Trapped in the Practice Web

You are teaching one of your private music students on a weekday afternoon. It could be the violin, piano, guitar or any other instrument that children are sent to learn. The child has come in, taken off her coat and the preliminary greetings are over.

“Did you practice this week?”

“Well, sort of … not a lot though …”

So it begins. Not one minute into the lesson, and both the student and teacher are in trouble, neither realizing that each of them is trapped in the structure of the lesson itself.

 The Child

Having been asked the inevitable question, “Did you practice this week?” and knowing full well that she didn’t, or at least that it wasn’t nearly enough, the child is in emotional trouble. She knows that something was expected of her that she did not do, and she therefore feels like a disappointment to her teacher. Whether this is the first time such a thing has happened or whether it has become part of a pattern, the child is now placed in the awkward position of having to defend her non-action. She will say she was too busy or tired or had a sleepover. However, these are excuses, not reasons. If something is lighting a child up, she will find time for it.

What the child is neither able nor permitted to say is that she was confused or bored or disinterested, that she doesn’t want to practice because she is a child. She cannot articulate the fact that the practicing she is asked to do – probably the lessons themselves, too – seem totally unrelated to what got her excited about learning this instrument in the first place. How can she be expected to explain to a grown-up that children are oriented in the present, unable to relate to a reward that may happen at some point in the future? How can a child be expected to understand that what she is beginning to see as her deficiencies are only symptoms of being a normal child? The only person in the room who could possibly understand these things is the adult who is present – the teacher – and she is having troubles of her own, as we shall see shortly.

We know this much about learning: The ground for learning is at its most fertile when a child feels trusted, respected and validated as an individual. Success makes him feel competent and failure makes him shut down. Here, in the first minute of his music lesson, the expectation of practicing, which is essential to becoming proficient on an instrument has caused the child to feel defensive, inadequate and unworthy of his teacher’s trust and respect. The student would undoubtedly like, at the very least, to please his teacher, but his inability to get his practicing act together frustrates even that desire. If becoming a musician is defined by the ability to sustain efficient and consistent practicing, it is no wonder that so many people end up feeling like musical failures.

There is a time and a place for disciplined practicing. Traditional lessons are perfect structures for people who want to become skilled on an instrument, possibly with an eye to performing. But this is only one path, and there are so many other ways to be musical: improvising, conducting, experimenting with sound, being an opera buff or musicologist, all either amateur or professional.

There is nothing wrong with being ready to take a student through the skills of learning an instrument if that is the best thing for that particular student. But why exclude all the rest of the people who could benefit from a different kind of experience? Should music making only be the realm of the relative few? We owe our students a  meaningful experience that honors their individual musicality.

The Teacher

Let us assume that you are an excellent teacher. You are a good musician, skilled on your instrument, with a wealth of experience. You realize the value of balancing patience with challenge, relate to children in a warm and nurturing way and understand how to break skills down into teachable components. Like all wise and sensitive teachers, you are aware that your students will learn best when they feel safe, open, trusted and respected, and you work hard to cultivate an environment conducive to that. You have thought about what direction to go in with this child and have conscientiously planned his lesson, yet you are as much a victim of the lesson structure as your student.

If what you were planning depends on the child having practiced, what do you do if he didn’t? Certainly if you are teaching skills, it is imperative that the skills be reinforced and developed through practicing. So where does that leave you? Do you go through the motions of teaching anyway?

If you are the piano teacher, meaning that there is nothing in the room but you, the piano and the student who didn’t practice but is committed to being with you for 45 minutes, what options do you have? And what do you do when this is happening on a regular basis with many students? Is any of this your fault? Of course not! This structure ties your hands, limiting your own creativity as an educator and forcing you to go through gestures that can be a waste of time and energy for both you and your students.

As unorthodox as it may seem, and far away from our orientation though it may be, the fact is that the quality of a child’s musical experience should not be dependent on practicing. Since everyone possesses a degree of innate musicality – it is part of human hardwiring - there must be a radically different approach for the great number of musical individuals that have no interest, ambition or genetic predisposition to becoming skilled instrumentalists.