When students won't practice

Page 1 | 2 | By Philip Johnston

don't care how brilliant you might be as a teacher, sooner or later you'll have to deal with a serial non-practicer that resists threats, rewards, guilt-trips and cunning alike. They'll turn up to your studio underprepared, their parents will mutter darkly about stopping lessons, and you'll be filled with the determination that something has to be done...

...but what? What more can you do when it feels like you've tried everything already?

This article looks at 20 different experiments that you can run when all else feels lost—experiments designed to discover why your student is not working in the first place. Like any experiments, the results can be surprising; it's amazing how often a practice block can be removed by a relatively painless and hindsight-obvious change. The point of the experiments is to discover if such a solution is actually staring you in the face, untried.

If after all that, the student still is not working at home, then at least you know you have genuinely tried everything. You might be better off without them.

In the meantime though, all you need is a spirit of adventure, and a willingness to pose the most valuable and opportunity-laden question any teacher can ask:

...“what if…?”

What if......you were to schedule extra recitals?

Even the most recalcitrant of students don't like to make idiots of themselves on stage, which is why studio recitals tend to generate a practice frenzy in the weeks leading up to the big day. Non practicers create a problem, because they're not the only ones who will look like an idiot if they flounder up there. For the studio's reputation, there is a temptation to simply omit such students from the programme.

But instead of insulating your non-practicers from the demands of performances and competitions, sometimes it's worth throwing them into even more...for many students, nothing overcomes inertia like a ticking clock and a spotlight.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if......you created a student exchange program?

A couple of times each year, consider doing a student exchange with another music teacher in town. Their students come to you for a couple of weeks, your students go to them.

What difference does that make? The novelty of knowing that you have to play for someone different usually produces a burst of practice.

If you are worried about your students enjoying these lessons a little too much, set up the exchange with a teacher who teaches a different instrument. (Some of the best piano lessons I had were from other instrumental teachers)

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if......you ran a Practice Competition?

For students with any sort of competitive spirit —which is a lot of students—a well organised practice competition can have them practicing like maniacs. (For lots of ideas, check out the monster guide to running Practice Competitions here at IMT). Students all record how much practice they do, they bring in the details to the lesson. You compile the results, create scoreboards that nobody can ignore, and give fabulous prizes to the winners in a variety of categories.

Most practice in a week. Most practice in a single day. Top 3 practicers on a weekend. Most number of days without missing practice. Greatest number of days in a row with at least 30 minutes. Most improved. Most consistent...

There are more categories of prizes than the Academy Awards, helping to ensure that just about everyone will qualify for an award of some sort. There’s nothing like recognition to spur you on, so if that means you have to award a student their “Third-Most-Practice on a Wednesday Morning” certificate, so be it.

They might not be practicing for musical reasons, but this sudden frenzy of practice will definitely have musical benefits. And their certificate above their piano might just keep them practicing harder for a while afterwards.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if......you set up Practice Schedules?

In weeks that fly past, with children busier than ever before, some things simply don’t exist unless they appear on their timetable somewhere…there just isn’t room.

Instead of relying on your students to practice when the urge co-incides with the opportunity—which is like waiting for Mars to line up with Neptune—it might be worth sitting down with them and actually chiselling the practice into their weekly schedule.

Chat with their parents, write down the times that seem to suit, so that practice becomes a timetabled part of their daily routine, just as surely as school, homework or sports commitments.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if......you abandonded Practice Schedules?

The flip side of the previous experiment is that some students actually work better without timetables boxing them in. If a student is not working well, despite the fact that their parents have tried to turn their lives into a routine, consider the possibility that it might be because their parents have turned their lives into a routine. Tell them that the deal is they get to choose when they practice (that’s the bonus for them!), as long as they prove that they don’t need a timetable.

For an even more extreme version of this chaos-theory practice, they might work better with the unpredictability of Practice Triggers (see pp 348-351 of Practiceopedia).

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if......practicing were a temporary chore quarantine?

It can just be something as simple as a T-Shirt, laser printed with “Leave me alone, I’m PRACTICING!” (Most local copy shops can do this easily enough).

When the student puts it on, their family is not allowed to disturb them with frivolous requests such as washing-up, bed-making or garbage-taking-out. It’s like a force-field that makes them immune to chore requests.

BUT… this particular force-field only actually works while they are practicing. Just putting the T-Shirt on doesn’t do anything; the student has to activate it by practicing.

It’s a little sly— using a student’s natural dislike of chores to get them to practice more— but hey, if it works…their house might be a mess, but at least they’ll be playing well.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if...you changed the level of parental involvement in the practice room?

Whether the impact is positive, or a calamity, the degree to which parents are involved in the practice process can have a powerful bearing on how their kids feel about practicing.

The trick is not to make judgements, but simply to invert everything. Ask your hands-off parents to sit with their kids while they practice. Ask your always-present parents to leave their kids alone for a couple of weeks.

Just to see what happens.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if...you changed the level of parental involvement in the lessons themselves?

We all have some parents who come to every lesson, and others who need to introduce themselves at the end of year concert.

If things are not happening in the practice department, it might not be enough to look at parental involvement at home—you might also need to try changing the extent to which parents are involved in the weekly lesson.

Ask your always-there parents to wait in the car for a few lessons. Just to see what happens.

And try to be flexible with your timetabling of the drop-and-run students so that normally absent parents can actually stay for the lesson. Again, just to see what happens.

It might work for your student. It might not. You won’t know until you test it.

What if...you showed them new ways to practice?

For some students, practicing is boring because they only know one way to work. (Usually variations of "play it over and over again"). Instead of just sending them home with a list of what needs to get done, try equipping them with half a dozen different ways to go about it. Then let them choose which techniques they'd like to use.

If you're stuck—and you want to help them discover chaining, skimming, blinkers, cementing, zero practice, bug spotting, isolating, one way doors...and loads more besides...there are 376 colour illustrated pages of ideas and games in Practiceopedia, cross indexed and sorted by the type of task they need to complete (eg. speeding pieces up, performance preparation, learning a brand new piece)

Oooh! Don't stop there! Show me some more experiments