A quote by my 13-year-old daughter. She said this recently with a cheeky grin on her face, followed by “mummy you know I’m just kidding, but still you should make a poster!” I must admit, there’s some truth in this quote. When I was around her age, I did everything I could to procrastinate on a daily basis, and my mother kept me on track despite my protests and explosions. I am now grateful for that, but did I know at the time? We’re in the third national lockdown in the UK, and with all the online learning that is (supposed to be) happening at home, my daughter’s cello practice often gets quite low priority. Moreover, her motivation is, well, quite low, with no face-to-face lessons, no concerts, no ensemble playing, no real interaction with friends…
So what is a parent to do to help with practice and most importantly, music-making during this period?
The role of a parent in instrumental learning is a HUGE topic, I read and think about it all the time. In my post-grad research I came across an idea in a research done by Andrea Creech, that there are 3 different types of parental/carer support:
COGNITIVE / INTELLECTUAL SUPPORT
This refers to things like making sure instruments and materials are available, arranging lessons and extra-curricular activities, creating a space and time where the child can devote to practice, finding and setting challenging goals for the child, attending musical concerts together with the child, discussing and listening music at home.
PERSONAL SUPPORT
This support refers to interest in the child’s own musical goals and targets, so that the ownership of learning is with the child.
BEHAVIOURAL SUPPORT
This support refers to participating and assisting in lessons and practices, and taking on the role of an at-home teacher. This is the most “hands-on” kind of support.
Let’s take a look at each kind in light of the current situation…
Cognitive/Intellectual Support during the Lockdown
A lot of this kind of support can be quite tricky to provide now. Sheet music and accessories, and even instruments can be bought / hired online. If you’re buying an instrument online though, research to see if the shop provides a trial by post and after-purchase support if you need it. Shops here in London are closed but many of them operate a drop-off / collection service.
Having a set weekly lesson time via zoom seems to work well as it can slot in nicely with the children’s remote-school time table. Parental help may be needed for young children to set up and tune, so that extra time has to be factored in the time table.
In my family’s case, we had to create a time table for when and where someone will practise / have a lesson and to avoid as much as possible a situation where 3 Zoom lessons are happening at once. Even then we have conflicts, especially when it comes using the piano, but at least, having a timetable has helped us to stay calm (and sane).
Attending concerts is, well, not possible now. There are many virtual concerts taking place, but now in the third lockdown, I notice my kids have started to lose interest in watching concerts through the screen. Would taking part interactively make it more enticing? I think possibly, yes. I organise informal zoom concerts for my students, but playing to family members in your household or remotely could work wonders. The key may be to keep it very informal and couple it with something like chats, tea & cake, and do it frequently even if the piece being performed is a work-in-progress.
Personal Support during the Lockdown
Here in the UK, a student may set their immediate musical goal as the next grade exam. Right now it is not the easiest thing to arrange, although many digital-format exams are now available (read about MTB on my post here) Many music festivals have been cancelled but there are some that have gone virtual, and these may offer a nice target. I also have students who have moved away from exams for now and playing what they like, searching for music from various genres such as film/anime/pop and that is a wonderful thing to do. (Though as a teacher, I must still look for ways to get learning points across in the weekly lessons) Making collaborative videos putting together multiple performances is a fun project to do, and students may want to make videos of themselves or with friends playing duets or more, or playing multiple instruments. My suggestion would be not to start with a full orchestra though! Start small, duets, trios….
I think the key is to keep the communication open 3 ways, between parents, children and teacher.
Behavioural Support during the Lockdown
I believe that parental support with daily practice for young children is vital. On one hand, moving to online lessons has made this kind of support easier for some parents because the lessons are often taking place in the living room and they can be aware of what’s going on. On the other hand, with WFH and everyone doing remote-schooling, some parents may be exhausted to help with practice. If that is the case, here are some suggestions to try:
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Timetable short practice sessions when & where you can keep an eye on the practice. With our family, immediately before & after a meal worked well.
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Have the violin and a tuning tool “ready to go” , so parents can quickly set up and tune the violin.
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Keep a practice log (read more on my article on practice log) and ask questions during the week if you need. If time allows, I sometimes schedule mid-week booster lesson to keep things going.
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Give rewards! I once had a school teacher tell me extrinsic motivation such as sticker charts are not as effective and motivation must come from within, but I think now, it’s ok to reward your children! (Sorry, Mrs P!) And I also ask students to reward themselves. One student has 20 minutes on comics after every practice, and my daughter goes on Minecraft.
On this kind of support, I found useful tips in my recent read Positive Practice by Christine E. Goodner. This is a concise book that points out 5 tips in helping a child through music practice.
ALL 3 KINDS OF SUPPORT are very important for a young violinist’s progress
But we could think about offering MORE or LESS of different kinds of support, at the appropriate time, and it doesn’t necessarily depend just on the child’s age but also on interests, progress level, other priorities, and many other factors. What all of us want, teachers and parents, is to help the young student to become a happy & independent practiser at home, so that they are happy musicians. But this could take a while, AND would likely come in waves, in the form of good days and bad days…
A little anecdote …
A lovely parent decided that for her 7-year-old son it was good to schedule his violin practice in the morning before school. So for him it was at 6.30am in the morning. This worked really well and he did practise daily, probably even without mum reminding (amazing!). After a while though, parent and I both noticed that he’d lost interest in the violin. We noticed it not because he WASN’T practising, it was because he WAS practising at the set time every day and making a progress, too! but 6.30am was so early and he was just wanting to just get it over with. Mum immediately discussed with him about changing the practice routine and he was much happier. Mum went easier on the COGNITIVE /INTELLECTUAL & BEHAVIOURAL SUPPORT and let the PERSONAL SUPPORT overwhelm the other kinds. Now a few years older, this student sets his own practice time after school, balancing it with other priorities like school homework.
“You don’t need to convince your child practice isn’t hard, isn’t sometimes frustrating, or that they should cheerfully love every minute. Instead, we’re teaching them how to overcome resistance to something that is challenging. That, I can say as a parent of college-age children, is a life skill worth building.” – Christine E. Goodner
Sources:
Creech, A. (2010) Learning a musical instrument: the case for parental support, Music Education Research, 12:1, 13-32
Goodner, Christine E. (2018) Positive Practice: 5 Steps to Help Your Child Develop a Love of Music, Brookland Suzuki Strings, LLC
