So! I'm finally getting around to drawing up an information sheet of sorts to give to new pupils' parents. (I'm also going to slip one to current parents, in a "Just so everyone has a copy" way).

I'd like to touch a little on practice, but I have pupils ranging from 7 to 17, and I'm hoping to get a few brand new ones in the new term. There's a couple of current ones that I'd like to put the wind up - one girl in particular is fairly new, starting Standard Grade this term, and not even at Grade 1 . She seems keen, keeps on asking about exams, but would really need to up her game, needs to anyway to do well at Standard Grade.

I'd like to say just enough to start new pupils onto good routines, and perhaps to shake up older ones into better ones, but I'm not sure what to put for the minimum, without scaring anyone...

Any ideas/suggestions/examples/etc......

I say to my students that "little and often" is better than one big chunk of practice. i.e 10-15 minutes most days is better than an hour once a week. For the more advanced, I suggest half an hour at least four or five times a week.

For those who I can tell for certain aren't practicing, I resort to a practice diary, where mum/dad/responsible adult signs it to say the practice has been done. All students have a note book with reminders or tips in.

For those who ask about exams, I advise that the practice needs to go up and if they can't commit to practicing for their "ordinary" lessons, then exam work starts when they assure me they can. This may sound a bit harsh, but for mine and their sakes, I won't enter anybody for an exam if they do not practice for it out of lesson time.

As a pupil I like it when I get set things to do but told to always finsih by playing my own choice of something I like and can do well. 15-20 mins a day at least 5 times a week is reasonable as no one can do it every day. I always finish with James Bond music!!!! I like having a practice diary and knowing exectly what to aim for. I don't mind having my parents sign. Teachers can always tell when you don't practice and you can tell yourself as you sound awful

Sounds like my kind of pupil! (Or more accurately, the kind of pupil I'd like to have!)

I suggest 10 minutes per approximate grade, eg 10 minutes for Grade One, 40 minutes for Grade Four. I do expect it to happen most days, and discuss it if practice clearly hasn't happened. I do take a fairly hard line, but am very sympathetic to older ones who have exams, we take the pressure off then, and I give them fun things to do for relaxation.

The actual amount of practice varies widely among my pupils, some will do the minimum, some do considerably more. . .

Everyone has a practice diary, and they have to be brought to every lesson, no excuses.

I certainly agree with the "little and often" philosphy as I've often stated here on these forums. I would also recommend that 15 minutes' practice on the day after the lesson is worth 30 minutes practice on the day before the following lesson. The sooner the previous weeks lesson has been consolidated the better. Progress early on in the week will give further encouragement and it tends to motivate the pupil to practice even more as he sees evidence of progress.

LR

"Practice
That old chestnut…
Please remember that when learning a musical instrument, the teacher’s role is largely consultative; I can correct, help, suggest and prescribe, but the learning process takes place through diligent practice. For younger students, little and often is best. Older and more advanced students might prefer to do a smaller number of longer sessions, but inadequate practice leads to lack of achievement, which leads to the individual feeling even less inclined to practice. In the early stages, there is no alternative to learning note names and learning to find the notes on the piano. Please take the time to do this, as specified. Otherwise you are dependent on playing by rote and from memory – meaning that the only progress you will make will be in lessons, and will be painfully slow. I am going to stop specifying a set time per day to practise, as it’s quality of practice that counts rather than quantity. In some cases pupils are filling in their timetable with the time they spend dithering at the piano. From now on, I will only be specifying what I want to be achieved by the following week, however long it takes. I know what everyone is capable of, and will only set what I know is manageable within a reasonable time."

This is my draft as it stands so far for that particular section of my 'news sheet'!

EDIT - I think I'll add on what LR said about practising as soon as possible after the lesson, as that's a very good point.

Interestingly, I did a wee practice survey the month before the summer break and was fairly shocked and at times appaled by the results.
I actually did it to find out if the better players were better through more practice, or just more natural talent.
The Prep/ Grade 1's had an average of 48 mins per week.
The Grade 2's had an average of 1hr 20mins per week.
The Grade 3's had an average of 2hrs 45mins per week.
The Grade 6 does approx 4 - 5 hours per week.

