Motivation and working together

Our children these days have many opportunities to do lots of different and exciting activities and often have action packed lives as a result. When discussing this in a workshop led by Samantha Coates (teacher, author and founder of Blitzbooks) we, as teachers (& parents), all felt exhausted by the long lists of activities we came up with!

Samantha talks about the ‘7 deadly practise excuses’ – all of which I’ve heard, both as a parent and teacher:-

1. Too busy
2. Had exams
3. Couldn't find my books
4. I forgot I had to practise that (despite having a notebook with details to refer to)
5. I don't like those pieces anymore (this really means that they don't have the inclination to work on the tricky bits!)
6. I was asked to stop as it was too noisy
7. I was sick / away

In Samantha’s opinion, the only valid one of these is the last....though I would also be sympathetic if they had exams!

What is vital if children are to succeed in piano (or anything else), is parental support. Research has shown that the more parental support, the more practise happened and the longer children kept playing an instrument; i.e. less likely to give up.

THE MOTIVATION INDEX	Practise Lots (at least 4 times a week, ideally daily)	Little or no practise (3 times a week or less)
Lots of parental support	Quadrant 1  Fastest possible progress	Quadrant 2  Slow progress
Not much parental support	Quadrant 3 Reasonable progress  (rare to be here)	Quadrant 4  No progress

So what does lots of practise look like? 

A minimum of 4 or 5 practise sessions on different days over the course of a week. As to what happens in each practise session; that's a whole other blog post! Suffice to say, it isn't playing the same things through from beginning to end, the same way every day....I will write a future post to cover what good practise looks like, so watch this space! 

How about parental support? 

Parental support is vital to success. This can take a variety of forms; a parent sitting with the child when they practise, or listening while they are practising and commenting on what is heard. If neither of those are possible; encouraging and enabling time for practise, checking through the practise book to ensure things are not forgotten and working with the teacher for the best outcome for the child can all be key parental activities too.

I do realise, that this is not always possible – we all have mad days and weeks, where we’re chasing our tails and just don’t have the time & I’m as guilty of this as a parent as anyone! However, this is the ideal for progress and enjoyment to be at its best, and indeed, is what many of you already do (thank you!). 

Samantha challenged us as to where we were in these quadrants, both as beginners and as teenagers - I’m saying nothing...! 🤣Finally, she made the point that she won’t agree to enter pupils for exams unless they are in Quadrant 1!

Additional challenges that are that bit different can also be motivational. Some terms, I set my '10 challenges' for students, which involve them choosing 10 activities covering a range of areas to complete in the term. These include wider aspects of musicianship such as creativity, fun facts, performance, aural (listening) skills, as well as technical skills, sight reading and practise, but critical in this is that pupils can select from a large list under each heading, so they choose what they want to work on. On other occasions, I set quizzes, rhythm challenges or 'practise card' challenges, where they choose a card from a selection and work on that during the week when practising; one example might be thinking about the character of a piece and writing a story or drawing a picture to represent that, another might be play the first two bars of a piece, then make up two bars of your own to go with it, but these cards cover all areas of playing and musicianship. 

Most goals tend to be performance related when playing an instrument eg completing a piece, or taking an exam, whereas learning goals should also be set to aid motivation – both short and long term. There are also huge benefits in getting pupils to be involved in goal setting – something I try to do with my challenges for example. This should helps focus practise and gives pupils a sense of achievement.

If pupils have a sense of autonomy, by being involved in choosing their pieces as well as the goal setting described above, it can really aid motivation, and although choices of pieces are limited initially, when following tutor books and gaining basic skills, more choice of material and style inevitably becomes available once the basics have been learnt.

Karen Marshall & Heather Hammond, who wrote the Get Set! Piano series, have researched why people started playing the piano and what was important to them. Unsurprisingly, many pupils started playing because a friend or family member already played, or because parents wanted them to. Those that continued had been taught how to learn independently; not waiting for a lesson for the teacher to help them 'put hands together' or look at a new piece that they wanted to play for example. This is something that I actively work on; my pupils don’t need me to put hands together for them, they have the tools to do it themselves from very early on, as well as analysing the music they play. Specific praise was also a key factor; – eg ‘that rhythm was perfect’, or ‘lovely dynamics’ (quiet/loud), rather than ‘you played that well’. They also found that a practise timetable was helpful too; it might not be the same time every day, but simply agreeing in advance when practise was going to happen each day (led by the pupil themselves for teenagers) and writing it down (even going so far as to making it into a 'contract') made it far more likely to happen and if practise happens, improvement happens and pupils are more likely to enjoy playing and continue as they find it more rewarding.

Let me leave you with one final thought.....think of a three-legged stool. Pupils are one leg, the teacher the second, and you as parents are the equally important third leg. In order for pupils to succeed, we all need to play our part & work together – true of many things, I know!