Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about how to get your kids to practice the piano. This is a really important subject because you want your kids to enjoy the piano. But if they never practice, how can you justify the lessons you’re taking them to and spending money on? You feel really committed, and you want your kids to be committed. Sometimes it can really come to loggerheads. So I’m going to give you some tips today!
I have vast experience with this subject.
I come from a family of teachers. Both my parents were music teachers. My sister is a piano teacher. I’ve taught piano pedagogy to many teachers. Getting kids to practice is a universal challenge for anyone who teaches kids or parents with kids studying the piano. I started teaching the piano when I was in high school, assisting my father with his teaching, as my sister did before me. And it’s been a continuum of my career since that time. I’ve pretty much always taught. Today, I have the great privilege of teaching students all over the world because of my popular YouTube channel and website, LivingPianos.com. I have students from Australia to Alaska and all points in between. For the most part, they’re serious students. I have some kids who are just wonderful to work with, as well as people decades older than me! However, when I was starting out making a living as a private piano teacher, I took all kinds of kids and adults as well. They didn’t all love the piano the way my students do today. I saw many different ways that parents dealt with their kids, some effective and some that were really counterproductive.
The first thing you have to understand about working at the piano is that practicing correctly is hard work.
So when you tell your kids they have to practice for 30 minutes or an hour, realize that, if they’re doing it correctly, it’s an incredibly intense experience. You must appreciate that. I remember my wife had a student, and the mother was always upset with her child for not practicing enough. Eventually, the mother started taking lessons, and then she finally realized how difficult it really was! So you have to appreciate that. To encourage your kids to practice, you have to think of it the way you think of so many other things in life.
Your kids, given a choice, probably wouldn’t clean their room, do their homework, or brush their teeth!
There are myriad things that your kids are kind of coaxed or trained to do, and piano practice must fit into that realm. So the techniques you’ve used to get your kids to do what they need to do are also appropriate for piano practice. But piano practice is not something that’s legally required, the way school is, or a matter of personal hygiene, the way brushing your teeth is, so they might feel there’s some wiggle room there. You must encourage your kids to practice by understanding and appreciating the hard work they do. Showcase their talents to your family and friends whenever possible. If they’ve been working really hard and they have a piece they can play well, when company comes over, let them shine. Give them a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor!
You can encourage young students by bringing them to concerts and expanding their scope of music.
Bring them to classical concerts and other styles of music that maybe they haven’t been exposed to. I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me something like, “I hate opera.” And I say, “Have you ever been to an opera?” And they say, “No.” Well, how do you know? Seeing an opera performed by a great opera company, like the Metropolitan Opera, is just an astounding experience. You can’t get that experience by listening to music on a sound system. It’s not the same at all. That’s also true with classical music in general. Some types of music translate better to an electronic medium. For example, rock music is coming out of speakers, whether you’re going to a live event or not. But acoustic music sounds so much better when you’re listening to it live. It doesn’t sound the same coming through speakers. The sound of an acoustic performance in a great hall can’t be described or duplicated any other way. So take your kids to concerts! But you can also play them great recordings. Expose them to great music. They may just latch on to a few key pieces that could change their lives.
So remember to encourage your children!
Remember that it’s hard work to practice correctly. Expose your kids to great music, both live and recorded. Showcase their talents whenever possible so that they can feel appreciated for the hard work they do with the instrument. If nothing seems to work, condider finding a more inspiring teacheer. I hope this is helpful for you! Share your stories in the comments about what has worked for you or the challenges you have faced. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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2 thoughts on “How to Get Your Kids to Practice Piano”
I recently found out that my 8-year old student (with dyslexia) was not practicing at home, daily. He said he was too busy having fun! So, I sent him home without giving a lesson and explained again and again that to make progress he needs to practice at least a few minutes every day and that the lessons are used for making progress, not to practice. It worked! Now he comes back with a little study done very well and we can go on with the next little study. At the other end of the spectrum it was me as a 2 year old, that I wanted daily lessons from my mother and I was crying whenthe lesson ended! I could have spent every afternoon at the piano.
Your student is more typical. Although it can take a lot more than that to get some kids to practice. You were an extremely unusual two year old!