The "P" Word - Senior Students

Senior student will be able to monitor their own practice session and determine what it is they need to practice.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha.

Yeah.

 

Your senior students have probably got some kind of practice routine in place – otherwise they wouldn’t have got to the level where they are, right?

Your job is to help them to refine it to get the most out of each practice session.

“How long should I practice for?”

How long is a piece of string?  It’s probably best not to think too much in terms of how many hours to put in in the rehearsal room, but rather what you want to get out of the practice session.  Having said that, to get through everything you need for around Grades 7 and 8, you’re looking at a good 60 – 90 minutes.  Every day.

Time needs to be spend according to your student’s most pressing needs.  If it’s the start of the year and their exam’s not until August, then they can spend more time developing a great foundation.  If their school assessment is tomorrow, they’re probably going to want to focus on that tricky spot in bar 174.

I like dividing practice session into sections: tone and technique first, current piece next, then fun play through at the end.

As a teacher, you know what kind of warm-ups/technical exercises work best for your instrument.  Make sure you go through these with your students so they know how to do them.  If it takes an entire lesson to teach a warm-up exercise or how to navigate an etude book, then so be it.  Your students can then do it independently at home and save you so much hassle later on.

There are loads of ideas for how to work on a current piece.  The most common one seems to be play it through from beginning to end, make a mistake, go back to the beginning, play thought until the next mistake, go back to the beginning, make another mistake…  Sound familiar?  You bet.  Sound effective?  Uh, nope.

Teach your students to set a goal for the practice session.  It might be tempo, rhythm, noted, dynamics, intonation, fingering, articulation, phrasing.  Then that gives them something to focus on.  Say they choose “articulation”.  Why not play through every example of a particular articulation pattern in the piece?  Or for dynamics, play a section pp.  Then ff.  Then crescendo/decrescendo in every bar. 

Encourage them to play with the music.  Experiment and get to know the piece.

At the end of the session, they can play through the entire piece, or play some old favourites.  It always pays to have a piece up you sleeve for when your aunty wants you to perform at her 50^th birthday.  It’s also, you know, fun.

(These are just some ideas. I’m in the process of writing a book outlining more.  Watch this space.)