Fitting In Music Practice, as homework and other commitments increase Options

[MusicalNitWit]

Next term DS will become a full chorister which means he will be in the Abbey four days per week rather than two and he will get home at 7pm - he goes to bed at 8pm.

It is also cricket season so he will be in Wednesday matches which finish after 5pm and if he is at an away match then he may not get home until 6:30/7pm. He is at school on Saturday and and he will be in matches all afternoon. Once he hits Y6 he will also have a jump in the amount of homework. I feel sorry for him just writing this.

I need advice on the best way to utilise his practices. I sit in on them as this tends to speed them up and here is what we currently do four times a week:

Bassoon: all G4 scales once but not arpeggios/chromatics/dominants yet, all pieces once 30-40 mins
Double bass: G2 scales and pieces once - 10-15 mins
Piano: G1 scales and pieces once - 10-15 mins

Firstly, is his bedtime too early (Y5, age 10)? He needs to be up by 6:50am each morning and by going to bed at this time he normally wakes up naturally between 6:30-6:40am so I feel that he must need an early bed or he would be getting up earlier.

Assuming his bedtime remains the same, this leaves us with 30 minutes during the week with more time on Saturday and Sunday. What should I prioritise (he is sitting exams in all next term) and how can I make the practice sessions as effective as possible? There will be no opportunity to practice during the day or first thing in the morning. I feel my poor lad deserves some down time and I have tried to persuade him to give up double bass but he refuses.

[notmusimum]

I thought he wasn't taking anymore Bassoon exams (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Perhaps he should ease off one of his instruments or stay as a part time chorister.

Three exams in one session for a year 5 is too much.

[Claudia's Mum]

I don't know what to suggest other than to set the alarm clock for 6.30am and do the piano then to at least get that out of the way without interrupting his sleep pattern.

I don't know anything about choristers - is it only up to a certain age?

[MusicalNitWit]

He is not allowed to be a part time chorister. Everything I have written about his timetable is set in stone so these are the hours we are working with. He wants to do the exams, not me at all, but it doesn't matter if he was sitting exams or not he would still need to practice.

Choristers finish in Y8. Can he get effective practice done at 6:30am? He doesn't have breakfast until he gets to school at 7:30am and we wouldn't fit in breakfast at home as we are on a tight schedule to get up and out.

[corenfa]

re: bedtime, I do not have children but I do remember very clearly being 10 and having to stay up late for language lessons twice a week (resulting in bedtime going from 8pm to 10pm) and being very very tired the next day at school. I used to get up at 6 then. Hope it's not too bizarre that I'm adding this, but it is still quite a vivid memory for me of being tired at school.

[Susie]

3 exams in 1 session for a year 5 is too much. We've only ever done 2 exams in 1 session for daughter, and I think 1 of my pupils did 2 exams in 1 session, and they didn't enjoy it.

I teach a year 6 who has a busy schedule at home and she is permanently tired, even on a Monday lunchtime when I'd think she should be full of energy. So be wary of making his bedtime later if he's coping well now with the amount of sleep that he has.

Could you consider piano and double bass practices on alternate days so that it shaves a few minutes off practice time? If his timetable is going to get heavier next year, that may be the way to go, and, though I don't say this to my own pupils, 3 or 4 practices a week should ensure reasonable progress. [I lead them all to believe that they should practise 7 days a week - that way I usually get about 5 practices in! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ]

[MusicalNitWit]

Re the exams: he will manage the double bass and piano in his sleep. He will be ready by the end of March but the school have missed the deadline so I am not too worried about that.

What I would love is for someone to give me a timetable of what we could do each day and what to focus in on each lesson. We do scales every session because of the disaster last term but should that be once a week to free up time?

Sat/Sun we can do a full and thorough practice but what should I do in the 30 mins available during the week days? I feel the bassoon should take priority but ironically it is the session that takes the longest and is most exhausting.

[Sunrise]

Re the exams: he will manage the double bass and piano in his sleep. He will be ready by the end of March but the school have missed the deadline so I am not too worried about that.

What I would love is for someone to give me a timetable of what we could do each day and what to focus in on each lesson. We do scales every session because of the disaster last term but should that be once a week to free up time?

Sat/Sun we can do a full and thorough practice but what should I do in the 30 mins available during the week days? I feel the bassoon should take priority but ironically it is the session that takes the longest and is most exhausting.

I would suggest try moving bedtime just 30 mins later and see how he copes? You can always put it back. DD is 12 and she has a 9-9.30 bedtime and gets up at 6.50. She copes well with this amount of sleep.

On practice, It might be more efficient to work on half the pieces one practice session and the others the next to avoid just playing them through. Ideally practice needs to be focussed on problem areas and then put it back together rather than a concert. And yes, I think you could reduce the scales to at least every other practice, maybe less.

Also I agree with susie, if you do double bass and piano on alternate days it cuts out a few minutes warmup time, getting music ready time etc. Nearly double the practice on alternate days might be more efficient and allow for more focussed practice on certain areas.

