music teachers )(and anyone else with an opinion) please - why is dd1 making no progress on the piano?

[geekgirl]

Ok, she's lazy and usually has to be forced to practice - but still...

She practices almost daily for about 10 minutes and has weekly 1:1 lessons, insists that she does not want to stop having lessons, has a lovely teacher (who is getting somewhat fed up with her though), but just isn't getting anywhere. I do think she's musical, I guess it's an attitude problem in some way. Her teacher said that she doesn't concentrate in her lessons.

She's been having lessons for nearly a year now. Should I pull the plug??? Dd1 is 8.

She usually goes straight after school - we've changed it to Saturday morning now. But TBH I'm not sure it'll make that much of a difference, it's her whole attitude. She wants to be able to play well but she doesn't want to put in the effort. Part of the reason why I am persevering is because I want her to stop thinking everything will just fly her way without requiring any work.

10 minutes a day is nowhere near enough. Tell her if she's not willing to practice for at least half an hour every day then her lessons will stop. As you know, it takes real commitment to progress on an instrument. I know she's only 8, but if she wants to learn, she has to work!

DD2, also musical, did OK on the piano up to a point, then she got stuck. She was about 7 at the time and apparently just couldn't cope with chords.

She started on flute instead (1 note at a time!) and went on to do extremely well at that.

Obv this may be completely irrelevant to your DD but maybe worth thinking about.

Good luck

No advice, just wanted to say DS1 is exactly the same. He wants to play the flute but they insist he tries the fife first (easier to play with no front teeth, a lot cheaper).

He wants to play, cries his eyes out when I say no more lessons because I am sick of getting him to practice yet won't make any effort.

I don't know what to do with him either - the school provide the lessons and they say that you have to commit to the year so no easy way of getting out of it but I am seriously thinking of pulling the plug because it just isn't worth it. Ususally he wants to give up at the first hurdle with things but this he doesn't so I need tips on motivation and application too!

oh, she'll never do 30 minutes (having said that, I didn't do 30 minutes every day and did ok on violin & piano)

Wendy, I think I might stop her doing piano, and then reassess it all in a year's time, maybe something else would excite her more. I'm a bit of a piano fascist I have to admit because we have a nice old Bechstein sitting here.

actually I'd be quite happy if she was my pupil doing 10 minutes a day, so long as she was actually practising - ie working on the troublesome bits.

She could spend 3hrs a day "playing" the piano and never progress unless the practice is proper. 10 minutes of good is better than 30 minues of "bad"

geekgirl - I'm piano teacher and I think if your dd doesn't want to stop having piano lessons, that in itself is great. She must like playing piano, so let her. But as Faq said, proper practice does make loads of difference even if it's 10min. a day. Could you ask the piano teacher to actually teach her HOW to practice? so basically her teacher would listen for 10min. how she would practice at home without interference...then maybe there will be huge improvement.