Families are busier than ever, and there are lists and lists of activities fighting for a place in your schedule. Where students once might have started lessons in the second grade and continued through high-school, now more and more students take lessons for a few years before moving to another activity. With a piano practice plan, you can make sure that those few years prepare your child to function in the world as a mature and independent musician.
Much of this post is written with an adolescent student in mind. Adult students would absolutely benefit from a piano practice plan, as well, and families with younger children can use this as inspiration for what they are working towards. Read to the end, because I have a bonus resource for parents of students under 10.
First, a mind-set shift
I want to move the conversation from how much time one should spend practicing to focus on how much a student wants to accomplish.
Ask a teacher how much students should practice and a common answer is “As much as they can,” or “X minutes, but more time is always better.” Of course, teachers want students to be dedicated and see great progress, and practicing goes a long way towards making that happen. BUT I have found this attitude to be hugely discouraging. If more is always better, when have you ever done enough?
Practice charts used to dominate in piano lessons. This is a piece of paper where a student writes down how much time they spend practicing each week. When I was a student, this came complete with competitions where we’d see which student practiced the most and prizes for logging extra hours.
I want to address the claim that more practice is always better. The longer you practice, the more tired you become and the more likely you are to zone out. Physical fatigue leads to poor posture and technique. Neither of which help anyone to become a better pianist!
Busy students don’t need motivation to put in more time, when they don’t have more time to give. They would benefit far more from an approach that teaches them how to use their time effectively. Quality over quantity!
Now, pick a goal
Eye on the prize. Why play the piano? This is a big picture question that all musicians should answer. With a little help, even young children can articulate their goals.
Common goals include:
Have fun
Learn to play the piano
Develop a love of music
Learn to play a specific piece
Progress through a specific level
Prepare for a performance
Become a professional musician
You should discuss goals with potential teachers. Lessons can and should be approached differently to support individual student goals, and knowing what you are looking for will help you to choose the right teacher. I always recommend interviewing multiple teachers before picking. If you’re still in that process you can go here to set up a consultation time.
It’s easy to get side-tracked, so it can help to put your chosen goal on a sticky note by your piano, or write it in your music notebook.If you have a moment when you feel discouraged or a lack of direction – check in with your goal. Are you making progress? Should you tweak your piano practice plan to better pursue your goal, or has your goal changed?
General Principles for Your Piano Practice Plan
The key to a successful piano practice plan is planning mini-goals. Just like you have a larger goal for your studies, every time you sit down to practice you should have a specific goal. These goals should be bite-sized, so that they don’t take too long. You want to be able to accomplish your goal without getting fatigued or losing focus.
Once you’ve met your goal, get up from the piano. Get a drink, move around. Congratulate yourself on a job well done! The point is to feel accomplished and satisfied with your work. Again, it’s about mindset, not minutes. If you’re a piano parent, you can support your child by asking what they worked on and reacting positively – no matter how short a practice session it may have been!
Case Study of a Successful Student
I once had a young girl progressing at least twice as fast as my typical student. It was a race to introduce new material to her as quickly as she was mastering it. When I asked her mother how much she was practicing, she told me didn’t know exactly how long, but that her daughter would sit down and play the piano for a few minutes every time she walked through their living room. Playing the piano was a source of joy for her, not a chore. Most people take lessons because they find joy in music, and too many lose that joy while they’re in lessons. We can learn a lot about how to grow that love of music from this young girl’s approach to the piano.
Practice More Often, Not Longer
Anytime you have an inclination to play the piano and a spare minute, go for it! Even just one minute will benefit you. You want to encourage this impulse to play! There is no such thing as too short a time to practice.
Keep your attention span in mind. Practicing when your mind starts to wander is not a good use of time. There are no medals for pushing through, so if you need a break, take one.
Ideally, you will have the chance to sit down for multiple practice sessions and work on a few mini-goals a day. You do not have to work on them all in a row! Breaking your practice down into small sessions allows you to fit things in when it works for you. You want music to fit into your life, not to bend your life around music.
Convenience is King
Placing your piano in a prominent place in your house can help encourage frequent practicing. While some students might prefer more privacy for while they’re playing, out-of-sight out-of-mind. We often do whatever is close to hand, which as we know, is increasingly our phones. Keep an instrument nearby, and you are creating a recipe for musical success.
If you do find you need more privacy for practicing, try to keep the piano in an area you spend plenty of time in. Some students find that they like to have a keyboard in their bedroom.
