Questions to those whose children learn to play piano

[bunny85]

Hi, my nearly 6 year old son has started taking private 1:1 piano lessons, we bought a good digital piano so he could practice at home and the teacher says he really has great potential and most importantly he likes it. My question is are there any tricks to keep him enthusiastic and motivated? What do you do to encourage your children to play? He loves it while it's fun but I know now that she's starting to give him homework and later he'll have to work hard to get anywhere with it. I'm not going to force him if he doesn't like or want to play, what I'm asking is are there any fun ways to avoid it happening? Fun games/books/whatever? Anything other than a reward chart? Thank you

6 is very young. Short supervised practice every day.
Husband is a music teacher. We didn’t start piano with ours till year 3- stronger hands , better concentration , good reading skills etc meant progress better.

Piano is hard !

I don’t think you can, it isn’t all fun and initially you have to force them through the dry patches but ultimately they will decide whether it is for them or not. I have one DD dropped lessons after grade 2 and now doesn’t touch the thing, my other DD is studying for her grade 8.

Just keep the practice regular and consistent, yes he’ll go through stages when he loves it, yes he’ll go through stages when he doesn’t but if he’s practicing for a minimum of 10 minutes a day, he will improve and see the benefits.

Other things that help as he improves is playing things not assigned by the teacher. You can get some big note versions of things like Harry Potter that and simple Christmas carols that he’ll be able to read on his own. So once he’s done his set practice he can play his own stuff, this really keeps the sight reading improving which makes learning new things easier.

There's going to be slog at times. Consistent practice that you do as a part of every day routine is really important because it decreases the effect of "don't feel like it today". All video games in our house were conditional on music practice first (with a very few exceptions so that it didn't become a stick to beat them with).

We always tried to have books of non-exam style pieces on the go so that it felt DS was building his ability to play the instrument rather than learn it.

If it's not going to drive your neighbors insane, try to have the practice as something you can hear so that you can say "oh, did you not fancy scales today?" Or "I really like that jazzy one, can you give it another go so I can listen?" A lot of feeling like you're making progress comes from having others listen to you.

We get ours to do their practice before school. So shower & clean teeth, get dressed, breakfast, piano practice then play till school time. That way it becomes a habit and they do it before they get tired after school.