The Power of Practice: Unlocking the Secret to Success!

"Anyone can be cool, but awesome takes practice.”?- Lorraine Peterson

It’s probably the number one challenge of every music teacher, parent, and student:

How to make practice part of a daily routine.

For young preschoolers, this is something that has to be taught and externally monitored by the parent.?It’s highly unusual for a preschooler to consciously sit down and practice everyday.?

In this article, I want to give you a mindset - an overall framework for how to teach practice skills.?By understanding the psychological aspects, and some high leverage points, with a few adjustments you can make dramatic shifts in your student’s practice routines and life.

I know this because, I have successfully taught thousands of hours of music lessons in my school Park Slope Music Lessons . And, because of my wide angle career path, I have brought in some ideas from rather far-flung places.?Over the last decade, my students, including my own son, all learned how to practice.?It’s definitely a skill that needs to be taught.

Routines Lead To Habits

The first thing I tell every parent is to find a time of day, everyday, that can become practice time even if it’s only 10 minutes.?By setting this time for music practice, within a few weeks it no longer requires effort, but it becomes a habit the same way that brushing your teeth is a habit.?You can always practice longer or at another time in addition, but this is a sacred time that should be honored as much as possible.?Usually this works well for a while until the first school holiday comes along!?Then it’s back to effort and focus to make a routine which then leads again to habit.

Keep the Instrument In The Center Of Your Space

One thing surprised me when I began teaching young children.?I discovered that many parents would place the piano or guitar or whatever instrument in an isolated corner of the house like a playroom or bedroom.?Then, when it came time to practice, they would say,

“Go and practice!”

The Practice Dungeon

This makes practice time feel more like a punishment than a shared activity.?It’s solitary confinement!?It also says to the child,

“This is not a priority for my parent and they are not interested in me.”

So keep your instrument in your living room or near to wherever you spend the most amount of time.?It signals its importance in the family.?Unsurprisingly, the students who had this “practice dungeon” arrangement never lasted more than a year.

But It Sounds Bad

Some parents will say,

“But it sounds bad!?And I am tired or my spouse is exhausted from work and doesn’t want to hear it.”

Well, what kind of signal does that send to your child?

“I am not worthy of your attention and love while I do this activity that you really don’t want to be a part of.?Hmm.?Maybe I should play soccer instead.”

Grit Leads To Success

Grit is a term popularized by Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth which is basically the courage and strength to keep trying, persevere and the resiliency to pick oneself up and try again.?In her studies on children, grit was the determining factor on how successful a child would be on test scores and in later life.

Music Lessons As Grit Exercise

Music lessons and practice is an incredible grit-building exercise.?But to build a child’s grit, you need to praise the effort and not just the intrinsic being.?What I mean by that is don’t just say a vague,

“Great!?You’re wonderful!”?

Find something specific to praise based on their effort, focus, resolve, resiliency and even their so called failures.

Celebrate The Small Wins

So during practice sessions, praise “how smooth that section was”, or “I like how you lifted your hands during the staccato parts,” or “that rhythm was so fun and bouncy!”?By celebrating the small wins, you are watering the seeds of psychological growth and letting them see the glass half full as opposed to half empty.

Psychological Strength & Navy Seals

One of the secrets to making it through an elite program such as the Navy Seals, where 94% drop out in the first few weeks, is to either have or adopt a mindset of grit.?The key seems to be “celebrating the small wins.”?By sharing a half-second smile or a short meal break with fellow soldiers, the ones that made it through lifted each other’s spirits, giving them just enough psychological strength to continue.

During the last few weeks leading up to my biannual recitals, I can see the pattern of emotional highs and lows clearly.?The recital is such a motivating factor, if handled well, can be a positive growth experience.

Looking At the Horizon

One of the hardest things for anyone is to set a challenging goal and then continually make forward progress towards it.

Imagine you’re on a long trek. In the distance, you can see the mountain. The mountain is the destination, the goal. But it’s so far away. Everyday, you’re trudging along. 20 miles today. 15 miles another. 18 miles the next. But every morning, you look at the mountain, and it still seems like you haven’t even moved. Pretty discouraging right?

The trick is to turn around and look where you came from.?When you do that, you’ll be astounded. Your footprints lead off into the distance, disappearing over the horizon. You can’t even see where you started! You have made progress! And you need to celebrate this, daily!

“Turn Around And See How Far You’ve Come" -Andrew Ingkavet”

So when your student is banging their head against the wall and just about to give up saying, “I can’t do it.”?Stop them right there.

Tell them, "You need to add the word 'yet' to that sentence. I can’t do it…yet."

Then, turn them around and show them where they came from.?You can do this by looking at previous lesson notes and pieces.?Notice the dates of when they last played something that is now considered “so easy.”?Also, if you have video recordings of previous performances, you can show them where they were just a little while ago.

Jerry Seinfeld Knows How To Practice

Years ago, Jerry Seinfeld was asked how to get better as a comic.?His reply was to write better jokes and do it everyday. He practices everyday!?To do it, he uses a wall calendar and large red marker.?For each day you write, you put an X on the calendar.

"After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain. Don’t break the chain!”

Jerry is doing what a lot of preschool teachers do in their classroom.?The star chart! Parents have used these forever! It makes rewarding behaviors you want to promote. There are charts for attendance, the daily routine, and going to the bathroom, etc.

Use A Rhyme

Remember back in preschool? Everything was a rhyme or a song. And it makes sense. These little ditties were crafted to stick in our heads and make it memorable, easy and even fun to say.

In my son’s preschool they had a great little song that went like this.

“Clean up, clean up,

Everybody do your share

Clean up, clean up,

Everybody everywhere."

So catchy. And you can see why their classroom was always so tidy!

So you can do something like this with your little ones and music. Of course, teenagers will just give you an eye roll, but this works for everyone below the age of 7.

Here’s a simple little rhyme for practice time.

“Time to practice, time to shine, you’ll get better over time.”

And you can print this graphic out and put it on the music stand.

Mindset Is The Key

In learning anything in life, having the right mindset enables you to see the options ahead.?Without adopting the correct mindset, you cannot even see the path right in front of you.

Does this resonate with you??Do you have any other high leverage ideas to make practice better? Please share below in the comments. And if you need more ideas, I have a book of practice tips. It's called the Game of Practice with 53 tips to make practice fun!