10. Convert the Practice/Lesson Formats into Games

Sometimes, the same practice routine makes practice sections boring.  This boredom harms the concentration and thus the productivity as well as the utility of the practice sections.  So how do we break this boredom? 

For small children, the practice sections or the lesson could be seen as a game with the parents, the teacher, a sibling, or a friend.  Games attracts children to concentrate for longer period of time. 

For parents that knows the instrument, it could be a “race” or  “competition” between the child and the parents.  For parents that do not know the instrument, they could have set a game for the child.  Here are some ideas:  

1)  “Let’s see if you can get this difficult part within five times? … Good, now let’s see if you can perfect this in the next three tries?”;  
2)  “Let’s make up a story together for this music, what do you think of the character of this part?  Should this be a giant, a panda, a bear, a robot, batman, transformer, and so on?”; 
3)  The student could keep a log book to keep track of his/her progress by putting check-marks on successful trials.  This way, the student can see his/her progress visually day by day; 
4) It could be a contest between siblings/friends, and they can evaluate each other’s playing, etc.

Here is my favourite lesson-game format.  I often like to use a video game/computer game format to help my students to work on tricky spots.  My goal really was to get the student to play the same spot ten times correctly.  Instead of asking him/her to play ten times straight, this is what I’ll tell the student: 

“Now you’re on the game.  Your goal is to fight the final boss at level 10 and you have a mini boss in level 5.  Upon the completion of level 10, you will be awarded a stamp/a sticker/a small prize.  You have 3 (I’ll just arbitrary pick a number) lifes to begin with.  If you make a mistake, whether it is pitch/notes, rhythm, or fingering, 1 life is gone.  Just like any other video game,  when all 3 lifes are gone, it’s game over and you have to start over again.  By fighting the mini boss at level 5, you earn a ‘save point’.  If you loss all your lifes beyond level 5, you may ‘continue’ at level 5 instead of going all the way back to level 1”. 

Once this game is completed, the student should have good grasp of the tricky spot to take home for refinement.  I found this method quite effective in fixing some perpetual mindless mistakes because this method forces one to concentrate, otherwise the student would loss the game.  In my experience, children strive their best to beat the final boss. :)  Moreover, piano lesson becomes more fun with games. 

 

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9. Knowing the Background Information

Whether it is the audience, or whether it is the performer, knowing the background information of a piece of music greatly enhance the whole experience of the exposure. Background information of a piece of music include:

1) Genre/period that the piece belongs to …
Each genre/period has its unique characteristics. General characteristics such as articulations, use of pedals, choice of harmonies, range of dynamics, etc. vary from one genre/period to another.

2) The structure/form of that piece of music …
Knowing the basic structure/form of a piece of music could help the performer to look for meaningful benchmark. This benchmark could be the roadmap for structural planning, or it could be a landmark for memorization and thus help to internalize a piece systematically.

3) The composer’s life, music, and musical style …
Each composer has his/her own unique musical style. Knowing the biography or the story behind each composer would help the performer to understand more of the music and thus expresses a more meaningful performance. For example, opera music was one of the great outputs that Mozart was known for. When one is playing Mozart’s instrumental music, it would probably be more meaningful to think of the musical lines as vocal lines rather than a robot engine. Another example would be Mozart’s Piano Sonata K310 in A minor. This piece was written around the time of Mozart’s mother’s death. If the performer knows about this background information, the performing experience would be more insightful.

4) Other contemporaries of the same period …
Knowing the characteristics of other contemporaries of the same period is interesting too. Although there are similarities between composers within the same period, none has the exact same qualities. It would be interesting to see, to listen, and to learn their similarities, their differences, and their inspirations of each other. For example, Brahms and Schumann were closely related but their musical styles and outputs were different.

5) Other interesting information that might related to the piece …
Other information such as nickname of the piece, dedication of the piece, purpose of the piece, etc would be interesting to note. For example, it is interesting to know that Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata was not named moonlight by Beethoven; Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony was named because of an unexpected sudden loud chord in the second movement; Handel’s “Water Music” has nothing to do with water within the music. It was written for a performance on the water (river); etc.

Knowing some background information of the piece of music would greatly enrich the whole learning and performing experience. For example, in the case of reading a poem, the reader would find it more insightful if he/she knows about the life and the style of the poet as well as the knowledge of the poet’s time period. Another example would be the case of playing a PlayStation game called “Dynasty Warrior”. The gameplay itself is great but repetitive. If one knows about the history and the popular culture of the stories of the Three Kingdoms Period of China, the gameplay as well as the characters development becomes much more vivid and colorful and thus much more fun. :) I believe that learning music is similar – knowing some background information would bring the performance into a higher level.

