How Well Are Our Students Practicing? (11/3/23)

This question has come up this week---we are all so busy and so are our students.  We have many students who are diligent and practice regularly.  There are others who are struggling.  As a Suzuki teacher, it is our goal to teach our students how to practice well and how we can support the parents.  How can parents support their children's practicing?

An important place to start is to understand what type of learner you and your child are. Some of us are methodical and love to create lists.  We like to practice in the same order every day.  We appreciate when our lessons follow the same ordered sequence each week.  Some of us are more intuitive.  We don't need to warm-up or do exercises.  We just want to play.  We want to invent our own music and reading from the music score is difficult.  We may not understand what is actually on the page, and we only glance at it from time to time.  There are some of us who can do anything the teacher asks when we are in the lesson.  Then when we get home, we can't remember anything we did and so need a video or a parent to show us what we are working on.  There are a multitude of scenarios, and there could even be a combination of these mixed together. It can be a dilemma in home practice if parent and student do not have the same learning style. 

Dr. Suzuki believed that all children have talent or the potential for talent.  When one sees a world class violinist, pianist or any performer on stage, we don't think that this world class "star" was born with their talent.  We know that a lot of hard work went into placing that person on the stage. Each Olympic gold medalist was once a small child, and it was their hard work that gave them the ability to win.

In Dr. Suzuki's educational environment it is important to learn from the experts. We have Suzuki teachers who are also highly skilled performers.  Our Suzuki teachers have taken many training courses to learn how the Suzuki pedagogy can successfully bring a baby through many years of nurturing to be not only excellent on an instrument but also be comfortable in a learning environment that has high standards, an expectation for excellence, and an expectation of hard work and even struggle.  The important key is to always have love in this environment.  Children learn because of the love and attention they receive from their parents.  The gift of time and  patience comes from love, and the key to practicing is "repetition."

What we must understand in being a good practicer is the way in which we need to "know' the information before we start repeating it. The use of "tonalization' or the Twinkle Variations is perhaps one of the most valuable tools in being a good practicer.  In these exercises the total focus is on the basics of posture, bowhold, finger positions, vibrato, tone, arm movements, speed of movements, body weight, breathing, relaxed shoulders, etc.  There are so many check points that we as Suzuki teachers are looking at and listening for during these moments. They may be the most important few minutes of the weekly lesson. Is your student practicing these every day?  

The purpose of practicing is to build confidence.  I like to suggest to students that the time spent on practicing should leave you feeling more confident about your playing in some way.  If your practicing is to learn a new piece, your practicing must confirm to yourself that you have just practiced the correct notes, correct fingering, correct rhythm and have made a positive step in knowing the piece.  If the practicing is haphazard, then at the end of a practice session nothing is secure. To be secure, a student should practice slowly or should practice a very small portion of the piece.  Just a few notes practiced many times secures these notes before moving onto the next small group of notes.

For the more intuitive musician, spending time exploring and enjoying the accomplishment of a piece already learned should be part of a daily routine.  If we cannot celebrate what we already know, then learning an instrument is only hard work.  Allowing time for the student to "fool around" on their instrument is important too!  Improving is a great way to do this, or sounding out a tune they have heard, in a movie, on a playlist, or on a computer game improves the ease with which a student plays the instrument and is beneficial.  Nevertheless, the intuitive musician should spend a lot of time listening to the recording and if at that level, following along with the music score open and point to the notes as they go by.

Figuring out how to be an efficient and effective practicer is part of our job as Suzuki teachers.  We provide detailed instructions on how to play a new technique by breaking it down into small steps. These steps are important to be repeated every day. Sometimes those steps are not as evident to a parent---so please ask us! Nevertheless, it is helpful to ask the student to provide feedback regularly.  What did you play here?  Was there something that did not feel right?  Are there any places you are having trouble?

Here is an article I found that outlines some basic practicing habits---it is generic, but actually quite good. Your teacher also has a lesson chart that you can follow with a similar approach.  https://www.hopestreetmusicstudios.com/articles/how-to-practice-a-musical-instrument

In the precious time we have every day, we want music to be important and also joyful. Reviewing the pieces we know where we can actually make music will make the new pieces easier and enable them to be learned faster.  If 80% of practice time is spent repeating positive and successful repetitions, then practicing no longer becomes a chore, but will build more confidence.  With this confidence, there is more enjoyment and more likelihood of continued success. If you are not the same type of learner as your child, perhaps simply encouraging them to do something again and again, smile, be happy, and turn on the recording frequently can provide enormous support. As one of our Suzuki teachers said to me this week, sometimes if you are having a difficult time at a particular moment, simply sending feelings of love can change frustration into success.

Sachiko Isihara

Executive Director

Suzuki School of Newton