The biggest shock was that one pupil only did 30 mins per week. I had spent the last year and a half thinking she had some kind of dyslexia style problem and it turned out that she just didn't do anything. Needless to say she's an ex pupil now.

One of my other surprises was that one of my adult pupils manages to get in about an hour and a half a week, even though she works full time, doesn't get home till 6 and has twins to look after.

The long and the short of it is that most of my early grade pupils are not really doing enough and that practice has more influence on better playing than natural ability. Still can't get it through to them though.

I have reservations about such statistics as those quoted above. Mainly because I think they are not necessarily scientifically accurate. For one thing, if you are going by what the pupils and/or parents tell you, then it may simply be a work of fiction. I have to confess that even I as a parent have had to "manufacture" certain practice times on my offspring's practice diary to save myself embarrassment when she has not had the chance to practice for a particular week, perhaps. For another thing, just because someone shuts themselves in with a piano or other instrument for an allocated period of time doesn't mean that it is all quality practice time. It could be a mixture of day-dreaming, mobile phoning, just 'doodling' on the piano, etc. The best guideline to the amount of practice done is whether there's any appreciable practice since the previous lesson.

LR

Just slightly on topic, but what do people think about practising on a substandard instrument? For instance, my usual clarinet is being serviced now, and every time I try to practise on my old one I get frustrated because its not in good working order and has a worse tone. Do you as teachers think it would be better to just wait for my clarinet to come backm or would you rather pupils struggled on with whatever they had in the short term?

I don't know anything about clarinets, but if I was to tell some of my piano pupils not to practise till they had a decent instrument I'd have a major problem on my hands!

I mean a working instrument. Some of the notes don't even sound unless I force them! But if I send it in for repair I have nothing

Hi, I'm nearly 13 - taking grade 6 trumpet next term. I started learning in year 3 (age 7+) It was easy at primary school to practice for 30mins or more every night because I hardly ever got homework at primary school. I progressed really quickly because music was all I really ever put my mind to and I passed Grade 5 in year 6.

Now I'm at secondary school it's so much harder to fit this in. I have lots of research homework and travel further and two nights extra curricular music bands. I suppose this is practice in a different way, but my school trumpet teacher sets weekly homework that I must complete and she would know if I haven't done much. I find learning the scales quite easy and remembering them. That's not a problem. What is a problem is that if I miss practice for a day or two, my lip muscles don't tend to work so welll for the high notes and it's awful. I must admit that during the term I've only done about 15-20 mins in the evening and then really spent time on Sunday perfecting bits. I also go to borough music centre on Saturday and play church worship band on Sunday so there's opportunity to play.

During the school holiday I'm aiming at 45 mins at least per day because I don't want my lip muscles to hold me back when I go back to school. I'm going away next week with no opportunity to play, so I must up it again when I get back. I'm confident with remembering scales and playing the pieces, it's just keeping my lip muscles and breathing up to strength.

Absolutely. The times I've had to say "It's not what you practice but how you practice that makes the difference".

The whole point of good practice is to draw out the parts that you're struggling with..not repeating the whole piece over and over again and getting it wrong every time.

Thanks to everyone!

Turns out I've got to go and finish this right now, 'cause I now have a new pupil starting tomorrow morning!

I didn't do the survey to be "scientifically accurate". It was obviously never going to be that. But lets face it, if you're going to lie about you're practice times it's not going to be that you did less than you really did.
I asked them how long they spent at the piano, not how long they spent practicing everything I had given them to do. It also depends on what you class as quality practice time. Surely any work that they do on their instrument has to be positive. I would rather someone spent a little time on what I had given them, and then went on and played something they had dug out themselves. At least then they don't pack in music all toghether after 6 months becuase they're scunnered. I have a couple of pupils who like to compose little bits and pieces which I presume you would class as "doodling". I don't ask them to do that, but I wont stop them as they are still learning something.
I can't see the point of a practice diary for the reason you pointed out above. I do have a mother, however who allocates the same amount of computer/playstation time as there has been piano practice. Works like a dream.