:) By the way, these background information could be served as the basis of writing programme notes (diploma level). Knowing and understanding the background information of a piece of music starting at an early stage/early age might make the programme notes writing easier. :)

Please also see Ten Tips to motivate your children or your student to practice

8. Knowing the Benefits of Taking Music Lessons

Many children pick on a musical instrument because they thought that their parents told them to or because that’s what their friends do and so should they.  These kids often lack self-motivation to achieve their full potential because they do not know “why” they are taking a musical instrument.  If these kids understand the long-term benefits of taking their instruments, they should be more willing to put in more effort.  Benefits include the following:

1.   Music is a universal language.  There are many transferable skills when taking on a musical instrument. 
The theory, the rhythmic part, the musicality, etc of taking any western musical instruments are similar.  If one knows to read the music score, or knows music theory,it might be easier for this person to take on a second instrument.

2.  Chamber music is fun. 
To play music with other player(s) is an amusing activity.  Chamber music such as orchestra, quartet, choir, duet, gig, etc are not only fun and enjoyable,  but these activities are also a great way for musicians to build up and to expand their social network.  Solo pianist played by himself/herself all the time.  It is fun for solo pianist to accompany or to play duet with other players or other instruments.   Moreover, one learns unconsciously by playing together with other musicians. 

3.  Music lessons would possibly make one smarter. :) 
Many researches have shown that there is a positive correlation between music and spatial intelligence.  In some research, the x-ray/ultrasound reports show that the brain of a musician is different from that of a non-musician.  Music is said to link closely with learning and information retention.  Another word, learning a musical instrument well could make one more intelligent.    In Albert Einstein, the physicist, famous quote, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music”.  From this, we see that music is associated to Einstein’s thinking and perhaps to his logic too.  It was said that Albert Einstein was once labelled as “stupid” by his school teacher before he picked up the violin!  

4.  Musicianship skills gives an extra medium for creativity. 
Musicianship skills might allow students to transfer/express tunes heard from school, TV show, etc onto the piano, or onto their instruments.  Musicianship skills also strengthen the possibilities in composing and logic.  Good musicianship might shred an extra light for a creative mind.

5.  One more potential career options. :)
On top of enjoyment, there are many career options and many different branches in the music industry.  There are computer music engineers, composers, concert performers, event music performers, professors, school teachers, private music teachers, band performers, and so forth.  Music lesson is just the beginning of these options.  A child’s potential is unknown unless the child has tried and has worked hard on it with the matching styles/methods.

These are just some of the many benefits that I can think of right now.  I am sure there are more to the list. :)
If a child understands all of these positive benefits that music lesson could bring, he/she should be able to feel the whole experience of learning, practicing, exposing, inspiring, performing etc in a different light.

 

Please also visit Ten Tips to motivate your children or your student to practice

7. Steady Evaluation

Steady evaluation gives both the parents and the kid an idea of how the kid is doing.  If the kid is making positive progress, the kid would want to maintain the progress.  If the kid is not making much progress, the kid would probably work hard to meet the parent’s or the teacher’s expectations.  If the kid is making no progress or “under-progress”, the kid might either work very hard for a breakthrough, or to the other end, the kid might want to give up.  This depends on whether the “under-progress” is due to laziness or due to ability.  There should be both short term and long term evaluations.  Short term evaluations could be weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly feedback.  Long term evaluations could be semi-anual report, or anual report.  Sometimes, parents are very responsive to instant weekly feedback and might have judged their child’s interest, abilities, or progress, too early.  Weekly feedback is not really a fair evaluation of the child’s true potentials or true abilities because people might have an occasional bad day, or a busy week, etc.  Weekly feedback mainly is to give the child an idea of what he/she should focus on, and to warn the students to quickly fix or eliminate any potential pitfalls before those pitfalls become a bad habit.  Long term feedback, such as semi-annual, or annual feedback is more of a true picture of the student’s evaluations because it gathers the data of all the weekly feedbacks. 

Similar to corporate, if a company is making satisfactory profit, this company might want to strengthen their strength and continue to upgrade any of its potential flaw to maintain the progress.  If a company is making a loss, this company might want to re-evaluate whether to continue to run the business, or to seek out solutions to fix the current situation.

Similarly, if everything is going fine, the student would want to maintain the good progress.  If the student is stuck due to laziness, parents might want to either inject new inspirations, new motivations, or parents might want to re-evaluate the child’s activity-portfolios. 

Since learning a musical instrument is a long term investment, if resources is adequate, it might be a good idea to let the child to expose to, and to try different forms of performances, to find their own voices before shutting the opportunity because knowing how to play a musical instrument is a life-long enjoyment.

