Most piano students in the United States have one piano lesson per week lasting 30 or 45 minutes. That’s very little time for a teacher to build rapport, instruct, demonstrate, model, correct and assist. Imagine a classroom teacher teaching Math for only 30 minutes per week!
It’s really important that the bulk of piano lesson preparation and piano learning be done at home. One learns to play the piano by doing (practicing correctly and practicing enough) but there are ways parents can help children progress in addition to their practicing.
Five simple ways to create the ideal practicing space at home:
- Set up the piano area so that students can have focused, quiet, uninterrupted practicing. Keep a clock or timer in the room so that students practice enough. For kids, seven minutes can feel like thirty minutes!
- Keep that space clean, organized, and inviting to kids. Try incorporating music art or a small white board – something besides a piano against a stark wall. Some music manipulatives that make music fun can be motivating.
- Have book shelves, baskets, or something similar for organizing music books. Don’t put them in your piano bench because that can break the bench.
- Keep sharpened pencils with erasers nearby, highlighters, sticky notes, or other writing utensils that students may need to mark their music or complete their assignments. You can’t imagine how many times students tell teachers, “I couldn’t find a pencil, so I didn’t do it.” Just having fun pencils or cute erasers can make young students want to use them (this is also a great gift idea for classroom teachers — they are always in need of pencils and erasers).
- Make this an electronics-free zone, unless the teacher requires some electronics. Have students leave their phones in another room when practicing.
Not sure how to help students practice?
Even if you know nothing about the piano, you can do more to help than you think!
Five simple ways to help kids practice:
- Find times during the day for quiet, uninterrupted practice time — schedule practice time for kids and insist that the rest of the family leave them alone during this time.
- Incorporate motivational tools (for instance, reward charts for practicing) if needed.
- Make sure students practice— and master — everything on their lesson sheet; ask them to give a mini performance of something they’ve mastered after each practice session, even if it’s just a few measures. You’ll notice if a student can play something smoothly, or if they trip and stumble through the section as though they’ve never seen it before. Ask to see their completed written assignments.
- Let the teacher incorporate fun pieces and seasonal music into the regular steady diet of method books and Classical repertoire. Instant downloadable pieces can be exciting motivators. You can also find free music to download from contemporary composers.
- Be encouraging but let kids struggle as well to build resilience. Don’t jump in to rescue them from the discomfort that comes with learning something new.
How to prepare for the lesson
In a 30 or 45-minute lesson, every minute counts.
Five examples that waste lesson time:
- The Messy Piano Bag: When the student has to take three minutes at each lesson digging through the piano bag of crumpled old papers, books no longer in use, social studies assignments and old notebooks to find the relevant lesson materials, this adds up.
- Long Nails: Piano technique is so important; students should be keeping their nails clean and short at home, not taking lesson time to cut nails.
- Incomplete Practice Log: Many teachers want students to record their practicing either electronically or on a paper. Recording the time should be done before the lesson, not during the lesson.
- Incomplete Assignments: When students pick and choose what they’re going to work on each week instead of completing everything the teacher assigned, this leaves gaps in the learning that the teacher has to spend time filling during the lesson instead of moving forward. It’s similar to a child not completing their Math homework — you can’t move on to the new concept if the previous concept wasn’t learned.
- Continuously Repairing the Foundation: If students don’t practice as they should, bad habits form quickly. When a teacher has to constantly remind a student over the course of months how to sit, to slow down, to play on finger tips, to stop swinging their feet, etc., then too much time is spent reviewing the same initial concepts rather than focusing on new material.
Conclusion
You can do so much as a parent to help kids succeed at learning the piano, even if you know nothing about the piano. These basic approaches and strategies are also what classroom teachers recommend to help kids succeed in school: Be consistent, organized, involved, help them to complete assignments, check their learning and understanding, and be supportive while maintaining high — yet realistic — expectations. When parents are actively involved in their child’s music education, kids are more likely to enjoy learning music and are more likely to continue with it long term.
