Practices for Busy People or "What to do when you don't have time to practice." or "Help, my child hates to practice!"

Every person on earth, (well at least the ones I know) has uttered or heard the words, "I would have done it if I had more time!"  These words are usually followed by a sigh and a gesture of some sort to emphasize the thought that the task really would have gotten accomplished if one had more time.  Apart from getting into a philosophical discussion of time and how everybody has time to do what they want, time is the great equalizer - everybody gets the same amount, every day, 24/7/365, and so on and so forth, this post is really about helping one understand the concept that practicing does not always involve, need, or imply the said instrument of study or a large chunck of time.  I often say to my studio families, "If you wait for a chunk of time you won't get it done." Instead of waiting for the amount of time you think you need, just pick up the instrument, or sit down with it, and start playing. Five minutes once a day is far better than 30 minutes once a week.  Keep reading for some ideas of what to do in those five minutes. You'll be surprised how those five minutes will grow into 20 or 30 minutes of productive playing and practicing. Now, rather than waiting for a chunk of time that rarely presents itself, you've created a chunk of time and reinforced practice and playing skills.

When I was a younger teacher, I started compiling a list of activities that could be done in the car, for a family that traveled a lot and often gave "being in the car" as the reason they couldn't practice. Over the years, I have accumulated other ideas and activities, also for my families that were "busy" but also for the ones that needed extra help with motor skill development or a chance to understand and develop a technique free of the emotional or physical memory of the instrument.

What soon developed was a list of games that could be played almost anywhere at almost anytime and qualified as practice with or without the child's awareness that that was what they were doing.  As any teacher, parent, or artist should do, read the list, and then use what appeals to you, and then let your creative mind derive a set that works for you and your unique environment and surroundings.

Supplies: hand(s), balloon (small and/or large), ruler or paint stick, bucket of water, kleenex or tissue, toilet paper roll (cut in half vertically), sand or sugar, play-doh, pencil, pen with cap, knees, wall or other vertical surface, table or other horizontal surface, marble, stretchy bands, tennis ball or bean bag.

Games or practices:

1. Hands are great for all kinds of things.  Finger taps against the thumb are good for teaching/practicing finger numbers and feeling the springiness and energy in the tap and release.  Hands are portable staffs and can be used to become familiar with lines and spaces, note names, chords, and intervals in whatever clef your instrument uses.  For fun, try eating finger foods with the thumb and ring finger or thumb and pinky.  Need an extra challenge, try tying your shoes or buttoning your shirt with just the thumb and ring finger and pinky!!

2. Balloons help develop finger dexterity, strength, and facility while showing areas of tension. Small balloons are great for piano students to use in practicing a relaxed thumb and the desired shape of the hand.  For violinists, the balloon should have enough air to fit in the center of the palm. The left hand thumb touches the "nose" or tie off, and the fingers tap on the top of the balloon without the thumb pushing in the "nose".  For the right hand, the thumb touches the "nose" and the other fingers curl across the top. The thumb and pinky are strong against the "nose" while the other fingers rest on top without any depressions in the balloon surface.  This same game can be repeated with a ball of play-doh.

3. Ruler or paint stick makes a handy fingerboard when having the violin out is not practical, ie traveling, hotel room, etc.  Finger patterns can be practiced as well as vibrato exercises and shifting.

4. Bucket of water - Everybody likes water wars, and water flings are great fun for kids while helping them feel the energy in the release of the fingers.  Definitely an outside game, fill a bucket with water, child dips hand or hands in the water as if to pick it up, then flings the water as far as possible by rapidly opening the fingers away from the palm. (This is similar to a rubber band war, probably less traumatic)

5. Kleenex or tissue - There are endless uses for kleenex in the studio.  For piano players, there are several games that will bring out the challenger in any student.  Lay one on a flat surface and pick it up as fast as you can, repeat and pick it up as slowly as you can. Lay it across the keys and try and play a song, the kleenex should move not tear.  Have a race to see who can pick it up the fastest.   Violin students can place one between the left index finger and the fingerboard or between thumb and fingerboard.  A teacher or helper should be able to remove the kleenex from whichever position without it tearing.

6. Sand or sugar - Place a mound of sand or sugar on a flat surface.  Using one finger, or all five, move the sand or sugar towards the center of your palm.

7. Pencil - a miniature finger board or bow. Practice the spider and crab game, proper placement of fingers on the bow, or finger patterns in different keys.  

9. Ball - Good for all instrument players, a ball illustrates the energy of motion. Students use right hand to bounce against the floor or wall.  A ball can be passed around a circle while singing a song, or thrown back and forth to teach rhythm or song form.  Bean bags are also useful for rhythmic activities and teaching song form.

10. Knees, arms, back of hands - these surfaces are a perfect stand in for instruments when one is not available or appropriate. Play a song, show finger patterns, identify a song, practice good technique, etc.

11. Marbles - these toys are useful to build finger dexterity.  Pick them up using thumb and pinky, pass them from hand to hand, and around a circle.  Switch fingers throughout, pass while singing a song. 

Well, there you have it, in written form, games that can be played to reinforce good technique on the instrument.  I've often said I would compile them and write a book.  I haven't yet, so for now, here they are.  These are just a small portion of what can be done.  As I wrote earlier, read, use, and then create your own.  Come back and leave a comment.   When asked to practice, and these don't work, you can always revert to the age old "play it wrong", they'll come running in to show you how to play it right.

There's a lot of ways to get it wrong.

