Encouraging and Helping Piano Practice at Home

Making sure instruction is actually understood

Firstly, one of the most important things you can do to ensure your students benefit most from any piano lessons, is to ask them to immediately work through the lesson. That is, in the hours immediately after a lesson, encourage the student to run through what was done with the teacher, while fresh in their minds.

Directly after the lesson the student should be able to go through the notes their teacher made and understand what is to be played and how during the week. If the student doesn’t understand what is to be played or practiced from the notes or instructions from the teacher, then they didn’t understand the task in the lesson. Do not panic, this is fine, but you must say to the teacher you couldn’t repeat the task at home, so your teacher can address the problem and clarify note-taking and giving in the future.

Misunderstanding can arise from many places. For instance, the issue could be the words used were not understood, or how the task was described was unclear. The other problem could be the task needs to be re-visited and explained in a different way by the teacher. Remember though, it is not an issue if you don’t understand a task or exercise to practice, but it is an issue if you say nothing, because you won’t progress as smoothly.

Building a great practice environment

Second on my list is to create a great practice environment for your student, or encourage the student to create one for themselves depending on their age. Typically, a quiet, well-lit area without much traffic in your home is ideal. I find natural light is wonderful to practice in and prefer it to artificial light, and to not have anyone moving around directly behind me, or moving in and out of my blind spots.

If the piano/keyboard is in a shared room or a family room, students should set aside a time every day for practice. This way the student, or multiple students in a house, can try to have the room quiet for their practice time. The rest of the family, or housemates, should be asked to please leave the student alone to practice in the shared/family room. All devices, TV’s, phones, etc., should be off or silent and out of arm's reach while practicing. A television, or any screen, that is sight, even if muted, is very distracting and needs to be completely off or removed if possible.

Developing confidence & awareness

In my experience, in the beginning stages of piano, the student will typically prefer to be left alone and not be overheard. In this case, a quiet room with no one present, and/or a comfy set of headphones for keyboard/digital pianos is perfect. In some cases, or as they progress, the student will eventually not mind being overheard, in which case individuals should simply strive to keep the space distraction free. This will help deliver effective practice on those less motivated days.

As their ability and self-confidence grows, students should be able to get used to playing in front of people but with lots of gentle encouragement of course! Performing in front of family can be harder than complete strangers, so encourage them to play for friends in a more relaxed manner like a jam session. You might start off a life-long love of music! And if you’re the student, get out there and jam with your friends, you’ll learn so much this way.

For younger students, you may see a self-awareness and shyness about playing develop in the teen years. It is important to note that this self-awareness is very important in the students’ overall development, they are now becoming conscious of their abilities. Through practice, and the growth of their creative interests, the perceived gap between their playing/composing and what a professional can produce begins to form.

It is a difficult realisation just how much you have still to learn and how much work is required constantly to be a professional musician, or in any professional career for that matter. The difference is that the motivation, and the desire to get better, outweighs all other feelings and distractions, on most days.

Creating a rewarding practice mindset

You have to encourage yourself and students not to be paralysed from even attempting to practice because of fear of failure. In order to succeed you have to fail, otherwise you don’t learn and grow. Even people who win the lotto play frequently despite losing up till the big win. A strange example given that the lotto is chance, but the key is they let themselves hope one day maybe they’ll win. The difference is a student just has to hope until they move the needle on their abilities. But how far you move the needle depends on how big the musical dream is!

Encourage students to develop resilience and motivation against the negative thoughts, no you don’t sound like Lang Lang (a well-known classical pianist) now, but if you keep trying every day you could. But you have to play and practice and immerse yourself in the world of classical music to do so.

If a student wants to play professionally but doesn’t want to play classical, look for a different artist to aspire to. For example, Jordon Rudess from Dream Theatre is an amazing keyboard player and perhaps a student would be more interested in learning about him and his music then purely classical music. One quick look for piano music online -spotify, soundcloud, youtube, etc., and you will find many different types of piano players creating music in every kind of genre.

For the first few weeks setting alarms or reminders will be needed to help build and set a routine. When a student first starts the piano they may only manage 10 minutes before the concentration wanes and a break is needed. However, nothing is stopping an older beginner student from doing 10 mins 2 or 3 times a day at the if they are extremely motivated and have the time.

Gradually the ability to concentrate and focus at a high level gets stronger and practice can be increased to 30- 45 mins continuous. However do remember that a 5 – 15min break is needed every hour to rest the mind and the body and prevent any strains. Please see my advice on practice lengths to guide you based on what outcome you want (here).

Spice it up, make it fun

You want to encourage students to practice, but not have to look at it as a chore. Need a way to break up the drudgery of the same practice routine? Well, introduce more music with greater variety. Either bring in different exercises, sight reading or increase the musical repertoire of your students. For students themselves, tell your teacher if you’re finding that you want a change after a few days of playing the same music. This is particularly true when working with set pieces for examinations! Work together to break up the monotony.

If you want variety and technique, then use technical exercises like scales and arpeggios, or ones given by the teacher, but make them more interesting. How? Play them every different way you can think of, staccato, legato, syncopated rhythms an octave apart, slightly out of time any thing you can think of, loud, soft, angry, happy, sad.

Warm ups are important, and scales are the easiest way to warm up, but you can start practice off by gently sight reading or playing slowly a piece of music you already know.

I always have a piece I am working on that challenges me and furthers my technique, but this is over a longer period of time than other pieces I would sight read or learn by heart. This allows me to not feel frustrated with slow progress, as I can see my technique develop and get better in the smaller pieces, quicker and clearer than in the larger piece.

On the subject of pieces, if you are not learning set pieces for an exam, then if you don’t like the music you are learning, say something. If you are learning classical piano, and you want something more pop, jazz, rock, trad say so, it is your lesson. Teachers are just here to help you on your musical journey!

Best of luck in your practice, and feel free to reach out to me through my contact details on the site if you wish to learn more, ask any questions, or if you’re interested in studying music with me at Truly Musical, Arklow, Co. Wicklow.