Now...I DO like that idea! my son at present plays violin 15 mins per day....I am now thinking of limiting his computer time to 15 mins a day! He usually spends 30 minutes a day during the week and an hour at weekends, so if I do the same as this mother then he should practice violin 30 minutes a day during the week and an hour at weekends! BRILLIANT!

LR
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I have a couple of pupils who like to compose little bits and pieces which I presume you would class as "doodling". I don't ask them to do that, but I wont stop them as they are still learning something.
I can't see the point of a practice diary for the reason you pointed out above. I do have a mother, however who allocates the same amount of computer/playstation time as there has been piano practice. Works like a dream.
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Just to clarify: I must certainly would not class little bits of composition as doodling. That's a wonderful way of spending their time and - really what it should be about. No, quite the contrary, I just meant day-dreaming, fiddling etc. I'm all for the idea of them playing anything they want to do, e.g. their favourite film music, signature tunes of programmes, Christian music etc. - whatever their particular taste is. I suppose I was saying that it's obvious whether they've practised or not depending on the progress made in the next lesson.

LR

Yes I think to mention practise is important. At my piano school, a few people begin playing and don't seem to realise at first the amount of practise needed to really get somewhere.

I used to learn the guitar and had to be forced to play for about 30 mins a couple of times a week. Needless to say I didn't progress much and wasn't enjoying it. After 4 or 5 years of playing I hadn't reached grade 1 yet!

But now I learn the piano, and I practise for at least 1/2 hours a day (and in the school holidays about 3/4 hours a day). I have made more progress that I expected myself to do...I've been playing for 18 months and have just got a distinction in my grade 4 exam, and am now trying to begin working towards grade 6.

I agree that practise is very important, and it should be mentioned to prospective students of all ages, because some say they want to learn, but when they realise the amount of practise, don't want to. Which saves a lot of time, money and stress from the student, parent and teacher!

Hope that was of any help.

I have stopped using the "practising" word, and now refer to playing the piano - meaning playing the stuff we have covered in the lesson, and making it quite plain what I am expecting. I'm not sure whether it has a beneficial effect, but it might win over one or 2 recalcitrant pupils.

How long is it taking to get your clarinet serviced? I've not had to wait more than a week before getting my sax serviced (and in an emergency last week, after an accident during the jazz course my wonderful repairman stripped down, straightened out and rebuilt my sax in a day for me!). If it's only a week, then a week without practising provided you're usually conscientious isn't a disaster. There are useful things you can do without your instrument - try sightreading difficult rhythms clapping with/without a metronome, listen to recordings of some of the pieces you're playing - what do you especially like/dislike about them? Is there phrasing/articulation/dynamics etc that you can try to reproduce? Maybe mark some of them onto your music. Working without the instrument for a while can be beneficial because it forces you to do things that you don't usually concentrate on.

Interestingly all the pupils I have who progress most are obviously the biggest practisers, but their parents all have different approaches. I already mentioned the mother who awards computer and playstation minutes for each minute practiced, and as they are twins it also causes a bit of competition. I have another family with 3 kids who are expected to do a recital of what they have been working on all week in front of the whole family the night before their lesson. That one also works. I have another who put the piano in the same room as the snooker table so that pupil practices everytime he is waiting on one of his mates to think about and line up his shot. The mother with the twins is convinced that siting of the piano is vital and I agree. Pianos tucked away in back rooms with the lids kept down do not encourage bursts of spontaneous practice. The mother herself is also a pupil (she doesn't award herself computer minutes incidently! ) and she grabs minutes while the kettle is boiling or the tea is cooking.

In the end it took almost a month - they went on holiday, and my dad knew they were going but didn't bother to tell me that before it was sent away.