I’ve already had a few students arrive at lessons this term and tell me, very honestly:

“I haven’t practised this week.”

For me, this is probably one of the biggest challenges in teaching the piano. I can demonstrate, explain, encourage, choose music, create projects and set goals, but ultimately progress happens in the time between lessons.

A conversation with one of my students this morning rather neatly summed up the question of who is responsible for that practice.

He told me:

“My mum hasn’t practised with me this week.”

I asked him whether his mum was having piano lessons.

Apparently not.

What he meant, of course, was that she hadn’t helped him to practise.

So I asked another question: is it Mum’s job to make sure you practise?

And perhaps an even better question: if you need Mum’s help, whose responsibility is it to ask for that help?

Whose responsibility is practice?

For younger students especially, I think the answer is that it’s a shared responsibility.

Parents can provide the structure: reminding children, helping them find a regular time, listening, encouraging and occasionally helping them work out what the strange scribble in their notebook means.

But as students get older, I want them gradually to take more ownership themselves.

That might mean remembering what we worked on in the lesson, choosing when they are going to practise, getting their music out without being asked, or going to find a parent when they genuinely need some help.

Learning to practise is, in itself, something we have to learn.

Play. Progress. Enjoy.

The three words underneath my piano tuition logo are:

Play. Progress. Enjoy.

They’re deliberately in that order.

If you don’t play, it becomes very difficult to progress.

And if you constantly feel as though you’re starting again at every lesson, it becomes much harder to enjoy playing too.

Practice doesn’t always need to mean a long, serious session at the piano. In fact, particularly for younger students, little and often can be far more useful than one heroic burst immediately before the lesson.

Five or ten focused minutes on several days of the week can achieve a surprising amount.

Sometimes it might mean working carefully on two bars.

Sometimes it might mean playing through a favourite piece.

Sometimes it might mean improvising, playing a duet part, experimenting with the Autumn Leaves project, or simply sitting at the piano and playing.

The important thing is consistency.

So what are we practising this week?

Over the next few lessons I’m going to be talking to students about how they practise, not simply whether they have practised.

What helps them remember?

When is the best time?

Do they prefer practising before school, after school or after dinner?

Do they know exactly what they are supposed to work on when they sit down?

And, perhaps most importantly, what can they take responsibility for themselves?

Parents absolutely have a part to play, particularly with younger children. But ultimately I want students to develop the habit of thinking:

“This is my music. This is what I’m working towards. What am I going to do this week to get there?”

So this week, the challenge is very simple:

Spend some time playing the piano, consistently, throughout the week.

Because everything else starts there.