Executive Function Skills & Music Practice: An Interview with Emily Hawe

This week we’re talking to Executive Function Skills coach Emily Hawe all about the skills we use in practice and how we (as teachers and practice partners) can help our children and students develop them.

Emily Hawe is a certified teacher and staff developer for multiple NYC metropolitan area school districts and the parent of a new piano student. Emily’s website is called Mindlaunchers and is a great resource on this topic. We talk about the importance of executive function skills in the practice room, specific ways we can support our children and students to develop them, and I hope you come away with new ideas and insights into practice with young musicians.

To Listen to the full episode you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below:

Highlights Include:

“When I did leave the classroom and I had my own children, and one thing led to another and I was working with students a lot one-on-one and I really realized that there was something missing. It wasn’t a lack of intelligence. It wasn’t a lack of motivation or a lack of trying. They were just lacking a skillset. And it turns out that skillset is executive functioning skills. So for those of you not familiar with what executive functioning skills are, I like to compare them to sort of like the control tower for your brain.

Like the air traffic control tower at an airport, they’re directing all the different stimuli that are coming at us. They’re telling you what to pay attention to, what to ignore, what to focus on, what to prioritize, where to put your belongings, all the day-to-day things that happen in the background that we don’t necessarily think very much about. When these skills are lacking, it becomes very apparent. And that’s what I was seeing in my students.”

On some examples of what Executive function skills are:

“So it’s everything from sustained attention- being able to pay attention to things, even if it’s not that interesting to you. Organization, both organization of your thoughts and organization of physical belongings. Emotional control, impulse regulation -are you blurting out? Are you interrupting? Goal-directed persistence, being able to really stick to a goal. Flexible thinking. That’s a big one. That’s particularly challenging for a lot of children. What happens when things don’t go as planned? That’s an executive function skill to be able to shift your thinking like that. Metacognition, self-monitoring. So being able to reflect on how you’re performing, how am I thinking, what do I need to change about my performance here? So pretty much all of those like meta-skills that are, that are operating in the background fall under the realm of executive functioning skills.”

Developing Executive Function skills: "It's like a muscle. We have to practice it to let it grow." Emily Hawe Episode 21

On developing focus:

“A lot of children, we see them hyper-focused on some activity. So I have a lot of parents say, well, why can’t my kids sit still for homework when they can sit still for four hours playing a video game. That doesn’t mean that they’re faking or not trying with their homework. That’s the way attention works, is that we can hyper focus on activities of interest to us. But our attention really gets tested when it’s a task or activity that’s less interesting, less immediately gratifying. So I think immediate gratification is a big part of it. Younger children. They need that immediate gratification. To say, oh, well, you’re going to perform in a recital six months from now. That might as well be never. They don’t see beyond really the present moment for, for really young children.

So how can we build in some elements of immediate gratification to setting small goals? And I mean, really small, like, can you sit still for maybe even two minutes and practice this song and having some way to keep track of that visuals charts, maybe every time they do something, they put a pompom in a jar. Something very tangible.”

On motivation:

“I have parents asking me if they should pay their child to do homework or to practice music. No, no, I don’t think we should do that because we do ultimately want it to be intrinsic motivation. But for a lot of children who struggle with executive function skills, intrinsic motivation, isn’t always there. And we have to give them that to make it more tangible. We have to be able to track their progress. You know, while we, as teachers or parents are tracking their progress in our mind, we want them to be a part of that. So do they have some kind of practice schedule where they’re checking it off, they’re giving themselves a sticker each time they do something. And then that can kind of build some momentum there because you can say, Hey, look like you practice four days in a row. Do you think you can go for five days? So that they’re really seeing it. Even just that little sticker, sometimes is all it takes because it’s this tangible representation of what they’ve done. But ultimately, I think that you have to have really realistic goals.”