“Now go home and practice that.”
Music teachers tell students to practice. It’s what we do. As a music student, I was expected to practice for a certain amount of time. As a music teacher, I expect my own students to spend time outside of class practicing. Many music teachers have their students complete practice records every week to ensure they are spending enough time practicing. I think it’s pretty widely accepted that if you want to be successful in music (or anything else, for that matter), you need to spend time practicing.
So why don’t we teach our students how to practice?
In 2009, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education published a study called “It’s Not How Much; It’s How: Characteristics of Practice Behavior and Retention of Performance Skills.” The study showed that it’s the strategies musicians use during practice rather than the amount of time that they practice that determines how successfully they perform. In other words, how you practice is more important than how much you practice.
My private teachers taught me how to practice. They gave me strategies and taught me what a practice session should look like. They helped me to use my practice time productively. But what about those students who never take private lessons? Are they getting the same help and instruction? Unfortunately, in many cases they aren’t.
There are a lot of reasons why practice strategies often aren’t explicitly taught in school music classes. One reason is our rehearsal format. Traditional large ensemble rehearsals are designed to work on ensemble skills, not individual skills. Another reason is that sometimes we assume that the students know how to practice better than they actually do. We also may not fully understand as teachers what skills, strategies, and tools students need to practice effectively.
If practicing is important, we need to make it an integral part of what we teach. We can’t simply tell students to “go practice” and expect them to do it. We also can’t just explain it once and expect our students to practice effectively ever after. Effective practice is a complex and nuanced skill that takes time – years – to develop. Here are some tips on how to incorporate it into your class.
- Regularly dedicate time to teaching practice skills. Every week in my classes, we discuss a different practice skill or strategy. The students then have an assignment that week to incorporate that skill or strategy into their practice time and they have to complete a reflection on how it went at the end of the week.
- Guide the students on what to practice. When you hit a rough spot in the music that needs individual attention, have the students mark it and give them some specific strategies on how to practice that section on their own.
- Incorporate practice skills and strategies into your group rehearsal. Instead of just running the piece again, use strategies like slowing things down, isolating problem spots, clapping the rhythms, checking intonation with a tuner or open strings, etc. Explain what strategies you’re using to the students and talk about why they work.
- Emphasize quality over quantity. The amount of time that the students practice doesn’t matter nearly as much as the quality of their practice. If they are practicing effectively, they should be able to practice less and still accomplish just as much if not more.
If you would like to spend more time working on practice skills with your students, I have come up with a year-long practice skills curriculum that is currently available on Teachers Pay Teachers. It includes weekly practice assignments, quarterly assessments, and tips on how to teach the materials and modify the assignments to best fit your students.
Teaching our students to practice effectively will benefit them in so many ways. Students will become more successful and will see more progress, which in turn will motivate them to continue with music. In addition, effective practice skills can be applied to other areas of their lives, making them more successful in everything they do. It’s certainly worth a few minutes of class time.
Now go practice.