Practice | Christine Goodner: The Suzuki Triangle Blog, Author, Speaker, Podcaster

Motivation: The Importance of Feeling Capable

This Post is third in a series on keeping students inspired and motivated. You can read the first two posts here: Overview, Why Students Need Help Seeing Progress.

“I can’t do this!” “It’s too hard!” “I’ll never get it!”

Comments like these (or trying to avoid practicing a specific practice task) are strong indications that a student does not feel they are capable of something we are asking them to do.

Some students may not even be able to verbalize these thoughts and simply act out or seem to lose interest in studying their instrument.

To keep our students motivated it’s important to to address these feelings. Feeling capable and seeing that it is possible to accomplish something plays a huge role in staying motivated.

I’d like to suggest 4 ways to help students feel capable & would love to hear what you think works the best for your children or students.

3 Ways to Keep Students Motivated & Inspired

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

-William Butler Yeats

Happy New Year! I love the feeling of a fresh start that the new year brings. I am coming back from a couple weeks off feeling refreshed and with a renewed commitment to help keep my students motivated and inspired this year.

As a teacher I feel strongly that my job goes beyond teaching the mechanics of playing the violin or viola. If all my students get from me is some technical knowledge about their instrument then I don’t think I’ve really done my job.

One of my first jobs as a teacher is to instill a love of music in my students, once that has been established it is much easier to expect them to work hard. Working hard at something we love is a totally different feeling than working hard on something someone else loves. How do we get this to happen?

3 Ways to Focus on the Big Picture in Practice

3 ways to focus on the Big Picture

One thing I’ve noticed about students and families that are successful in the Suzuki Method, is their ability to stay focused on the big picture.

There are endless details to keep in mind when learning a musical instrument, and it’s easy to get over focused on some of them and forget what is really important.

As a teacher I like to think of three basic ways for students and families to focus on the big picture: Tone, Technique, and Character.

Big Picture Focus: Tone

If you are working on a piece in practice and you are unsure of what to work on next, Tone is always a good answer.

Tone is defined (by the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary) as “the quality of sound produced by a musical instrument or singing voice.” It goes beyond playing in tune. How warm is the sound? Does it having a ringing quality or harsh quality to it?

50 Character Qualities Developed in Music Students

I have been asking a lot of my friends and colleagues lately to weigh in on what they consider to be "success" within the Suzuki method. Certainly a lot of answers include elements of learning to play the instrument well, but most everyone also agrees that who students develop into, as human beings, is just as important. What exactly are we developing when we practice with our children everyday? or work with our students each week in lessons? Below are…

Confessions of a Suzuki Parent . . .

Confessions of a Suzuki Parent

I’d like to sit behind my computer screen and present a perfect image of myself as a Suzuki teacher and parent. But I have to be honest – the reason I’m so passionate about writing on the topic of Suzuki parenting and trying to help parents be successful, is that I was far from perfect as a Suzuki parent.

As my children have grown and I learned the hard way, I have also read and learned everything I can on the subject to help the families I work with. I could have really used that help myself!

I had my kids while in college so I was a younger mom. In fact, I was just starting out as a Suzuki teacher myself, when my oldest was four years old and we started the violin together . . . the same instrument I happened to teach . Some people do this beautifully and if this is you, you have much respect from me – I know it works really well for some people. But, it did not work well for us.

I’m not sure there is a way to accurately describe the struggle between a very opinionated and headstrong four your old and a very inexperienced and idealistic mom/teacher.

We struggled!

There were some epic showdowns where you could practically see the standoff happening like in an old Western movie, with the tumbleweed rolling by, as we sat in suspense about who would win the battle of wills this time. I so wanted to do it “just right” and she so wanted to avoid how hard it felt and most likely the pressure she felt from me.

While this post is geared more towards Suzuki teachers, I think parents can take some of these ideas and modify them to create a “family challenge” based on the same ideas.

I have found lately that having studio practice challenges, where the whole studio is working on something at the same time, helps students feel like they are part of something exciting that is happening. It makes them want to keep up and practice.

I’ve had parents thank me for organizing them because it means less nagging by the parent to get started on practice – which I think is great. That kind of feedback motivates me to keep coming up with ideas and and doing a few challenges each year of various kinds.

Over the summer we had a practice club – students earned different levels by the number of days practiced during summer term. Their names went up in the studio for each level earned and I gave out certificates at group class in September. Overall, there was a lot more consistent practice over the summer and especially the younger students seemed to find it fun and motivating.

This fall we are doing a Bow Hold Challenge.

If you teach an instrument that doesn’t have a bow I am sure you can come up with your own technique to plug in and modify this idea to fit your instrument.

I wanted to share the elements of running this challenge on the blog so it would be easy for anyone to replicate.

Bow Hold Challenge

Effective Practice Routines

Effective Suzuki Practice

I have seen many different approaches to practice that work. Families in my studio find what works for them and helps them be successful. One size does not fit all and the way practice is done often needs to be modified depending on the child and practice parent.

That being said I have found there are certain strategies that effective practice sessions have in common, especially for young students. How they are done, is much less important than the fact that they are done.

I used to try to sprinkle information about how to practice effectively into my lessons on an ongoing basis but I’ve found over the years that this approach often left families in my studio surprised about my expectations a year or two into lessons.

Clearly I was not giving out this information as well as I thought I was. I have recently re-vamped my approach with new materials that explain what to expect, and how to be successful, in a much more clear and organized way.

Developing Ownership in Practice

Ownership in Practice

I am in the midst of expanding my parent education materials, for the new families in my studio, this year and the second week of materials will focus on what I think are the most important things to keep in mind about practice.

I narrowed it down to 7 items (I am sure there are more but these will get people started on the right foot in my experience).

They Include:

Will Rewards for Practice Keep it From Becoming a Habit?

Rewards and Practice

Rewards can be powerful motivation! There are a lot of opinions about whether rewards really help or hurt motivation and that has gotten me thinking lately about how I use rewards with my students.

As a music teacher I’d like my students to be motivated by making great music. While I think that’s a reasonable goal for older students, very young students may need some additional outside motivation to keep them going (at least that’s what I’ve found).

I’ve gone through many phases as a teacher – some where I give out a lot of stickers and little prizes to students & some where I give ideas to parents and let them implement what they think will work with their children at home. Other times I haven’t really done much at all.

Lately I’ve been doing a few practice challenges in my studio and have been re-thinking how much rewards are helping vs hurting students. I read an interesting perspective on this from Gretchen Rubin who studies how people make and keep habits & her research has helped me clarify how I want to go about reward giving going forward. . .

Easy Ideas for Making Practice Convenient

Suzuki Practice & Convenience

When my daughters were young and it was time to practice, for some un-explainable reason the hardest part was getting the instrument out of the case. It really took about 2 minutes but some days it would seem like such a daunting task! We learned that keeping the instrument out of the case (and also out of reach so it stayed safe) made it more convenient to get started right away.

There are many little things like this that we can do to make it easier to get practice and listening done.

It’s human nature to do what is convenient and avoid what is inconvenient and it’s a great idea to look at our practice routines and to see if there is any way to make them more convenient so we’re more likely to follow through.

“People often ask me, “What surprised you most about habits?” One thing that continually astonished me is the degree to which we’re influenced by sheer convenience. The amount of effort, time, or decision making required by an action has a huge influence on habit formation. To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not.”

~ Gretchen Rubin Better than Before

This is 2nd in a series about Gretchen Rubin’s book Better than Before, a fantastic book about making and break habits. It gives great insights, on habit formation, that can be used when studying & teaching music as well as forming any other type of habit.