I’ve learnt a few things about piano practice and motivation in my time as a musician and music teacher. Here are some of them: The most important thing we can teach our students is how to practice effectively Students need to be taught about practice methods including spaced practice, chunking, interleaved practice, etc.
I’ve learnt a few things about piano practice and motivation in my time as a musician and music teacher.
Here are some of them:
In order to gather this knowledge, I’ve spent a lot of time reading, going to conferences, discussing theories with other teachers on my podcast and testing things in my own studio.
However, if you’re just starting out, or perhaps you’re interested in finding out more the theory and practice of motivation, then I highly recommend checking out Michael Griffin’s book, Learning Strategies for Musical Success.
Michael is an Adelaide-based teacher and presenter who is well known for speaking to schools and teachers around the world about motivation and mindset in music. In fact, he appeared on my podcast last year in an episode on Practice, Motivation and Mindset in Episode 30.
Learning Strategies for Musical Success is a culmination of years of his own teaching, research and practice into the what, why and how of motivating students.
The book is divided into six chapters:
Each chapter gives a comprehensive overview of the research into the subject being discussed, in dispersed with Michael’s own thoughts and those of noted teachers, business experts, motivational coaches and musicians from around the world.
Put simply, this book provides teachers, parents and students with the knowledge they’ll need to create a more strategic approach to their lessons and practice.
In order to explore some of these ideas a bit further and give you a taste of some of Michael’s research, I’m going to briefly discuss three concepts developed in the book:
There has been more and more talk recently about growth versus fixed mindsets and so I was glad that Michael covered this topic in his discussion about practice:
It is not easy to teach learning strategies to fixed-intelligence-mindset students who have a deep-set belief about their potential. By attributing failure to lack of effort or poor practice however, teachers and parents can change this mindset. Stressing the importance of effort rather than natural ability is paramount.
It reminds me of the discussion I had on Podcast Episode 26 with Nick Ambrosino about the language we use in music teaching and how a simple change (eg. using “and” where you might otherwise use “but” – listen to the podcast for the details) can have a profound impact on a student’s self-esteem and motivation.
Image Ref: carriekepple.com
The research says that a student’s mindset is a strong predictor of practice efficiency and hence, effectiveness (Griffin, p.5) and that fixed-mindset students may avoid practising pieces or passages that pose difficulties they are unsure they can master. This alone can have big ramifications in the way we teach and encourage students.
Do you have competent and positive students who avoid tackling harder music even though you know they can do it? If this behaviour is innate, then it might be an issue with mindset and something that you can explore further in the research.
By the way, what’s your mindset?
There are lots of books on the market about piano practice and so I was a little skeptical when I saw a whole chapter devoted to this in Michael’s book.
Thankfully, what he has created in Chapter 2 is complete reference of all the best ideas surrounding motivation in music students, distilling the theories into practical advice for teachers and students alike.
In this chapter, you can read about distributed practice, spaced repetition, chunking, slow practice and why sleep matters. He talks about the 10,000 hours rule, its implication on students and he dispels the myth of the prodigy.
I particularly love this quote from Stephen Hiller:
The amateur practises until he gets it right. The professional practises until he can’t get it wrong.
Unfortunately, many of our students don’t understand this fundamental truth. Do you have students who ‘practice’ by playing something over and over, play it wrong five times (without even really realising), finally get it right on the sixth attempt and then stop playing?
There are so many excellent articles about practice out there and Michel summarises them into a succinct and compelling argument that will be as valuable for parents as teachers.
My thoughts on motivation have changed significantly over the years.
When I first started teaching, I used a lot of extrinsic motivators (food, stickers, etc.) as it’s how my teacher taught me. However, the more reading I did, the more I realised that this might not have been the best way to go as we want students to have their own sense of motivation.
Interestingly, I’ve now formed a middle ground after reading this book and speaking to Anita Collins in Episode 32. I now realise that in order for children to reach an intrinsically motivated state, they will need some extrinsic motivation to get started.
Michael explains the research about motivation in music students and its link with Optimal Challenge and Flow. He shares ideas about how teachers can set increasingly difficult, but achievable, challenges that regularly place students into a new state of incompetence in order to push them to the next level of achievement.
This review has only just scratched the surface of what’s in the book. Michael covers a vast range of topics from multiple intelligence theory, Maslow’s heirarchy of needs, autotelic learning, creativity and memorisation to name just a few.
But while the book encompasses a lot of material, Michael threads the topics so seamlessly that you never feel off-topic. Indeed, I feel like it’s the kind of book that I might have written if I wanted to condense all my thoughts about music and education into one volume.
This is a book that should be on the shelves of any music teacher.
Even if you feel you’ve already read lots of the research into learning and motivation, I guarantee you’ll be highlighting, notating and dog-earing the pages. It’s the kind of book that you could also recommend to parents and adult students.
It’s well-organised and easy to read at just over 155 pages. One minor improvement I would make would be to print the book in a serif font (like this one) to make it even easier to read.
The book features lots of figures, tables and quotes to reference what is being discussed. Michael has even written some of his own music to illustrate practice methods and ideas!
You can find out more about Michael at his website.
If you’re interested in getting a copy of Michael’s book, you can grab 10% off today!
If you’re in Australia, you can email Michael and ask for him to send you the book for $AUD36 including postage. (RRP is $35 + postage.)
For international readers, click here to order from Create Space and get 20% off with this code: NCJRGBFQ.
Either as a student or a teacher, what’s had the biggest impact on your learning?
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Aeron Ogden says:
Tim, you just stole my thunder! Ha! In June Mario Ajero invited me to present a webinar for MTNA (it’s happening next Wednesday, Aug. 24th at Noon EST). Anyone who has read your post here is going to think I stole a bunch of material from you, but I can send you the outline I sent Mario last month. The timing is uncanny! Needless to say I love this topic and absolutely agree with everything you said here! Nice work, mate!
Jay Liu says:
Mindset is the basic things to improve instrument learning. I just bought the book and wonder how Michael deal with those students mindset fixed. Good review !
Berry says:
Hi Tim,
I have a student who cannot take criticisms very well. She gets upset/frustrated/stressed if I give her new pieces or feedbacks.. She will say ‘I can’t do this or this is way too hard, I’m panicking’.
I always give positive feedback after she played a piece and then I give her advice on what needs to be improve such as correct fingerings/rhythm error or if she played a wrong note etc. She always panic and I don’t know how to handle this situation very well. Every time I say something about her playing she goes on a panic mode (shaking her hands) or about to cry. Telling her to relax, not to worry about making mistakes, breathing exercises doesn’t seem to help her at all. She said she doesn’t panic at home when she practice but she feels stress at the lesson. She is very emotional and wants to be perfect all the time. Any advice? Thank you!
Jay says:
Hi Michael,
I realize there is no short answer to this issue, but your reply remind me that teacher’s mindset could be fixed.
Thus I suddenly find out my student probably does not refuse to learn to sing louder, she is just 7 years old, maybe she needs more time (longer than I expected, in this case she spent 10 months to start singing) for her to accept her body and voice.
Thanks Michael and looking forward to the book.
Jordan Daniels says:
What a great article!
I especially enjoyed the insights with a student’s mindset and internal/external motivation.
I also noticed a correlation between mindset and motivation. If a student has a growth mindset, they are internally motivated. If a student has a fixed mindset, they do not have an internal mindset, and will need an external motivator of some sort to change their mindset.