Practice, We Talkin' About Practice?

'How much practice does my child need to learn an instrument well?' I believe that I answer this question daily. Practice makes perfect is the old expression and one that I truly believe in wholeheartedly. It's takes 10,000 hours to master anything. However, how much a student needs to practice is not a simple question with one simple answer. There are several different ways of practice that improve your student and some ways that can hinder your student. Understanding practicing habits and methods will help you help your student.

The first and most important aspect of practicing is that the exact amount of time that a student practices is less important than practicing daily. It is much more beneficial to practice fifteen to thirty minutes each day than it is to practice three hours once a week in one sitting. I always strive to have students practice the same fifteen minutes or thirty minutes each day. This way when it's 5:00 (say) they know that it's practice time and can get into a comfortable routine. Music shares a lot of characteristics with math. When students learn how to do a math function, they remember how to do it through repetition. When that repetition has a long break, it's very easy to forget how to perform that function. I'm sure that most have looked at a math problem that they knew how to do easily in the past but have no clue how to perform now (I know I have). Music is the same way. If you take too much time between practice, you risk forgetting how to play correctly and then can build in bad playing habits.

Practicing should be more than just repetition and memorization, it should also have an aspect of fun. I tell all of my students every lesson that we are here to learn and to have fun. If we don't have both then we will never learn. Students should use their practice time to work on their assignments from the teacher and also be encouraged to explore the instrument and improvise. I would say that even one-third of their practice time should be dedicated to exploration and improvisation. This may seem like they are just “playing around” on the instrument but it develops creativity and allows them to feel more comfortable with the instrument and understand it's abilities and limitations.

Another very important aspect of practice is the environment and mood. A student needs to have a practice spot that promotes comfort and is not stressful. It's is almost impossible to learn how to do anything new under stress. Sending a student to practice just to fill the implied time requirements does not really do much good. It's much better to make practice a fun time that they will want to do more and on their own. Music is supposed to be fun but sometimes it can be very difficult also, which brings me to my next point...

Sometimes, it's best to not practice. This is not the norm but it does occur. I've had some very good students that I've shocked the parents by telling them not to practice in the upcoming week. This can help when a student is working in bad habits because they don't truly understand the material or if they are working on a difficult piece that has pushed them to the brink of frustration. It seems that when frustration sets in, sometimes we can look “through” the music on the stand instead of reading it. Taking a break from practicing and resetting allows us to almost see it from a different angle and a different perspective. Then we might see it correctly and realize that we were just viewing it wrong. If this is the case, I would make sure that this break from practicing is proscribed by their teacher and not just an excuse from the student.

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Practice, Practice, Practice. Any teacher will tell you that sometimes life gets in the way and if a student misses a day here or there that the damage is not significant but that if the missed days become more normal than the practice then it does. No matter the practice routine, encouragement from the parents and teacher will go a long way to making your student a maestro.