Piano play

[*bejeweled*]

Hi there,
DD recently started playing piano and has agreed to play for 30 minutes daily. She comes home from school, eats a snack and plays piano before she goes outside.

Sometimes she wants to go outside and play right away before she plays piano.

I've told her she can go out after piano play.

Is this setting us up for a struggle? I want piano play to be fun for her. Should I be more flexible?

[moominmamma]

We're a homeschooling family so I don't know much about this, but I would think that after a day of structured education a bit of play time before more focused learning work might be really helpful with unwinding. However, only you and your dd can figure out what works best for her. Maybe she's too tired after dinner. Maybe she has difficulties with transitions and would resist being called in to practice. Maybe her mornings are too full and chaotic to allow for practicing then.

Generally speaking I think it's good to have a routine for music practicing, but I think such routines work best when they are approached collaboratively. I'm assuming your dd is agreeable about the expectation of daily practicing. If so, why not ask her what she thinks would be the best routine to allow her to accomplish that, and agree to try what she suggests for a week, then reassess and compare to how things are working now?

Miranda

[One_Girl]

How old is she? My dd is seven and her teacher recommends 10 minutes of practice a day for her age. If going outside to play is the only thing that will motivate her to practice then I think that you should keep the practice then or give her choice a try and then go back as necessary.

[BusyBee]

My guess is that initially piano playing for your daughter will be draining so that a break after school would be good. However, I remember when my brother was in high school, the first thing he did after getting home from school was go to the piano and play. At that time it was stress relief for him (he never had music lesson, never had an adult tell him when or how to play,and as an adult continues to play the piano and compose music for church). I think a certain amount of proficiency is needed for playing to become stress-relief. My son is 9 and has been playing piano for about 2 years now. He plays little bits throughout the day and most of the time is "doodling". I used to try to sit down with him and have a serious practice with him every day, but he started resisting and not playing the piano at all. I went against everything I believed and have been told about music lessons and totally left it up to him as to when he plays and how he plays. He is progressing well, mostly in leaps with long flat periods inbetween. I think he could be better, but other people think he is "talented", (so there you have differences in opinion already). I can see how with a younger child just learning an instrument heavy parental involvement is necessary to learn the mechanics and theory of playing, but really the teacher is doing most of that anyway. What we are really trying to do is cultivate a love of music, and I am assuming your daughter actually wants to play. Finding the balance between being encouraging but not pushy is hard. In our busy, activity-filled days, it seems as if setting a regular practice-time is necessary. I homeschool, so finding time to play isn't an issue for us. We have a piano teacher in town who doesn't let the parents in to the practice room and tells the parents to be hands-off at home. She is getting great results and is nationally known for her work. It is really hard for parents who are paying so much money for the lessons not to be deeply invested in the results and this can result in a conflict between parent and student. I hope I don't sound too preachy. I'm just relating my experiences in my particular family.

[*bejeweled*]

Interesting. Thank you ladies. She is 7 and loves playing piano.

Today I let her play outside first and she ended up too tired after dinner to play piano.

So, I'm going to try to have her play right after school and snack. But I'll be flexible. I don't want to ruin her natural love of the instrument.

She plays 30 minutes, but half that time is structured and the other half is her doing her own thing.

[tankgirl73]

Me again!

I was also going to comment that 30 minutes might be too much for a 7yo beginner, but if she's enjoying it and it isn't a pain for her to do that long, there isn't anything wrong with it either -- just that I wouldn't REQUIRE that much. And if half of it is her 'work' and the other half is her own fun stuff, that's fantastic!

I also recommend focussing on goals and specific practice assignments rather than going by timing. In other words, I'd give a student instructions to play a certain song 3 times a day, to work on this particular passage until it's fluent, different things depending on age and level of course, but in general for that age it would be 'number of repetitions' rather than 'length of time'. Two kids could play a piece 5 times, and one would take 5 minutes and the other take 20, just from different levels of focus, ability to read quickly, etc etc.

So 'practice time' can be a general guideline, but not an absolute. Like you said, "be flexible'.

Another suggestion I often make, is that practice time does not have to be all at once. From the sounds of it, this isn't a big problem for your daughter, but in case it comes up in the future -- they can do 10 minutes before school, 10 minutes after school, 10 minutes before bed. Great for kids who have trouble sustaining attention for 30 whole minutes.

In the situation you described above, I'd probably tell her something like "I know you'd like to play outside right away, and it is a beautiful day out so it would be good for you to play outside while it's still nice. However, we also need to make sure you're not too tired for practice time later. So how about you do 10 minutes of your 'work' right now, then play outside, then later if you feel like it you can do your 'fun' time at the piano?"

Another suggestion -- I made my students promise to do their practice at least 5 days a week, rather than every single day. Because realistically, there ARE going to be days when practice just doesn't happen! Other activities, going visiting, illness, whatever. Life! By making a promise of "at least 5", then they don't feel guilty or that they're "getting behind" if they have to miss a day. And if they DO get 6 or 7 days, they feel all the more excited because they've done EXTRA! Wow! Bonus!

[*bejeweled*]

This is interesting and I will try it. Thank you so much!



[QUOTE=tankgirl73;15335786]Me again!

Another suggestion I often make, is that practice time does not have to be all at once. From the sounds of it, this isn't a big problem for your daughter, but in case it comes up in the future -- they can do 10 minutes before school, 10 minutes after school, 10 minutes before bed. Great for kids who have trouble sustaining attention for 30 whole minutes.