Young musicians are a lot of fun to teach. They come to music with an open heart. They dive into the experience with everything they’ve got. Oh, we’re going to study music, you say! Great, I’ll bang on them drums, I’ll tickle them keys! The fun will never stop! The problem is how do you keep it fun at home and have them practice with hunger and fire. Here are five ways that can help.
- I first recommend to give small easy tasks to manage. My lessons are usually shaped that way. I have friendly assignments on the list, things they can dig into but also enjoy.
- Keep practice short, sweet and goal oriented. I suggest that students practice at least 20 minutes each day. While this is a pretty manageable amount of time, for kids, even 20 minutes can feel like an eternity so cutting up those twenty minutes into small diverse segments makes it much more interesting.
- Link practice time with another regular and enjoyable event in their schedule. For example, if they always do a bit of practice just before they have breakfast they will eventually begin to feel that practice leads to a reward, even if breakfast isn’t actually the reward for practice.
- Make sure the books they are learning from are fun. They should be colorful with lots of pictures and ideas for alternate musical activities such as quizzes and puzzles. The tunes they are learning should be well within their ability as young children just do not know how to cope if they are given too big a challenge and will just give up if they find it too hard.
- Keep them company. Children love to be the center of attention and are naturally sociable. So the very best way to make practice enjoyable is to join in and do it with them! If you are not sure what you need to be doing ask their teacher (I know an excellent one!).
