After I wrote the post Lessons from a first time music mom, I received some wonderful advice and wisdom posted in the comment section. It was from the principal violinist of the Knoxville Symphony, who is also a mom and a Suzuki violin teacher.
She made me realize we must create a regular practice schedule in our house, for our daughters playing the violin and the piano.
I am not good at scheduling during the summer (or ever really). I just don’t doing like it. Summers are for freedom and running barefoot in the grass. So whatever our solution was going to be, it had to work for all of us.
Katy, the commenter, set the goal for her daughter to practice piano everyday for 100 days. Her reward was a visit to the American Girl store.
That got me thinking. While I’m not one for rewards, and I would prefer their practice be inspired by their own desire to get better. That is not entirely realistic. They are playing an instrument as much for themselves as they are for us, their parents. Because it’s important to us that they learn an instrument. So we are stepping in with some incentives.
I’m focused on summertime right now. And because we will be traveling some, and have a few busy weekends planned, practicing consecutively everyday is not doable for us. (Although my daughter did say she wished we had a traveling keyboard for her.)
Our goal for the girls is to practice 50 times this summer, out of the 72 days of their Summer Break. After 50 times we’ll take them somewhere fun, that is out of the ordinary. So far talks have included the American Girl store in Atlanta (which is 20 minutes from my parent’s house), the Build A Bear store, or Dollywood. We have all summer to figure that out, or 48 practice sessions.
As soon as 50 times is up. We’ll start it again. And if they choose to practice more than once a day, that counts towards the 50 times – as long as they are good solid practice sessions.
To count the 50 practice times we created a system for each girl.
My middle girl, who is 5 and plays the violin, made a strand of 50 beads and will take off a bead everyday she practices. When the beads are gone. We go for a special outing of her choice.
My oldest girl, who is 7 and plays the piano, made a number wreath from scrapbooking paper. After every practice sesssion she’ll take off one of the decorative numbered circles. Same goes for her – when all 50 are gone she gets to pick a special place to visit.
Today was the first day we tried it and I think we will see good results. Something important for my middle girl was storing her violin down low, on the ground near her strand of beads.
When she removes the beads she is putting them in the bin with her violin. My daughter has a basket on the piano for her decorative numbered circles when they get removed. This way they visually see their practice times adding up, as well as being counted down.
Either way, nothing is better than the pride my middle girl had at her violin recycle this spring, after working so hard the last eight months to learn the same few cord variations.
However on a summer day when everyone is flying by the seat of their pants, I think a little incentive to stop and practice is worth the reward. We’ll see if I’m right.
Sounds like a great system!
When we travel and don’t have access to a piano we engage in “mental practicing” which means either doing something related to music like working in a note-reading workbook, reading a story about a composer, or 10-15 minutes of play time on one of the note reading apps I’ve got on my phone, OR I will have her listen very purposefully to the Suzuki recording and ask questions: where does it get soft and then loud? did you hear that funky note there?! Violin students can “air-bow” along with the recording, too. Horizontal bowing (like you would do on a violin) is fine, as is vertical “bowing” like the child is painting with an imaginary paint brush. This is particularly helpful with pieces that introduce new bowing patterns, such as Song of the Wind (lifts), O Come Little Children (those tricky up bows), and Minuet One (up-up). Mental practicing can’t replace contact with the instrument, but it can be extremely valuable and definitely counts as practicing in this house! (It is also something else to do on extremely long, boring car trips!)
Good luck! I would love an update at the end of your practice adventure!
Thanks Katy. I was wondering how you handled traveling. Those are some great, creative ideas. We listen to the violin Suzuki CD in the car often. But the others are are good ideas for any time we need a little change of routine.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks again for all your great ideas!