Please also see Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice

6. Exposure

 

 

Besides performance, other exposures include attending recitals, masterclasses, studio-classes, concerts, listen to recordings, watch videos on dvd, youtube, etc.  People learn unconsciously by observing and by listening.  One will get new inspirations every-time he/she listens to the same recordings even after 100 times because the listening or the observing experience will be different every time.  The more we listen to, or watch, a performance, the more our ears and our overall presentations are trained.  As well, listening to different interpretations, presentations, as well as exposing to more different types of genres would open up our sight, our mind and would give us more inspirations and thus our music learning becomes more interesting, more meaningful, and more enjoyable. 

 

Please also see Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice

5. Performance Opportunities

 

Any well-prepared performance will not only motivate students to practice, but it will also enable students to improve substantially.  The reason is apparent.  People tend to like and enjoy activities that they are good at.  Through participating in any kinds of performances (recitals, festivals, exams, talent shows, etc), the student’s presentation skills will excel every time he/she works hard towards each performance.  Also, the student will very likely receive a lot positive reinforcement along the way and thus will further motivate the kids to level-up.  However, fear might develop if the performance is under-prepared.   This fear often might lead to unwillingness to attempt.  Children, I think, are easier to overcome, or to cope with this kind of fear than adolescents/adults.  The earlier and the more frequent the child expose to performance, the easier the child learn to overcome fear and to build up self-confidence. 

I have encountered parents assuming that their kid is not ready to perform and thus they do not want to enrol their kid for performance until they think their kid is ready.  I understand the logic.  Some parents might afraid that the child would loss interest if the performance, or the end results, did not go well.  I think this concern has more to do with how the parents express their expectations and focuses.  If the parents just want the child to learn the process of preparing for a presentation (playing a piece in front of an audience) and to observe other’s presentations, the child is still in the game even if anything goes wrong.  Being supportive and being encouraged is very crucial at this point.  However, some parents are more result-oriented and place great emphasis on the “end prize”.  Under such scenario, the kid would probably work very hard to meet the parent’s or the teacher’s expectations, but if that effort fails, the kid might start to doubt his/her abilities.  Once this doubt has established, more “successful” presentations are needed to clear the doubt.  However, if many subsequent trials fail, the kid would really be discouraged and eventually loss interest because he/she would really think he/she is not good at this activity. 

To help children to build up their confidence and to motivate them to work hard, the focus should be on how to fulfill a personal improvement rather than placing emphasis on the competition.  I believe that setting a performance goal is a positive incentive to motivate students to level-up.

Please also see Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice

4. Punishment

 

Although this is not the best motivation, this works instantly, especially for little kids.  Punishment is different from negative reinforcement.  Negative reinforcement is to take away some “already-expected” privileges.  Punishment is to add nasty task to the kid’s schedule or to exert fear.  Examples might be to add another 60 minutes to the kid’s study schedule; Locked in a “time-out” square; Got beaten up (? ~_< ouch); Got scolded, or got yelled at; and so forth.  Although punishment works instantly with kids, this probably does not work well in a long run.  Since punishment is associated with threats and fears, so is the given task (ie piano practice).  Every time the kids practice piano, they might associate piano practice with punishment.  When exercising punishment, perhaps it should stay mild and does not hurt the kid’s self esteem.  Punishment does not respond well with adolescents/adults.  It might even de-motivate them and these adolescent/adult students might eventually give up.

 

Please also see Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice

3. Negative Reinforcement

 

Negative reinforcement implies taking away some expected privileges.  For instance, say for a case where the  kid normally has TV game section time from 4-5pm.  If he/she doesn’t behave well, or didn’t finish some tasks properly, that TV game section are taken away.  Some kids would behave right away, depending on how important they value their expected privileges as well as depending on how “determined” the parents/guardians/rule enforcers are. 

I noticed something funny from my experience.  Once I started to give out stickers or stamps at the end of the lesson as a reward for making an effort, my students would expect that I do the same thing every time even if they are not prepared.  However, if the student is not prepared, I will not give him/her a stamp, or a sticker as a negative reinforcement, so that he/she knows more effort is expected for the next lesson if he/she wants a sticker/stamp. This generally works well, in particular with children.

 

Please also see Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice

2. Reward

Reward works well in motivating children to practice too. Reward is more of result-oriented base. It focuses more on completing, or reaching a goal. As long as the goal is realistic, children would be willing to strive their best to accomplish the task in order to get the prize at the end. This incentive could be a tangible prize, or it could be some special privileges such as dessert buffet, more snacks, more playtime, etc. Small prizes, or anything that raises their curiosity, will work effectively on small children. In the case of teaching piano, small prizes such as stamps, stickers, candies, more playtime, etc are already sufficient to make a child to feel good and to motivate him/her to maintain the level of hard work. Adolescents and adult sometimes might look for rewards that are more personal, or more practical to them (say, a vacation, XBox, Playstation, iphone, ipad, gift card, coupons, some sorts of recognitions, etc).

 

Please also visit  Ten Tips to Motivate Your Child to Practice