Picking a Mini-Goal
There are a few different elements of practice that come together to create a well-practiced musician. Technical work, review/memorization, sight-reading, learning new repertoire, ear training, and music analysis. Each mini-goal will focus on one or two of these areas. You might not work on every element every day, but over the course of a week, you should touch on all of these categories.
Examples of mini-goals:
Play through the new pieces in your lesson book. This is a goal for a young beginner. It is more specific than “sit down and practice,” but remains simple and accessible to beginners who are still learning to think critically about music. It is the type of instruction that any parent can give and keeps everyone from watching the clock.
Play the 1-octave C major scale at quarter note = 60 with hands together. This is a technical work goal for a student learning their scales. Their goal for the next day could be to play slightly faster at quarter note = 64.
Learn the notes for the second phrase of (specific piece you are learning).
Check dynamics in (specific piece).
Write down the chords for (specific phrase) and try to play that phrase using just the chords as a reminder instead of the full score. This is a goal that offers practice in musical analysis and memorization.
When you practice with these kinds of goals in mind, you will find that you think more critically about the music and keep coming up with new goals for improvement. This is wonderful! Keep a practice journal by the piano, so that you can write down these new goals. Then, the next time you sit down to practice you already have a list of options to get you started.
A day in the life of a young pianist with a practice plan
Abigail went to bed early last night, so she wakes up this morning at 5:30 when the sun shines through her window.
After washing her face and having a snack, she sits down to play piano at 6:00.
Feeling relaxed, she starts her day with a slow scale to warm up. She is focused on details, so she plays legato and staccato, forte and piano, paying attention to sitting up tall and not worrying about speed.
With that done, it’s time to get ready for school, so she gets dressed and finishes her breakfast.
It’s 6:45 and she has a few more minutes before the bus comes. She sets an alarm for 7, so that she isn’t distracted by worrying about when the bus comes. Since she’s full of energy for the day, this is the perfect time to polish a piece she learned last week. She has already spent her afternoons picking through the details of this piece, so now she plays up to tempo. After playing through, she even tries the first page with the book shut and makes a note in her practice journal about which measures she didn’t quite remember, so that she can work on them another time.
The buzzer goes off and she moves on with her day.
Abigail also enjoys sports, so after school she went to sport practice, and she got home with just enough time to clean up and relax for a bit before dinner. She knows that she shouldn’t push herself too hard at the end of the day when she is starting to get tired. She decides to learn another phrase from her new piece of the week. It won’t take her very long, but by learning a bit each day she will know the whole piece by the end of the week.
The Take-Away
Abigail did technical work with her scales, reviewed and worked on memorizing a piece, and learned some new repertoire. This is a great day of practicing. She didn’t touch on every aspect of musicianship today, but on another day she can warm up with cadences to work on hearing chord progressions, and she’ll need to do some analysis to continue memorizing her piece, too. By the end of the week she will have covered all her bases.
She got quite a bit done in short sessions that worked around her school and sport schedule. She has a busy schedule, but by planning and using her time effectively she can still develop a mature musicianship with a healthy technique and an understanding of the theory behind the music.
A Piano Practice Plan Elevates The Lesson Experience
A piano lesson should be a collaborative experience between teacher and student.
Keep a practice journal of your goals and accomplishments and share it with your teacher at your weekly lesson. If you have a goal that you are finding a bit tricky, your teacher can help you! For example, you may have wanted to play a section evenly, but your fingers are not cooperating. Knowing what kind of sound you want to create is the first step, and your teacher can help you master the techniques that will bring it to life.
Your teacher can also help you come up with goals. They might make direct suggestions, or they might play for you. Now that you are engaging with the piano as a mature musician and thinking about the sound that you want to create, you will find yourself listening to others play with a more detailed ear. What about another’s performance do you like? Be specific, so that you can turn it into a personal goal. Talk with your teacher about what is attainable at your level of playing.
This process not only makes you a dream student to teach, but it is exactly how you want to approach music when you are done with lessons. A piano practice plan is more than a how-to or a to-do list. It will shape your approach to your instrument and set you up for a lifetime of fulfilling musical experiences.
Modifications for Younger Students
Much of this post was geared towards teenage and adult students who manage their own time. Students under 10 still benefit from this approach to the piano, but will need parents to embrace and encourage this approach at home. It is as simple as changing the way you talk about piano and practicing with your child. Grab my free resource to get a few ideas that will get you started.
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