[Clari Nicki1]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
I have a very busy year 7 daughter. She is in an independent school with Saturday school and is a gymnast at quite a high level (has competed nationally) and is violin Gr 6 standard and does piano (gr 3) and does ballet.
I understand the issues.
I have asked my daughter to give up activities but she does not want to!
So here's what we do- I set up a timetable and explained that she has to do 3- 4 x 30 mins violin prac and 3-4 x 15 mins piano a week. If she didn't keep that up, she has to give something up.
Piano is usually before school. We found trying to fit a 30 min practise in before school was too much!
I am lucky that my daughter does not need too much sleep (she probably went to bed at 9- 9:30 in yr 5- but she has never been a sleeper- which is why her busy schedule suits her). Violin is on a Sunday, Mon and Thur (she has a lesson Tues). At the moment piano is getting v little practice as we are concentrating on Gr 5 theory this term. She trains for gym Friday and Saturday.
I avoid 2 music exams in one term- and when she is doing an exam sometimes we sacrifice the other instrument's practise. I do tell the teachers! They are fine about it.
At school, she is exempt Saturday matches except with prior negotiation with me (she trains 2-8 for gym on a Sat) When she plays matches, she is exempt match tea (if she is at gym by 4 that's ok). She played no Saturday matches last term but she decided she could this term as has no major gym comps til July. Next term might be an issue- she is a good athlete and it's athletics!
I have had to cut back on mid week gym training- but I remain flexible- when there is a major competition coming up I know I will have to increase the training and have her training Sundays and mid week.
My daughter does still get some time to chill- but her busy-ness is her choice and she has to sacrifice some TV watching/ msn time to practice.

It's about juggling! I understand that being a chorister is a problem as that has to take priority- but can you negotiate with matches? My daughter has become pretty efficient at getting her homework done. She seems to coping well academically too.....

With the extra 30 mins, I'd do whatever is the priority at the time.... at the moment for us it's music theory before school!!!! and not practice.... be flexible....

[MusicalNitWit]

Sorry to be so precise but would this work:

Saturday - full practice as mentioned in initial post
Sunday - as above
Monday - piano as lesson next day
Tuesday - bassoon
Wednesday - possible full practice if no match/finishes early otherwise short bassoon session and double bass
Thursday - double bass
Friday - piano and short bassoon as lesson the next day

Just to add that the scales I do with DS are part of his warm up so should I continue or omit them and find another warm up?

I am going to try and persuade DS not to do G4 Bassoon.

It goes without saying that the hols are filled with daily practice apart from when he is on the odd singing course.

[SueHM]

I would suggest that you don't try to cover everything every day. Split the 30 minutes into 3 x 10 minutes, or 2 x 15 minutes and have a rota for instruments / tasks.

Tempting though it might be to take lesson day off for a particular instrument, one of the most effective practice sessions of the week can be the one straight after the lesson when everything is fresh in the mind - consolidate quickly, and less work needs to be done later in the week.

Ask his teachers for a short list of focussed tasks for the week and aim to cover all of these things at least 5 times over the course of the week.

Works for us (child 2 learns 4 instruments, child 3 learns 3). All my kids are crazy-busy but it doesn't seem to have done them any harm. They will never have the chance to be so self-indulgent later in life, so why not let them do all these things while they can? 3 exams aren't too much if a child is ready. Child 2 is taking piano 6, singing 7, percussion 8 this term - she may not get distinctions, but she probably wouldn't anyway, even if she sat them individually. She is as ready as she'll ever be, and wants them out of the way before AS levels next term. We've always done exams in batches, it's no big deal.

[Susie]

Tempting though it might be to take lesson day off for a particular instrument, one of the most effective practise sessions of the week can be the one straight after the lesson when everything is fresh in the mind - consolidate quickly, and less work needs to be done later in the week.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

And as regards exams, you can only find out about multiple entries with your own child really - it depends how keyed up they get.

[MusicalNitWit]

DS is used to performing so exam nerves are not really an issue unless he knows he is underprepared.

SueHM,

If DS is asked to do all scales and three pieces should one lesson be scales, and the others one piece each, so he may only do each thing once a week? I suppose he could do two scales each time as a warm up before the one piece which means scales would be twice a week.

[SueHM]

I think the key thing is frequent repetition, whatever the material, so I would be tempted to do at least some scales in each practice session (but only the ones that are causing difficulty), and perhaps look at the piece in the first session, identify a few problem areas and work on these intensively in the next few sessions - I've even gone as far as photocopying a piece and chopping out the relevant bars and pasting them on a new piece of paper sometimes (for pupils who really don't know how to practise and need to know that it is these 3 bars that they need to play over and over...)

Focus is so important. It gets results in a way that trawling through everything doesn't. If time is limited, don't waste a minute playing all the bits of the piece that are already OK - spend that minute playing the awkward trill in bar 13, 20 times over. Efficient practice is a really useful habit to acquire.

[MusicalNitWit]

That makes perfect sense. I suppose I would be concerned that he might forget to play the good bit well if he hasn't touched it for a couple of weeks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)