music practice - do you have to nag?

[Soveryupset]

All my children play instruments, they are all musical and done well with grades, etc...

I was hoping though that after so many years and at ages 8 and 9 my eldest 2 would practice without me reminding them or cajoling, sometimes even bribing... Is this normal?

They don't want to give up and enjoy playing but practice is often a battleground... What to do?

Most, I don't think people on this thread are talking much about exams. I don't really care about them but I do care about her musical development. To get to the point where it is an enjoyable activity, there needs to be practice. Nothing is fun until you're good at it.

I don't see how practising makes music less of a hobby and more of a chore. Practice is necessary to be any kind of musician.

I distinguish between practise and mucking around on the instrument, fwiw.

Don't know what's been going on with the students apart from my youngest two violinists... One has been playing "Halloween" from Red Parrot Green Parrot endlessly, working out tunes from Frozen and composing her own tunes. The other has been composing as well and also still practising because she's having a few extra lessons over the holidays.

As far as I can tell, the rest will be taking a break or mucking around except for one teenaged lad who has grade 3 piano coming up and will know his scales by September... but I hope there's some practise going on as we have festival in November to aim at, including two young neighbours doing a piano duet from "The Four Handed Keyboard Crocodile".

As you can tell, I like silly books :p

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Myself, I've had a few gigs (various instruments), done some busking, have project orchestra all this week for a concert on Sat and then I'm on a harp course next week. And I'm hoping to do some pedagogical training.

Oh, cello is getting better, tuning on this video is horrific, though tone is better, but I was sightreading in tenor clef and it's instrument #9 :p
www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152171901832143&l=153390463303053910

"what are you hearing at home this week"

Eldest mucking around with a songs from the shows book (singing and playing).... DS sonata pathetique slow movement and scenes from child hood. Youngest - nothing!

But they all recordered/sang loads last week/weekend and last night with the WW1 stuff.

We have Charlie Parker Omnibook and the real books for saxophone, some standards and a bit of mainstream.

Sax duets with either flute, alto/tenor sax or clarinet.

Violin duets with flute, clar, alto/tenor.

Singing Disney Princess songs, Green linnet thingy? from Sweeney Todd, Lascia Ch'io Pianga Handel, There are fairies at the bottom of the garden,

Piano. Boogie Woogie Hannon and comping to favourite tunes.

Dd currently on music course, but otherwise we have Frozen on the clarinet, and lots of cello stuff from whatever book her teacher has told her not to venture into yet :( not heard too many scales this holiday ..... Dd plays a lot of music from morning to night, but def needs nagging to 'practice' unless she has an exam approaching. I am not sure that is so unusual? Or does a truely musical child really practice scales constantly without being reminded?

I think (touch wood) we may have turned the corner and established the importance of practice, I've recently seen the signs of focussed work, proper practice rather than playing it through and glossing over the wobbly bits. Mine is 14 now, at 8 and 9 I needed to be the practice reminder, he always intended to do it, not now but "later" and then at five to bed time it would be too late.

Last week and the week before I barely saw him, it was a residential music week followed by day attendance at another course. What do we have this week - yesterday was some random bits from a book of graded pieces for trombone, it's the first time he's played it in a year and it was surprisingly good after the first five minutes. I asked him whether he would want to do exams on it (phrased so as to suggest "no") and yes he does. We also had my favourite piece at the moment, the Benedictus from The Armed Man.

Janet41 my son has avoided scales all the way through exams, with Trinity you can chose to do exercises rather than scales and for those you can use the book. He was told that sooner or later this would bite him, once he started to audition for things he needed them and there was no way around it. It was surprising how he knuckled down and learned them once he found a need for them.

DD1 isn't naturally particularly musical - she'd be the first to say it - but works her socks off. All she wanted to achieve was a decent enough Grade 5 (piano) so that GCSE Music was doable, and she's got there without me once ever having to tell her to practise.

Now the exam is out of the way, she's treating me daily, after all her scales, sight reading etc, to selections from Les Mis, the Harry Potter soundtrack, and the theme to Murder She Wrote. She does about 45 minutes to an hour, plus theory revision daily.

I am not entirely sure where her work ethic comes from, given that I hold advanced qualifications in Procrastination and Displacement Activities. However her teacher is fabulous, and her GCSE teacher at school equally lovely and inspiring.

I think that a major problem with practise is that many children simply do not know how to do it effectively. It needs to be quite well structured for them. Talk to their teacher or even look online for what effective practise entails. My other titbits are:

• routine, routine, routine - set aside the same time everyday so it is as much a habit as brushing their teeth
• children under eight and perhaps older need to be supervised during their practiseso expect to give up your time to get them started
• instruments which are left out, get picked up and played more so think about investing in an instrument stand
• ensembles and orchestras are fantastic - nothing persuades like peers. Try something beyond just what the school offers
• for older children discuss the "10k hours to expert". It might just be a theory, but it helps frame that 20mins a week with their teacher will not make them worth listening to.

What am I hearing this week at home...

DS2, 11, is getting used to a new clarinet he has been leant, and has been playing various things from books, plus a new scale he has just been taught, piano has been structured practise plus Blueberry Hill and some jazz, not heard trombone this week, but the theory has been out.

DDs sax has not been heard, she has been picking out tunes on the piano for herself.

DS1 has his trombone and tuba out earlier, not sure what he was playing. We've been away for 2 weeks so needs to get his lip back in.

Not exam based here although all 3 do exams on some of their instruments. But not rigidly marching through the grades

lent

I'm interested several people have made the comparison with routine and brushing your teeth - DS1(8) decided that he would do his guitar practice after brushing his teeth in the morning. It's working really well. We don't need to nag or even remind him and he does it every morning without fail. He only does 5 minutes on a school day, because that's all there's time for, and he's only just started playing but he's making huge progress on that.

I'm astonished because I learned several instruments for years (and got to high grades) but never practised regularly except when I had an exam or a solo coming up. I was dreading what I thought was the inevitable nagging and cajoling to get him to practice. But now, inspired by him I've started doing piano practice myself every evening straight after putting the kids to bed and what do you know? I'm getting much better! (Although I'm still pretty rubbish - what do you know, at 43 I don't learn as fast as an 8 year old!)

I think it's partly down to DS1's personality - he's a methodical kind of child who likes routine and predictability and the fact that he worked out the best time to do it makes him feel it's his choice. But I think it also helps that we explained when he started that there was a direct relationship between practice and how good you get - the more you practice, the better you get (broadly, obviously not if you are 'messing around' the whole time as JMF said above) and the better you get the nicer sounds you make and the more satisfying it is. I'm not sure anybody ever explained that to me when I was a child, so I just thought of practice as something you had to do because your teacher and parents told you to. I wish they had!