Hi all,

I have a couple of pupils who are incredibly difficult to motivate to practice and was wondering if anybody could share some of their ideas that have worked.

With my younger pupils in schools (up to about 8 or 9) I have been doing an incentive competition this term which has been for the most part successful. Every week I draw five circles in the students notebook and every time they practice for 10 minutes they turn one in to a smiley face. If they come back the next week with five smiley faces they get a star and the person with the most stars at the end of the term gets a prize!

I'm particularly interested in ideas for the slightly older students (10 and 11). I have a couple at the moment who don't understand the need for practice in what ever way i attempt to dress it up for them. In particular I have one year 5 boy who comes in to the room every week announcing that he hasn't done any practice and then comes up with progressively ridiculous excuses every time. I asked him a couple of weeks ago when he practices and for how long to which he responded, "I usually practice while i'm waiting for the computer to boot up"! and then today his excuse for not practicing was that he couldn't get his piano stool out far enough from the piano to sit down because his scalectrix (sp?) was in the way!

Any suggestions?

Sarah

repertoire is a huge thing with boys. If he was playing something a bit more recognisable that his friends could be impressed at, it might just work. Boys get to that stage that the piano isn't "cool" (I don't know why I used that word, it's archaic) enough for them and they want to go bang some drums/play guitar. I know I'm generalising but it is quite often the case.nOne teacher I know started teaching jazz piano instead for this very reason.

Have a look on
www.thepracticespot.com for some ideas on practising / motivation.

(ed - didn't remember quite correctly - it's
www.practicespot.com )

i'm not a teacher, but how about arranging for your younger students to listen to the older ones?

listening to a teacher or professional is too big a gap, and never seems achievable at a young age. but listening to an older student isn't, and then you could emphasize how they could be just as good as that student with a little practice?

i come from a town with a VERY good music centre. the incentive was always that i wanted to play as nicely as the boy/girl on front desk (who was probably grade 5 at the time!)

I'm inclined to agree with David and must say I have never used incentives for practice. However I spend quite a lot of lesson time showing them how I want something practised and giving them a realisable target for the next lesson. I praise verbally and in their notebooks when they have practised well.

If they turn up and say "I haven't done any practice this week" I usually say "OK, let's do it now" and then work them as hard as I can. Some of my pupils have genuine reasons for the occasional week without practice - for example an assessment week at school. But as I also work as a class teacher they know I will know when these periods are so they can't pull the wool over my eyes.

Actually I think this is a very good point. I find that when we have pupils' concerts there is often renewed interest around - and some of the younger ones want to be able to play some of the things they heard the slightly older ones play.

That's all very noble but it can be very difficult for pupils to want to practise in the early stages as it is difficult learning to read the notes, then make it sound like the teacher made it sound in the lesson.....it can be a spiral going either upwards or downwards......when a pupil can read sufficiently to play pieces that sound great the motivation goes up and practise increases, whereas in the early stages it can be very demoralizing if you're struggling so you might not want to practise......Getting motivation to come from within doesn't always come early on - many pupils need external motivating factors to get to a certain level and the internal motivation ie practising and playing music for the love of it sometimes can come much later......you can tell someone until you're blue in the face that progress comes with practice, but some pupils just need a little bit more encouragement than that..........


I use stickers and smiley faces BTW...........

My first piano teacher had a star system: something like 1 star for minimal effort, 2 for normal, 3 for extra hard work (i don't remember ever getting no stars, but i'm not sure whether that was because it was imposible, or because i always practiced enough(or could sight read well enough, so that she thought i had)) Then when you got to something like 20 stars, you got a tube of smarties. It worked a treat! It's also probably better than saying the person with the most wins, as some kids will feel they haven't got a chance of beating everyone else, so just won't practice.

That is a good point - I tried to minimise that issue by giving everybody a small prize and then the winner got a slightly better prize and a certificate in assembly.


I think I will try to find some relatively simple but recognizable music for this student although this is difficult as we are still at the difficulty in differentiating between 3 or 4 notes stage.

I think that part of the problem is that there appears to be no reinforcing of practice at home by the parents so maybe when I say about not getting any further if we don't practice he might think well mum and dad aren't worried about it so it can't be that bad.

Sarah

I think this is very true and for younger pupils I think there are very real problems of time management if there is no parental involvement. My elder daughter (who is ten and a half) practises at more or less the same time every day but she still likes to be reminded that it is "time to do some practice" otherwise she gets involved in a game and doesn't realise that time is passing. It is not a problem of not wanting to practise as when I call her she comes quite happily and when I'm not there she complains likes mad that she very often doesn't get round to doing any practice because her father doesn't remind her (his theory is that if she really wanted to practise she would do so without him saying so).

I think incentives like preparing pieces for concerts work very well. For my school pupils I'm lucky enough to have a head of music who every so often asks the girls to play in class, so I can say to them that if they work really hard on a piece for a couple of weeks I can let the teacher know that it's ready to be performed in class. And my private pupils have a concert at least once a year to prepare for.

I think parents sometimes don't help because if they don't play/have never played an instrument they feel as though they have no right to chase their children, or perhaps don't know what they should be playing. (I don't have this problem with "my" parents, but I have heard parents of pupils belonging to other teachers say it.)

Really liking the music they're playing can give students a huge incentive to practise; setting a tune that's special to them as a reward for the work that gets them to the point where they can play it can be a great incentive.

Find out why they wanted to learn the instrument in the first place and what kind of music they saw themselves playing on it - something must have inspired them in the beginning otherwise they wouldn't have asked to take up the instrument!

I started at the same age

I think I was lucky in that I had my mum as a role model, and she would sit with me while I played. I've found lots of the musical paretns do this with the younger ones, but if they are not musical, I usually have a chat with them about even sitting in on the practise and listening enthusiastically.

One mum says she feels bad that she can't help the child with the music, but I've assured her that the pupil knows what she is doing, and if she wants to get involved all she needs to do is be there and offer encouraging words.

I don't offer treats as incentives to practise, but bar one or two, I've just been lucky yet again with my pupils in that they seem to do the work for me!

My main method is hoping that my enthusiasm for the music rubs off on them, and thankfully the parents have told me it does! If I get excited about a new piece, however easy it is, then they do too. If they go home all fired up about music, I know there's a good chance they will go straight to the piano to try it out

The age group that I find the most difficult to motivate if they aren't self-starters is the 10-13 group. Little ones are either keen or they're not; they may need a little reminding at times, but generally they either do it willingly or they put up so much resistance that we can decide that they don't want to know. Older teenagers can be inconsistent at times with their practice, but generally they're there because they want to be, and will come up with the goods when required. It's that middle group that can be awkward - new schools, new activities, getting more independence can all mean that their music can take a back seat. I've often found that this is temporary, once they realise that there's more to be gained from doing their own thing rather than just running with the crowd, but in the meantime it's hard to know whether to allow them to drift or lay down the law. Pupil concerts aren't the motivator that they were when they were younger, because they're learning to say no rather than just accept that 'it's happening'. Nerves are kicking in and it might do more harm than good to force the issue.

One thing that I've found successful is duets, whether for a performance or just for fun. If you can find another pupil that they get along well with and get them to come along to each other's lesson from time to time, they seem to want to make the effort rather than let themselves down.