After an exciting summer of fun activities, times of rest, family trips, etc., it can be quite an adjustment to go back to school with full schedules, juggling school, church, sports, after school activities, and many other responsibilities.  With this crowded schedule, piano practice can often be ignored because of either forgetting to practice or not viewing it as important as the other tasks.

Although I know the pressure of having full schedules, in order to allow your child’s musical knowledge and development to grow faster, and to get the most for your money’s worth, it is vitally important for your child to practice. Howbeit there will obviously be exceptions when it is impossible, the students are normally expected to practice at least five times a week. For most students, it is best to practice for at least 30 minutes each practice day. For younger beginning students, instead of time, it may work better to just have them play each of their assigned pieces 4 or 5 times a day. Sometimes practicing for 30 minutes can be hard on attention spans or schedules, so to help with this, try breaking up the practice session into two practice sessions of fifteen minutes each.

Here is some advice for getting in the practice time. Figure out what time of day your child has a mind ready to think clearly (most likely not right after waking up) and has energy. For school students who are tired after a whole day of school, a snack and a short break works best before digging in with homework before supper. For others, their best time of thinking clearly and having energy to accomplish practicing is after supper. View piano practice as homework. It must be done.

Once finding a time, it is important to decisively keep that time reserved for practicing. Fit other activities around practice time. Keeping the time reserved for practicing will make sure that the practice happens, and it will show the child that practicing is valuable and worthwhile instead of simply being pushed aside at every whim.

While the child is practicing, try to make sure that no distracting activities are happening in that room at the same time. For example, if the piano is situated in the TV room, make sure the TV is not on. As a side note, it is best to keep pianos and televisions in separate rooms because it allows the TV to be watched by others while not keeping the child from practicing.

Before your child goes to practice, here is one last piece of advice. Within each day of practicing, it is a great idea to have ten minutes be spent playing review pieces or pieces learned in the past just for fun.

Here are the slips for recording the music practicing.

Music Practicing Slip

Question: What cadence abbreviation is similar to a famous city in America?

The answer will be on the next blog post.