How common is it for your younger pupils to spontaneously insist on practising one bar at a time and getting this bar perfect before they move on to the next bar?

This is what my not quite eight-year-old daughter does with pieces which present a new technical difficulty. (She will quite happily sight-read from beginning to end something which only has things she is already familiar with).

I am not interested (for the time being) in whether such an approach should be encouraged or discouraged, I would just like to know how frequent it is for pupils to do this without anyone else suggesting it to them.

I think this shows a pretty disciplined aproach for a child so young! Often they want to see immediate results and won't have this sort of patience. I have one or two pupils who like to perfect very small sections at a time - maybe two or three bars - and I let them do it that way if they want, as it works for them.

It's certainly better than those who will just play the thing all the way through once, complete with mistakes, and then claim to have 'practised' it.

I encourage my pupils to take out the hard bits, practise them several times until they've got it right, then put them back in again. It doesn't necessarily have to be a single bar, although it can be, but practising a phrase at a time is common.

To answer the actual question, I have never come across children who will do this spontaneously, they always need to be told to do it this way.

I should take my own advice though.

If only some of mine would think like that!! I spend a lot of my time trying to persuade students that they should look at details and not just to play through a piece - usually making the same mistakes every time, of course.

One of the excellent harp teachers at Guildhall has a lovely idea - called 'The Tiny Terrible Bar' - you give the child a photocopy of the one bar that is causing problems - of course this is on a tiny piece of paper and that's all the child has to practise that week.

Makes it feel very manageable - thought it was a great idea!

I'm with Jenny on this one; whether your pupil is 8, 18 or 58 you'll always have problems getting them to understand the concept of 'practice' as opposed to 'playing'. I think what your daughter is doing is brilliant, it's a difficult concept to grasp and she seems to be managing it really well. I think it's common for teachers to ask their pupils to practice one bar at a time (or rather, the bars that are causing them difficulty) but rare that the pupils actually do it. I find this is mainly because they don't feel like they are 'playing the music' (hence my comparison between practicing and playing).

I think it's common for teachers to ask their pupils to practice one bar at a time (or rather, the bars that are causing them difficulty) but rare that the pupils actually do it.

Agreed. I think it's quite unusual - even when a pupil has been asked to do it - and probably much more so if it's not been suggested.

Oh yes... very rare. My 9 year old daughter only practices "the hard bits" sometimes... in order to reduce practice time, not because she wants to get it right before continuing with the piece.
She must be a dream to teach!!!

I think it's unusual, especially for such a young age, but very encouraging - your daughter must show a lot of potential for the future! I try to get pupils to do this, but it can be difficult.

Positively encourage this type of practice! As others have said, it would be great if more students actually did this, rather than thinking that a complete run-through, mistakes and all, constitutes a constructive session with your instrument.

Thanks for the answers everyone. I was inclined to see it as both quite unusual and something to be encouraged but daughter's piano teacher seems to think differently.

Actually I have a few pupils who work like this! On a new piece, I'll explain anything they haven't come across before and let them try it out before they take it home. They will play the first bar and then before I have opened my mouth they will play it again...and again...and again...then they say "Hang on a sec" (such respect I command lol!) and play it yet again

Those are usually the ones who will come back next week having learned the whole thing.

Me « What so you think you should do now ? »
W ( boy aged 13) « Start again » »
Me « Why ?. »
W « I made a mistake »
Me « Where ? »
W « There » (about 18 bars into the piece)
Me « Where didn’t you make a mistake ? »
W « Well, from the beginning to there ? »
Me « So why do you want to play those 17 bars again ? »
W « Don’t know »
Me « I think it’s a bit of a waste of time. What do you think ? »
W (monosyllabically » « Yes ».
Me « So where shall we start working »
W « There »
Me » How shall we do it »
W « Hands separately. »
Me « At what speed ? »
W « Slowly »
Me « Wow ! »
So we do that. Then….several attempts later and after various ways of analysing the problem ….
Me « Do you feel happy about it now ? »
W « Yes »
Me « What shall we do now ? »
W « Go back to the beginning ? »
Me « Oh no we don’t – we play it again to consolidate all the good work of the last five minutes »

W plays it again and I keep my fingers crossed he won’t bungle it .

Me Now what shall we do ? »
W « Go back to the befinning? »
Me « Why »
W « To see if I can play it now. »
Me « Do you really want to play 17 bars to see if you can play bar 18 ? »
W - giggles - « Well no. »
Me How about starting the bar before – or at the beginning of the phrase ? »
W (pointing) « There ? »
Me « OK »

There follows a reasonable attempt to put the offending passage back into its context.

