several months in a row!

Squeezing in something you LOVE to do will make you feel like a million bucks and it will change the way you live the rest of that day… for the better!

3. Make sure your conditions promote concentration (for YOU)

Some people can concentrate in any situation by ‘simply’ blocking out all that is going on around them. Personally, I have a hard time concentrating when there is much noise at all so I have to juggle people and responsibilities around to create an atmosphere where my time and work will be productive. That seems next to impossible with two small boys, but it is doable.

I usually plan my practicing around nap time, bedtime or when my babes are with a babysitter to create an atmosphere that will work for me. The last thing I need is to spend time at the piano only to feel it was wasted by lack of concentration.

4. Start small and use your time wisely

Don’t plan too much for yourself…it will only result in frustration. Choose a piece you are going to work on and then start with the most difficult sections during your practice session. You probably don’t have time for anything else until you master those technical obstacles…then you can think bigger.

There are days when my practice session consists only of tiny sections of continuous repetitions. Then after 10-15 minutes of concentration I have a little one tugging at my leg. At this moment I have a choice…do I get frustrated and send my babes away? Or do I stop my practice session and feel I accomplished something by mastering that one particular section, even if it only lasted a short while?

What do you do?

Feeling accomplishment and hearing the beauty of the pieces as you slowly gain control make practicing motivating.

With the kind of busy schedules we have these days the accomplishment and beauty come in small moments…small sections…so start small and you will feel BIG!

5. What KIND of practicing works for YOU?

“It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.”

-Eric Lindros, Canadian ice hockey player

Do you work best with a timer at your practice session?

Do you use an ipod application similar to the one Jenny mentioned this week?

What kind of practice works for YOU?

I’m a goal oriented teacher and that’s how I practice as well.

I set small goals for myself…knowing that if I master each individual goal it will not only help me learn quickly and more efficiently, it will all add up to mastering the whole…which is the ultimate goal.

If sitting with your instrument and practicing will make you feel fulfilled, successful, accomplished and motivated to do even more…then you NEED to DO IT!

No matter how long or short that time may be.

REMEMEBER: seasons come and go…

There once was a season in my life when I practiced 4-8 hours every day, but that season has gone for now…I know it will return one day.

For now, I know what season I am in and that is alright with me.

Figure out what season YOU are in and set up your practicing accordingly.

You CAN continue to practice…

it will just be different than it once was.

Accept that. Move on.

BE MOTIVATED. BE INSPIRED.

Think small to accomplish BIG things.

You CAN DO IT…don’t let anything get in the way of what your soul was made to do. Your students, your loved ones and all who hear you perform will thank you for taking the time to nurture yourself from the inside out.

Thank you, Heather, for your motivating and inspiring words!

Be sure to check out Heather’s wonderful blog, Squeezing It All In

Getting Motivated

April 25, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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This week I would like to revisit a topic we have discussed before, because it is something that I, personally, (and I am guessing a lot of you, as well, particularly if you are a parent with young children at home!) need constant work on, and is something that is so important to our success as teachers. I’d like to talk about Motivating OURSELVES to Practice.

This is something I struggle with a lot. I really do miss those days of long, uninterrupted practice hours. My current priority as a stay-at-home mom prevents me from achieving anywhere near that much practice time. In fact, there are so many days when my head hits the pillow at night that I haven’t even touched the piano.

Ahh, the college days of practicing ALL THE TIME – I do admit that I miss it!

Lately I have been really wanting to change this! I love the piano, I love to practice, and I wanted to find some way to motivate myself and practice consistently (even if that meant only 30 minutes a day!). So, I am kind of a nerd but I ended up finding just the motivation needed for a dollar – I bought a new box of colored pencils, and downloaded a free iPod app, and apparently that was all that I needed! Let me explain:

1 – the colored pencils: In order to really sit down and practice and make some progress and find the joy in playing, for me at least, I really have to practice well. As I am learning a new piece, I write in all the fingerings, mark phrases and important voices, circle dynamic markings, etc. Hence the colored pencils 🙂 This approach works great for me and I love it because I see so much progress, and I am truly able to make some measurable progress in a short amount of time (even if a small child is yelling for Mommy in the background!).

