I had a bit of a situation last month. A pupil had not been practicing for a few weeks. I turned up at the next lesson and I taught for around half the lesson, and was so annoyed when I realised he had still done nothing I told the Mum I was unable to teach him today as he had done no work and we really needed to address this. Calmly but firmly discussed that he would need to have a much better week of practice and the usual stuff about how they won't progress without practice. They are very much the type of parents that expect miracles with no work... . Anyway, as I thought may happen, they decided to give up. However, when I went to teach another pupil a few weeks later (friend of giving up pupil- A)), the Mum asked me what happened with pupil A. being professional, I said that he was no longer having lessons and maybe he might come back to it at some point. She then told me that pupils A's Mum had said I stormed out of the lesson and she thought I had somewhere to go that evening and thats why I left early. Luckily pupils B's Mum stuck up for me and said that I go straight to them after her lesson, she also said they were happy with me etc....Anyway, after pupils B's Mum had told me everything pupils A's mum had said, I felt I had to tell her (without bad mouthing) what had actually happened. Didn't want to go into this but felt I had to at this point. Was so angry that I was bad mouthed like this. I'm obviously better off without them, but was cross that she went slagging me off to other pupils. Has anyone had this happen? it was only the 3rd time I have had to leave a lesson early due to no practice.

If no practice then student and teacher and just going round in circles with cash being wasted on lessons.

child probably does not practice as they do not enjoy playing the instrument. They should not learn the instrument if they dislike it.

Basically teacher will be paid for their service. if child chooses not to practice and thus make little or no progress it is there loss.

Yes - if the lesson is booked I think it should take place. If necessary use the lesson to do the practice that hasn't been done, or sight reading, or scales, but I don't regard non practice (frustrating though it is) as reason to end a lesson early.

I'm not a teacher - but from a student and parent perspective, I don't think that walking out is the solution to lack of practice and will be unlikely to have a beneficial effect.

As a parent, I pay for my children's lessons. I expect my children to practice and I know if they practice or not. If they didn't practice regularly, I would stop lessons.
However, as a teacher, I don't think it's my place to cancel a lesson due to lack of practice. There is always something you can do. Parents need to understand how much practice you expect, and that lack of practice means slower progress . If they then make a decision that it is money well spent to continue lessons that is not my responsibility. If progress is slow.... progress is slow.
I am teaching a child about music as well as a specific instrument. Even a slow progressor is learning something. Maybe they learn to appreciate different styles of music. Regular non practisers sometimes get quite good at sight reading. I might do some aural or theory. There are always things we can do. Sometimes we do the similar activities week after week. We just vary it a bit, as no or very little practice has been done. As long as aprents are aware of the situation, that's ok. The pupil soon realises others make faster progress than they are. I always say that progress is related to practice.
I really don't think a teacher should cancel a lesson pre-arranged and would be shocked if one of my own children's teacher cancelled a lesson as for some reason they had not been able to practice much that week.

I think that even children of inexperienced parents who have yet to learn about and develop a practice culture and who are paying their hard-earned cash for lessons are entitled to receive the entire lesson that is paid. Perhaps you could be so gracious as to teach them how to practice in the lesson during the second half?

Teachers who play t*t-for-tat by reacting emotionally and shirking their own responsibilities when children don't practice (sufficiently) should not be surprised when customers, justifiably so, speak ill of them.

I would think that in a community where word of mouth referrals are important to building a teaching practice that this kind of prima donna, unprofessional behavior would be the kiss of death.

There are many things you can do in a lesson, even if the student hasn't practised that week. It seems unprofessional to me for a teacher to walk out.

I remember hearing about a now famous soloist/conductor turning up for a lesson when he was young and telling the teacher that he hadn't had time to practise - the teacher took his money and sent him home. I thought then (and still think) how unwise that was.

I had a lesson on the first day back from a month-long trip to Australia (with just a few hours snatched practice at a house we stayed at for part of the trip). My teacher decided it was pointless to work on any of the pieces I was studying, so we spent over an hour doing just 3 Hanon exercises.

It was wonderful. I found out how to use such exercises to repair technical flaws (rather than rushing through them as some sort of athletic conditioning). Since then I have rather enjoyed doing exercises of that kind.