Me « You know, W, if you use your intelligence you can cut down your practice time and you’ll have more time for TV »
W giggles – he knows I don’t really mean that.

DA CAPO AD INFINITUM

So do you see this as a major problem in your lessons? It seems to have grown out of all proportions in my daughter's (and yes she does come back the following week having learned the whole thing). I thought maybe the teacher had never had a child like this before and that that was why she is making such a fuss about it.

No it's never been a problem, as each pupil works differently. I'm more pleased that the ones who do go over things like that actually bother to spend the time getting it just right! They tend to be more "fussy" if that's the word, and don't like to leave things half done.

When I look at one boy he is concentrating so hard I think he's forgotten I'm there! It at least shows he is capable of working things out himself. Sometimes I'll feel we should really move on and let them know that they should continue what they were just doing at home, as they obviously know what to do.

I don't let too much lesson time go by when they get into the mood for trying to perfect the whole of next weeks piece the second I give it to them, but I don't discourage their method and I do appreciate the effort they put in!

With this thread in mind this afternoon, I talked to all of my students about the difference between practising and just playing through. I've talked about it many times before, but today I went into mopre detail and demonstrated how to practise correctly. I hope that my words will bear fruit next week!
Just another example of how this forum helps and encourages us as teachers.

Nice one

I had a funny conversation on the phone earlier. A pupil's mum phoned to check her daughter's lesson time for tomorrow and said that daughter (only 7) had just claimed she "couldn't play" a new piece I'd given her.

"Will you speak to her? She doesn't listen to me!". So pupil came on the phone saying she just wasn't sure of a few of the notes...."Well, when you come for your lesson in the morning, you know I'm not going to tell you the names of them, I'll get you to work them out the way we practised won't I?"..."Yes"..."So why don't you go and work them out now?"..."OK!" - then she trotted off!

Mum came back onto the phone for a chat and in the background I could hear the new tune being played perfectly well

Sometimes "I can't do it" really means "I'll just wait and get Ad_libitum to do it for me tomorrow"

I had a very similar experience with a boy yesterday. He came to his lesson and I asked how he was feeling about the piece he'd been working on. He said "Okay, but I just can't do this bar" and pointed to one bar near the end. The piece was in 6/8 and rhythmically quite complicated (he's had big problems with rhythm in the past) so I did the usual thing of slowing it right down and counting out loud and then gradually getting it back to the right speed. Of course, within a couple of minutes it was correct. I asked him why he hadn't worked on it like that at home and he had no answer. I said, with a smile, that I thought he had just been lazy and thought he'd wait and let me sort it out for him instead. Trouble is, it's probably the truth!

If a pupil is struggling with something in every single bar, then the piece is too hard for them!

Isn't learning a piece bar by bar is a somewhat unmusical way to practise if the piece of music is actual music rather than a technical study? Surely it'd better to play the music all the way through a few times till the tricky bits become obvious, then start isolating those bars and working on them separately until the whole piece can be played more fluently.

Thats how I work - Sometimes even down as far as 1 interval proving particularly troublesome, I wander around playing it back and forth. Drives my parents crazy

My daughter is a pre-grade one pianist so there is not actually a lot to play through for the moment. Also in the tutor book she has, the new technical point inevitably occurs in the first bar and is then repeated in subsequent bars. However, you are right in saying that these pieces are hard for her as she is capable of sight-reading easier things from beginning to end without stopping.

I think it depends on what is meant by 'practising one bar at a time'. Whatever is done has got to make some kind of musical sense. One bar at a time is fine but the teacher might have to find a good 'destination' note to end on - perhaps one bar plus the first note of the next or overlap half way through the next bar at a cadence and to find a nice shape to practise. Pupils tend to stop at bar lines and repeat marks and need help to keep going through them!

If a pupil is able to sight-read a piece reasonably well then in theory the pieces they are aiming to perfect should be about two grades ahead of what they can sight-read. Unless a young, pre-Grade One pianist stays forever with thumbs on Middle C, he/she will struggle with getting the notes for a while. To go through the whole thing hands together at first sight would be soul-destroying for most of them. I would usually go as far with them in lessons as I can until I feel they are beginning to lose heart - or concentration - and then we agree on how many bars it's reasonable to tackle for next week. Sometimes it's several, and sometimes it's one or two - which can be enough if there are scales, simple sight-reading and other pieces on the go.

I went through pretty much the same conversation with my kids too!! But i usually sum it up as "mr. snail' - where i tell them imagine you're the snail, you climb up, u reach a hard bit so u practice it heaps, mr. snail then slides down (as snails probably do ) to the bar before it and start climbing from there. It works quite well (as long as we go through that convo a few times) they can allude to it. Saves a lot of breath by saying 'Practice like Mr. snail!!'