Music Practice, Finding Resources, & Making Progress Tangible: A Conversation with Meret Bitticks

This week I’m excited to welcome Meret Bitticks, our first flutist, to the Time to Practice podcast. Meret is a performer,a music educator at the Music Institute of Chicago and is on faculty at Lake Forest College and DePaul University. She is also a Flute Teacher trainer through the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the author of a new book on Working with Young Flutists. 

In our conversation, we talked about her journey as a musician, what practice looked like for her when she started in the middle school band, making our practice progress tangible, and about the practice from teacher, parent, and student perspectives. 

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! 

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

If you prefer, you can read the transcript from this episode below.

Here are a few of my Takeaways from this conversation with Meret Bitticks:

Stickers and little rewards can be a manifestation of our progress so we can see our work in a tangible way – I loved this way of thinking of it this way and its made me think a lot about how we play something and then because it’s sound it disappears and it’s hard to see the evidence of our work sometimes – good food for thought!

School music programs change lives and are so important!

If you’re supporting a young musician with practice, thinking about how YOU Learn so you know how to most effectively take in the information your child needs help with is such a great idea. Ask permission to take videos, write out notes in detail that you may or may not refer back to. Yes, the lessons are for the child, but we can help them better if we understand how we learn too

Links in this Episode: 

Meret Bitticks’ Website: http://www.fleautiful.com

Find the print version of Meret’s book Here: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Young-Flutists-Educators-Guide/dp/1639911170

Find Meret Bitticks’ book in ebook format Here: https://fflat-books.com/product/working-with-young-flutists/

Connect with Christine on Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/suzukitriangle

Live Talk 1/18/25 with Christine about “Working with our Child’s Strengths in the Practice Room” Sign up to attend Here