I think the way to go in the situation you described is not to show your (justified) frustration, but to use the time to do an hour of well-structured practice, or listen to a fine recording and discuss it, or talk non-confrontationally about the problem of lack of practice, and find out just where the problem is. It may not be lack of motivation. There are plenty of families that claim to support their musical members, honestly believe they do, yet put every obstacle imaginable in the way of their practice sessions.

If it is a problem of motivation and effort then with luck the student will come to realize that playing well is worth the effort and that practicing is at least as enjoyable as watching TV, hanging out with mates, taking two hours to choose what to wear, retail therapy, ... or whatever it was they did instead.

You might also need to make it absolutely clear what you expect to have been achieved by the next lesson. That is not to say a certain number of hours of practice, but what the student should be able to demonstrate on their instrument, that they cannot do now. In a truly hopeless case you could suggest that lessons be discontinued "until the student is ready to commit to regular practice".

But generally, one of teacher's jobs is to inspire, to spark the fire the internal fire of self-motivation.

<-- restricted to one hour a day for the time being

In Lotusleafs defence he/she did mention that this had happened after a few weeks of non-practice. What had you said to the mam in the weeks leading up to you walking out?

I feel It would certainly have been wiser to have acted professionally (calmy and to the point) and controlled your frustration throughout the lesson and then simply refused to return until he had practiced.

I have one young pupil of around 9/10 who persistantly does little or no practice. He has problems with his attention span and a very non-musical family, but every now and then there's a sign of how musical he is underneath (he's got potential strong aural ability for example). It's very frustrating to see so little progress, but I'm hoping to jolly him along a year or two to when kids become a bit more self-motivated.
In the meantime, I'm trying to move a couple of tunes along, but also doing things like playing duets so that he can hear how much he knows already!
Sending him out to his mum after working out in the first 60 seconds that he hasn't worked that week is just not on the cards...

Also in his or her defence, it doesn't sound like he or she 'stormed out' of the lesson. As I understand it, Lotusleaf taught half the lesson, then stopped and had a 'calm but firm' discussion with the mother about lack of progress. Assuming for the sake of argument that this was a thirty minute lesson, he/she taught for 15 minutes and them talked to the child's mother for presumably a further 5-10 minutes, therefore stopping only five or ten minutes short of the full half hour. Perhaps Ll could have found something else to fill the remaining time, but it's not quite the same as cancelling the entire lesson and flouncing out in a fit of pique as some people seem to be suggesting he/she did.

Thanks for all your responses. Yes, practice routine had been discussed for around a month leading up to this. I didn't storm out of the lesson, I was calm, and did spend time talking to the Mum. I also have asked the Mum to sit in on a few lessons and gone through with the pupil 'how to practice'. She did say to me that he won't practice unless she has the time to sit with him. Great, if she has the time, if not he should be able to practice on his own (age 9). Of course, if a pupil doesn't practice once in a while, you can do sightreading, improvisation etc... but when it's all the time... The other 2 times when I have done this (over 10 years of teaching) the parents agreed with me, this had the desired effect and the pupil worked hard for the next lesson and turned a corner. As someone commented, I think this child just doesn't really want to learn... you can only try to the best of your ability.



For many weeks we have done duets and other things when he hadn't practised, but you get to a point where the pupil really needs to progress at a rate you know they are capable of, or they get stuck at one level. It was also after 15mins, not 60 seconds.

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest it was...

But as a rule, that's how long it takes you to work out whether anything's been done this week...sometimes less!

I taught a girl yesterday who had quite obviously done very little practice in the 2 weeks since our last lesson. I pointed out that she hadn't done enough to get to grips with the piece she'd been asked to work on the most, and then spent most of the lesson showing her how she should have been practising.
Of course, within a short time she could see how it all fitted together and how much better it was starting to sound. She's a lovely bright, friendly girl, but is a bit 'laid back'. This isn't the first time that we've had a lesson like this and she goes away nearly every week with me saying how she should try to work a bit harder and that she does have the potential to do quite well.
It's hard work to teach like this, but she left my house saying to her grandfather 'I really like playing the piano' !! Which makes it all worth while, in my opinion.

When a teacher can get a student in touch with their own internal motivation, the learning process achieves its own momentum. Well done!

Perhaps a path for lotusleaf4 might be to find out what does motivate her student now and see how that can be leveraged towards the piano.

If it's not hard work for the teacher, how can we expect the student to put out hard work?