Practice. This can be the biggest elephant in the room in your piano lessons.

You want your students to practice.

They know they should practice.

But…they don’t.

How can you change this?

Table of Contents:

1. Teach Your Students How To Practice
2. Your Secret Weapon is Parents
3. Make Practice Fun
4. What To Do When They Don’t Practice
5. TopMusicMag: Practice Makes Progress

Teach Your Students How To Practice

Your students aren’t ignoring you. Most of the time, they’re just confused.

They understand you want them to practice the first page of their piece…but they don’t know how.

“I’ll play from the start to the end. If something goes wrong, I’ll start from the beginning again and hope it’s better the next time.”

I guarantee that’s the practice game plan for a lot of your students.

You know that isn’t the way to practice.

Make sure your students do, too.

“Practice Hacks for Musicians by Noa Kageyama” is the perfect course for understanding how to teach practice skills effectively.

Your Secret Weapon is Parents

You know who else doesn’t know what good practice looks like?

Parents.

They think that telling their child to go to the piano and practice for 20 minutes is enough.

To help parents understand ‘good’ practice, you could:

• Explain that there are specific goals for each practice session and show them where you write them
• Create onboarding emails explaining how they can support their child’s practice sessions
• Get them involved – like Sarah Buckley does in this article

Make Practice Fun

You’re competing with football practice, TikTok, video games, shopping trips with friends.

Practice has to feel fun if you want it to win your students’ attention.

You could:

• Create practice bingo cards with tasks for your students to cross off each week
• Use the Lucky Dice Practice idea (as explained in the TopMusicMag: Practice Makes Progress)
• Celebrate consistent practicers by displaying a 100-Day Practice Plaque (again, this is explained in the TopMusicMag: Practice Makes Progress)

What To Do When They Don’t Practice

What you don’t want to do is make them feel bad.

By making students feel guilty for not practicing, you run the risk of making practice feel like a chore and something they have to do.

So when a student turns up having not touched the piano at all, try this:

• Turn the lesson into a practice coaching session. Demonstrate how to work through the tough sections.
• Explore why they didn’t practice (guilt-free). Were they tired? Busy? Overwhelmed? Not enjoying the piece? Problem-solve together.
• Make next week’s goal a single, small win. Just work on the first 4 bars. Separate the hands. Make it feel manageable.

TopMusicMag: Practice Makes Progress

If you found these tips helpful, you’ll love the TopMusicMag: Practice Makes Progress issue.

You’ll learn:

• The common stumbling blocks for students (and how to overcome them)
• How to help adult students feel able to practice
• Ways to get parents onside with practice sessions
• Fun ways to gamify practice