Okay, so I've been a little frustrated with the amount of practice in the studio this Fall. Folks are having a hard time getting into a routine. Sometimes there's a reason and sometimes they just don't get it. Everybody wants to do the S.A.M. graduation and big Christmas pieces but they don't seem to be able to get it all done.
There is some age when practice becomes the sole responsibility of the kid. When I was in Jr. High, about eighth grade, I started taking three private lessons a week. Piano, jazz piano and french horn. We lived in a small town so all the lessons were a drive into the Quad Cities. Mr. Patterson was in Davenport, but Mr. Holcomb and Mrs. McKenna were in Moline across the river. My mom had it timed perfectly with a stop at Wendy's for a baked potato with cheese. By high school I was practicing three hours a day, an hour on each discipline.
This did not seem oppressive in the least. I managed to get an hour in at school during study hall--I tried to make that the horn practice so I wouldn't have to carry it home. I was dating a wrestler after all and carrying that darn thing down senior hall just sent shivers down my back. Kids don't read this part: I would sometimes skip seventh period and go home to practice. We lived behind the school and I could time it just right to avoid the hall monitor and then I was free. Our piano at home was pretty pathetic in hindsight, but it was still better than the school uprights. Sneaking into the auditorium to practice on the one decent piano did cross some invisible ethics line in my mind. A couple times the student congress and band president with the 4.0 GPA did get caught and served detention, which really didn't phase me at all. I knew I was right and that if they wanted to punish me for being practicing I would gladly burn at the stake.
Back to grade school--my mom was a teacher. I got home at 3:03. (We lived behind the grade school too.) She didn't get home until 4:06. (The Jr. High was all the way down the street.) So that was my time. I watched "I Dream of Jeanie" and ate my snack and then wandered into the living room to practice. I read Mr. Patterson's notebook and checked off the songs and 30 minutes later I was free.
What is the message here? I was in a routine. A pleasant sustainable routine, albeit involving a little danger in high school--which if you know me--you know I thrived a little on that. You have to have a pleasant sustainable routine. It has to be sea worthy.
I practice with Calvin before school. I KNOW how hard it is to get out of bed and start the IV drip of coffee at 6:00. It's DARK here now! But, nothing ever interrupts up at 6:00. The phone doesn't ring. I don't schedule a doctor appt. or furnace repair. We just practice. It's harder with Mary. Last year we practiced after school. That was a disaster. She was tired from first grade and I was in a hurry and already had my mind on teaching. This year we're practicing after dinner. That is working much better. She's much more interested in staying at the piano an extra five minutes if it means delaying B.E.D. It's still not perfect. We miss more days than I wish.
I've been both parents--the perfectly consistent one and the flakey one. Dr. Suzuki says, success leads to success. It's so true. When I'm in a good groove with Mary she loves it and we make progress and resistances quells. When I'm inconsistent she forgets songs, forgets reading elements and WORST OF ALL, she feels like she is struggler at the piano. It becomes hard. That is the last thing I want.
As a side note. My husband never practices. Ever. He just shows up for the gig. He is an outlier. Do not use this data point. I guess his previous 10,000 hours are still sustaining him.
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. No one ever practiced more by getting yelled at. At least not for very long. We have to want to practice because we love the music and because we get pleasure from playing and that only happens when we reach a base level of skill, which can ONLY be earned through some level of time at the instrument. Success leads to success.
Suzuki piano is not something you can do half way. You can't show up for the lessons and make progress. Traditional method? Maybe? You could make a little progress sight-reading for 30 minutes a week. In three-hundred fifty-seven years you will reach your 10,000 hours. We don't have that much time.
Training the ear, learning a language, as we do in Suzuki piano requires daily work.
So here's the contest: fifty day's of consecutive practice earns you a Kotrba Piano Studio t-shirt. Everyone's names will be on the back (I hope) and the front will be designed by Jackie Rath and her artistic friend Charlie, so you know it will be cool. You don't have to sell your soul people. Just get to the piano every day. If you are on an airplane, do a theory workbook. Otherwise-play through your songs for Dad or grandma or your friends. Get in a routine. Make the question--when will I practice today? Not--will I practice today? You will be amazed. It will become easy. I'm doing it. My kids are doing it. Fifty days--from today until the Christmas recital. Go go go go . . . don't say, we can't do it! Just try!!!!
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