2 – the iPod app: I am so grateful to Anne Crosby Gaudet’s post about this amazing free iPod app called Just Practice! It really helped me to organize my practicing and motivate myself to get it done daily. Granted, I am still not perfect and do miss some days, but there is just something about a calendar that says “Today’s progress: 0%” that really makes me want to sit down and get it done. I try to practice at night after my son goes to bed, or I find him a fun activity he can do in the room with me for half an hour or so. If I was really good with technology I would share a sound clip with you (which I recorded on Just Practice! – there is a place where you can record yourself playing different pieces and then listen back to them later) of me practicing Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2, with my son’s little voice in the background, begging me to “turn around and LOOK!!” at something. It kind of makes me smile, and realize the difference between my practicing now and back in college 🙂

Now tell me…..What inspires you to practice? What tools help you? Are you motivated by a practice chart? By a list? By a timer? By a desire to instill the value of hard work in your students? In your children? In your unborn child (who, in my case, is listening to me practice every day!)? What can you take from your own practicing to use in the lessons you teach your students? What do you learn about practicing that helps teach your students to practice?

Stay tuned for more on this topic this week…including a wonderful guest contributor!

Feel free to take this short survey, or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your input!

think about it.

July 28, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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One of the big problems that piano students face in memorization is that they only memorize by muscle memory. They play a piece over and over and over, hoping that their fingers will catch on and do the memorizing for them. Often this gets alright results, that is until the student is in a stressful situation (such as a recital!) and their nerves get the better of them. Their fingers get a little mixed up, and suddenly they are completely lost! Muscle memory is definitely useful in memorizing a piece, but we should not rely solely on it. As was written in my college pedagogy notes, “Don’t take chances!! Don’t just say, ‘good luck, fingers!! I hope you make it.‘” As teachers, we need to teach our students to actively learn and memorize pieces with their mind, not just their fingers….we need to teach them to

THINK.

In the book How to Teach Piano Successfully, Bastien says, “The student should think while practicing, not just play by rote.” (Bastien, p. 246)

Now that is some great (albeit somewhat obvious) advice – think while you practice! If your students learn their pieces thoughtfully and thoroughly, they should have no problem when it gets to the memorizing stage. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking…hehe…

Ways you can encourage thinking while practicing:

Saying letter names out loud

Counting rhythms out loud

Forcing your brain to learn the notes, not just your fingers

Not letting your mind wander while practicing…

Writing out the chords

Looking for patterns in the chords or in the melody

Knowing the form of the piece

What do you have to add to the list?

a foundation of good practicing

July 26, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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A student can be bright and talented, have a true love and appreciation of music, can catch on to concepts very quickly and sight read well, BUT will they really be good musicians and have a good musical foundation if they do not practice consistently? If they don’t make an effort to apply themselves, or if they are not taught good practicing techniques/habits by their piano teacher, are they really becoming good pianists?

Teaching our students how to practice and helping them establish good practicing habits is key in laying a solid musical foundation for their continued music study. In the past few days I have read a few things that have really made me think about practicing – how I can better teach my students to practice, how I can help them enjoy practicing more, and how I can help them practice more effectively:

With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music

I have just barely started reading the book With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music by Seymour Bernstein. And I mean just barely – like I’ve read the introduction and a couple of pages. But so far I love it! It talks about how skills gained in practicing can influence your life. And something that really got me thinking was that it mentioned something about practicing and discovery. And it made me think – when my students practice, is their practice session full of discovery and excitement or drudgery and monotony? Is it a real joy for them to be learning new pieces and new concepts (and do they speed through their method books as a result) – or do they just do the bare minimum practice requirements and call it good? Something to think about!

I read a great article on The Musicians Way Blog about mindsets and how they influence practicing. The author talked about two different types of mindsets – the “growth mindset” and the “fixed mindset.” Those with a growth mindset might hear a great performance and “inquire about the ways in which the artist acquired fluency and then apply their discoveries in the practice room.” Those with a fixed mindset would hear the same performance and think, “They’re more talented than me. I could never do that.” Go check out the article!

Mariel Mohns wrote a post on her blog (fenwickpianostudio.blogspot.com) about helping her students become perfect practicers. She includes a great chart to help students apply good practicing techniques at home. I think this is a fabulous way to ensure our students are becoming good practicers at home!

Thoughts? Comments? 🙂