We've all heard "practice makes perfect".  The phrase is drilled in your head as a young student by teachers attempting to instill in you the importance of practice.  While this is a good concept at its core, what happens if you're not practicing right.  In my studio, I added onto that phrase and would say to the students "Perfect practice makes perfect."  But how does one get to perfect in order to practice at that level.  In an ideal world, we'd all get it right and then practice that.  But we all know that rarely happens.

Another oft repeated instruction is "amateurs practice till they get it right. Musicians practice till they can't get it wrong."  I've even used this one with my students to illustrate the point that work begins, not ends,  when you get it right.  In the Suzuki community, we often repeat Dr. Suzuki's famous quote, "Knowledge plus 10,000 times equals ability."  The implied concept is that something has to be known to be practiced or immersed so well in memory that it can't be forgotten.

On the road to finding the right pattern, students and professionals play through a lot of wrong ways.  Frustration enters the young student and the desire to practice or play plummets.  Professionals have developed a system of analysis in order to figure out what needs to be done and when.  They arrive quicker at the correct phrase or fingering or melody and so get to the work of muscle memory faster and more efficiently.  This encourages practice and playing because a greater amount of success is achieved in a smaller amount of time.

I've had the privilege of observing and/or studying with some great master teachers and players and somewhere along the way discovered that if we know what needs to happen, we can arrive to the work place with less frustration and discouragement.  I decided to try with my playing and my students the conversation of which hand is responsible for what and when.  I immediately saw a reduction in the time it took students to discover or play the right pattern and get down to the business of working/practicing.

I then adopted the phrase "Talk to the hand, tell it what to do".  This instruction would always elicit a laugh from the parents and a giggle from the kids. The former because they caught the not-so-subtle reference to valley-girl lingo, the latter because they found the idea of talking to their hands funny.

But, it worked.  If they couldn't tell their hands what to do, then the pattern wasn't imbedded in their hearing or they hadn't grasped a concept of music writing. So, we would backtrack, sing the song, or encourage extra listening at home, or review basic rules of music and staff notation.   Then we'd revisit the pattern, either at that lesson or the next one.  Without fail, when the student had gained ability to say what needed to happen and when, the correct pattern was established and practice or work could begin towards long-term memory or reaching the level where it could not be forgotten.

As an illustration, student A comes in and is asked to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  The bow arm is playing beautifully and the left hand is finding the correct places for resonant tone, until the 4th note needs to be played (for the violin 3rd finger a or 4th line D) and then a train wreck happens. The student pulls a sad face and says "I can't ever get that right!"  I ask, "What has to happen first?"  If the student can say, "finger then bow" then we proceed by practicing one of the twinkle rhythms and place the finger before the bow crosses.  IF the student can't give that information, then we review and then practice using the twinkle variation.  Usually after 5 times, the student is feeling confident and then we start the work of repetitions or not forgetting.

Another student comes in and opens the reading book and plays the passage incorrectly, the melody is going up and the student is playing notes going lower.  This is common when the reading process first begins.  The impulse to say "wrong, try it again!" is strong, but if we ask the student to say the direction of the notes while we point to the staff and then re-iterate that up is to the right (on the keyboard) and down is to the left, then we give them the right information and they can proceed with confidence and knowledge.

These are very elementary anecdotes, however the process works for high level playing and I use it often when I'm learning or working on a song, to achieve the place where I can work on correct or accurate interpretation.  There's a million and one ways to get it wrong, one way to get it right!  Happy practicing :-)

Special Thanks for New Site Launch! What Do You Think?

Much thanks to my nephew, Chad, who is a huge inspiration for me, not only in writing, but in his passion for quality interactions, beautiful moments, excellence in business, and an unstoppable quest for knowledge, understanding, and zeal for living that spurs me to pursue the same things in my life.  His blog can be read here on This Blue Couch.

In the timeless words of Dr. Suzuki, "Don't rush, don't rest." and to that I add the sage wisdom of a friend, Jason Morgan, "Be mindful".

Let's Begin the Music Journey

 In the Suzuki community, we talk a lot about the journey that a teacher, parent, and student starts when lessons begin. On the journey, we will learn about playing the specific instrument of study, celebrate accomplishments, navigate through difficult spots, slow down sometimes, forge ahead at others, but always hopefully, enjoy the journey and where it takes us. I am thankful and blessed to be on this journey with the families in my studio. I too am on a journey, learning how to reach for the highest goals, grow as a person, family member, teacher, musician, and as a part of the larger community.  Discovering ways to help each student on the journey with me reach their potential, drives my research, practicing, and fleshing out of the connection between the brain and the senses, and balance of technical practice and the art of playing.  Please leave comments, thoughts, suggestions.  Like all crossroads on a journey, signposts help us to know what's up ahead.

Singing towards musicianship

A fun way for young children to discover their musicality is to play singing games.  These can be as simple as throwing a ball or beanbag back and forth while singing the words, or as complex as passing an object around a circle while singing.  Children naturally sing in a musical way, meaning they usually have the right inflection and phrasing, even if they haven't acquired tuneful singing yet.  When children know a song well enough to sing it while engaging in an activity, such as throwing a beanbag back and forth to a partner, they are able to then keep the tune going in their head while figuring out how to play it on the instrument.  They usually can slow it down in order to connect their fingers with the right notes in places where the melody and rhythm moves faster.  This skill is very helpful in building confidence to learn other songs that might not have words or the lyrics are unknown.  I often tell my beginning parents that daily practice is important, but it won't always involve the instrument.  Sometimes, you just have to sing and rock back and forth, or tap your knees, or throw a bean bag, or march around the room.  Whatever it is, include singing in your practice routine and watch your children get excited about learning and playing their songs.