Can I ask how you get your DC to do piano practice?

[bigTillyMint]

DD has been doing piano for over a year.

She did a joint school lesson with another girl last year (25mins per week), but she found the teacher and the music she was given dull. I did manage to get her to practice say 10mins 5 x a week - the pieces were pretty easy.

She has now swapped to a 1:1 lesson outside of school with a fantastic new teacher who she loves. However, I have discovered that last year's teacher did not teacher how to read music properly, nor did she learn scales. She has also given her quite a challenging but lovely piece of music which she really needs to work on properly for at least 10mins a day.

She is doing the practice half-heartedly and with very bad grace, and is being rude to me when I try to get her to do it (with my help!)

Any hints please?!

Hopefully he will LilyB, but he has to learn the scales (& there are 100s at grade 8) or his teacher will not put him in. He had a new teacher a couple of years ago as his old teacher stopped working at the school and the new one is an absolute stickler for scales. She says his pieces are fine (he's played loads at that level now) but is not happy with his previous strategy of writing off the marks given for the scales & hoping for the best (which until grade 7 yielded an average score of 138, so seemed to work quite well). As he's a stubborn teen, I'm resigned to the fact it may well not happen (and let's face it there's far worse things to be recalcitrant about as a teenager). He will not be short of UCAS points - the grade 6 distiction counts for some (more than the grade 7 pass actually), but he will also have piano 8 and a lot of A levels, so quite possibly that's not a big enough carrot.

The thread is old so not sure if the OP is still about, if so, I just wonder if the piece (Fur Elise) is wrong for your dd. If there is a piece she really wants to play it makes everything much easier.

Actually LilyB, Do you have a view as to whether there's much difference between ABRSM & Trinity Guildhall for music exams these days? I'm told Trinity have much easier scale requirements, so maybe that's the way forward?

Tbh I would always go with ABRSM, especially for Grade 8 - it's the 'gold standard' that people look for really. I don't know much about the other syllabuses, as I haven't used them but I seem to remember there is an element of theory involved as well, done verbally, which he may not like!

It's really frustrating isn't it when they just won't learn the scales, but not uncommon in teenage boys! However, there's no rush to do the scales, so he could take a year or so learning them. I'm always really strict about scales, because they are such a fundamental of technique, and provide the basis for sightreading, fast playing etc.

I think most people who get to grade 7 and stop doing grades regret it later on - it's always nice to be able to say 'I have grade 8' and certainly if he wants to audition for amateur orchestras, it's the first thing they will look at on an application form. Not sure how you convince him to practise though! Could you pay him? I know one or two people have success with that!

why don't you help her to read the music by taking it nice and slow and practising for 5 minutes a day, even just two notes a week until she can do them and comfortably sight read? Just break it down into easy little chunks. In the same way, practice two different length notes, a week till she knows them - 4/4 and 2/4; next week 2/4 1/8 etc. After 4 weeks, she'd have no problem recognising them all and all the notes she is currently working with.

Let her compose her own little tune on notepaper with those two notes she's been learning (say C and D) and then play it

If she enjoys the lessons, I think she would be fine practising - if she knew how to do it.

www.musicroom.com/de-DE/se/ID_No/058973/details.html

Someone on MN recommended these little books to me which are very easy and take it nice and slow. We went through the 2 first theory books and then the three Theory Made Easy for children books. They are self explanatory and might help your dd since she is only 7, I think she wouldn't find them too babyish. I'd do a page a day till she is confident. Shouldn't take more than a month I think

You may find that point is still some way off yet Kerry - the trouble is, although some of them can wing it, if they get used to not practising it's a hard habit to start later when they need to. Someone said it should be as much a part of the daily routine as cleaning your teeth.

Ds did used to practice cello by the way - almost every day for a while, but never for more than 5mins. Sometimes he would literally just play a single open note on each string and put it away more usually he'd just play whatever he was working on striaght through once, but he's fallen out of even that meagre habit for some time now.

I think it would have helped him if the teacher could have explained to him exactly what he should be doing in his practice - instead of a lesson once in a while she could have taken him through how to practice step by step explaining what was expected of him & how often he should be doing it. (Maybe she did this, but I don't think so - actually his old teacher once said he should be practising 1hour a day, which just seemed so unfeasible it put him off, 10-15 mins really efficient practice would have been about right for him I think). Our trouble was/is with lessons at school we never see the teacher.

Just a thought.

It's interesting with practice - I know when I was a kid a condition of having lessons was 30 mins practice every day, on both instruments, right from the beginning (age 7). And I wanted the lessons so I did the practice.

By grade 8 standard on any instrument 45 mins-1 hour is really the minimum you should be doing. I think it helps to split it up though - I recommend doing 15 mins technique, 15 mins scales and 15 mins pieces, possibly in 2 or 3 sessions.

At Grade 8 they really do expect a higher level of performance than in other grades, and because a distinction at grade 8 is so coveted, they are very careful about who they give them to!

thnanks all for your comments - i have had a chat with her teacher aand agreed we will just coast for a bit with her practice as she is enjoying the lessons . i will also have a look at the resources suggested -thanks again xx

My DD started lessons in January and she is really good about practicing. She just does it whenever she is at a loose end, which is 3 or 4 times a day.

She will be doing her Grade 1 shortly.