Self-directed practice: a key to both student success and motivation.

If students are to become successful at productively self-directing their practice

* They need to have specific musical and pianistic goals.

* They need to acquire an ever-expanding "tool kit" containing practice strategies that will enable them to fulfill these goals--procedures that produce successful performances with minimal time and effort. Such strategies are things that students should be utilizing when they practice instead of just "doing time" at the piano, such as playing through pieces and passages over and over again in a mindless, goal-less vacuum.

* They need to be active participants in the lesson.

Necessary Practice Strategies

To experience success, students need specific strategies

1) for working out a new piece

a) analysis of both form and structural elements

b) planning fingering; slow practice (choosing a "thinking" tempo); hands-separate practice (when and how much?); counting

2) for dealing with technical issues

3) for achieving a tempo

4) for producing musicality in performance

5) for securing, checking and maintaining memorization

Ways to Encourage Active Student Participation at the Lesson

To promote active student involvement at the lesson, teachers need to

1) Involve students with choke making. To facilitate this, the teacher might say

a) "Today we're going to start with technique warm-ups. Do you want to begin with scales, arpeggios or the Hanon study?"

b) "Let's begin today's lesson with a piece. Which one would you like to start with? Select the metronome tempo you'll be using when you play it."

c) "What would you like to start with today--technique, theory or a piece?"

d) "This week you'll be starting a new piece. I'll play samples of three possibilities and then ask you to choose the one you'd most like to work on."

e) "Our next piano program is six weeks away. At home this week, make a list of six or seven favorites you'd like to consider as possible performance pieces for this event. Then, each week we'll narrow down the list until we end up with the two pieces you actually will play on the program."

2) Encourage students to make use of the pencil at the lesson.

a) "What note did you miss in tire third measure? Circle it with the red pencil and write its name above it."

b) "What would be the best fingering for the right hand in this passage? Write this fingering in your music." "Write in the counting for meters seven and eight and so on."

c) "Mark the main sections and label the form in this new piece (ABA and so on)."

d) "Mark in the pedaling you wish to use in this section."

3) Involve students with the setting of pre-performance goals.

a) "Before you play this piece, name three specific things you're going to listen for."

b) "Suggest two things you'd like for me to listen for as you play."

4) Involve students with post-performance evaluation (before teacher evaluation).

a) "What did you like about your performance?"

b) "Did you hear the three special things you said you were going to listen for?"

c) "What would you like to improve? Show me (show, not tell me) how you'll practice to accomplish this."

5) Involve students with demonstrations of practice strategies.

a) "Play just the last section of this piece. If yon have a problem, stop and then show me (show, not tell me) how you'll work on this spot."

b) "With this new piece, demonstrate the practice steps you'll use with the first section when you work it our at home this week."

Coda

For practice to be rewarding and productive, it must be effectively self-directed, and to the degree that this occurs, the outcome for the student usually is both success and motivation. Surely, success is one of the most powerful motivators of all--fat more significant than receiving a star, medal or trophy. Ongoing success is probably the single most influential factor in motivating students to enjoy music study--students who want to continue on with their lessons and with their journey into the wonderful world of music--both as listeners and as music makers themselves!

Elvina Truman Pearce is editor of Keyboard Companion magazine and a founder of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy. She has presented recitals and workshops in more than forty states, Canada, the Republic of China and Australia and is a nationally recognized composer.