If there is one universal truth in the world of teaching music, it is this: the majority of kids do not want to practice. Either they are taking lessons because their parents want them to or they like to play, just not their lesson assignments. In any case, each day I feel like a broken record as I ask a good majority of my students, "How many times did you practice this song?"
The part of me that is desperate to be a good teacher usually goes through the same conversation with each student. I explain to them that even though it's my job to teach them to play the piano, I can't do my job unless they do theirs. Their job is to practice what I teach them so that we can move on to something new each week. Then I try to help them by showing them "good practice habits." These usually involve things like playing each hand separately correctly three times before putting the hands together, slowing the tempo down, isolating sections, or even playing the song measure by measure... only backwards.
Yet right now, I'm going to have a "bad teacher" moment. That means I'm going to be completely honest and tell the students something their parents would be shocked at. Drumroll please...Kids, I hated practicing too. I didn't do it often enough or well enough. I did just enough to avoid getting in trouble with my teacher, which never worked out in my favor. I'm a classical pianist. In classical piano, your best is never good enough. There's always something else you can do. With that sort of background, how could I not hate practicing?
My wake up call came during college when I joined the theatre program. I became the accompanist, and later music director, for all of the musicals. The first show that I played, A Man of No Importance, had two spiral bound scores. Two. I instantly entered the world of practicing at least four hours a day, sometimes up to ten if we had a full rehearsal that day. Not even a month into it, I discovered something wonderful: it was the best time I'd ever had in my life. I was able to play Irish themed music with a group of incredibly talented people, including one of my best friends who made me fall in love with fiddle. I was able to find my own unique place in the theatre department, doing something I loved and was good at, and here's the kicker: I also got college credit for it.
Another example of this "enjoyable" practicing is that I also recently joined a choir. Not because I wanted class credit or felt I needed to further fine tune my skills. I joined for the pure joy of singing. I practice my harmonies for a half hour a day, and go to two hour long rehearsals each Sunday. Right now we're working on a forty page medley. But guess what- it's not hard work. In fact, it's the best part of my week. It's just plain fun.
So, students, here's the moral of the story. The truth of the situation is that no matter what tips or tricks I or your teacher may give you, practicing doesn't need to be that complicated. I'll tell you a secret, and I'll go against everything I was taught in saying it. Practicing is playing. If you make a mistake, you stop, fix it, and then you get to play it again. It's like a bonus!
Parents, here's my advice to you. Be supportive. Let your student find their own practice style. As long as it's working for the teacher, then it should work for you as well. If the student is understanding and enjoying their music, then that is all we should ask for. I don't expect my students to grow up to be concert pianists. My family expected that of me and continue, every year at Christmas, to try to ask me why I went into education and when I plan to go back to my studies. They just don't get it.
I don't think anyone will ever be the model student, teachers included. In fact, at our Grand Opening this coming Saturday, another teacher and I are performing a duet. I don't even think we have decided who is singing which part. (Note: Carolyn, if you're reading this, I claim the alto.) Will we crash and burn? Maybe. But we'll make sure to have a fabulous time doing it.

It happened in 3rd grade. My brother and I had prepared a duet from one of Anton Diabelli's duet books for beginners. I adored those duets. They are still among some of my favorite pieces to play. The book was a gift from my grandmother. She and my mother insisted that playing a duet with my twin brother would be the "cutest" thing ever, and since I was only in third grade, I had no choice in the matter. So, I learned the primo part, and my brother the secundo. We played it perfectly several times before the recital and even squeezed in one last practice just moments before it began. We were ready. I glanced at the order of performances on the program and noticed that our duet was last! Usually, the more advanced students were put at the end of the program. During the recital, I couldn't concentrate on anyone else's performances. All I could think of was the duet we were about to play. It seemed like an eternity before it was our turn. Finally, it was time.

We began the piece smoothly enough. My fingers were shaking. To this day, my fingers still shake whenever I'm performing on the piano. Suddenly, one of us made a mistake. I don't remember who made the first one, and it doesn't matter now (it was my brother).  This was the beginning of the collapse. We both started panicking and made more mistakes. We couldn't stop ourselves. I lost my place, my brother played terribly wrong notes, and we both glared at each other and mumbled under our breath. Eventually, we came to what we decided was the end of the song and literally ran back to our seats. I could tell my face was red. The recital was over. We were the grand finale My dad recorded the whole thing with his VHS camcorder.

On the drive home, I heard my mom say to my dad, "I don't think they're going to want to watch that video..." I wish they had saved it.

Looking back, I learned two things from what seemed at the time to be a terrible experience. Number 1: I will never again play a duet with my twin brother, and number 2: making those mistakes only made me work harder for the next recital.

I redeemed myself at my next performance and (almost) forgot about the incident.

About a week ago, my husband and I (who are both musicians) , decided that we needed to listen to more classical music, so we chose a station and began listening to it in the car.
The first thing that was cool was that I started to learn the names of some of those pieces that are familiar to most people but you could never think of the name or who it was by.The other kind of fun thing was listening to unfamiliar pieces with my husband and trying to guess the era and composer based on different things like the style, the instrumentation, etc..I know, pretty nerdy, right?
It wasn't until today that I discovered or perhaps rediscovered, another benefit of listening to classical music.
I had a pretty rough Monday going, I was stuck in traffic, stressed because I was running late and of course stressed because of everything else going on in my life,and to top it all off, it was raining...yea....
Anyways, I switched over to the classical music station and a piano concerto by Mozart came on, and before I knew it I was completely sucked in, my body began to relax and I was hit by the great power that music can hold over us. It can completely change our mood and make us feel whatever it may be that the composer was trying to express. Music can influence our emotions, without words! Wow! I mean how amazing is that! Music can speak with no words! Powerful stuff...I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes to ponder: where words fail, music speaks...

I, personally, have never played Guitar Hero or Rock Band. But, it seems that most of my students do and I've been asked by many people whether or not I think Guitar Hero helpful at all for learning to play the real guitar.

Guitar Hero probably helps with rhythm, and it definitely introduces kids to bands like The Police, Scorpions, and Cream that they would probably think were lame otherwise.

Other than that, the only thing that's helpful about it is that it has sparked an interest in guitar playing and I'm sure I've taught a ton of kids that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Maybe if it keeps up there will be a guitar renaissance in this country. In that case, maybe someone needs to come up with 'Real Estate Hero', and 'Stock Market Hero'. Possibly, 'Social Skills Hero'...