By Christy | the Practicing Pro
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Last year I wrote a blog and did a live about the 4 ways to have guilt-free practicing over the holidays. It was a very popular one.
Its number 85 so if you missed it - its a good one so I wanted to recap it and add some personal stories and examples.
1. Find Balance in Practicing
2. Use a Holiday practice activity
3. Plan unstructured times to enjoy music and share it with others
4. What Guilt-free practicing on the Holiday can look like
Today the focus is on NUMBER THREE - and what to do when a visitor says “Oh! A piano, play something for me!” and your child says “NO”.
First let's quickly touch on one and two then deep dive into number three.
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1. Find Balance in Practicing
Look at your calendar - REALISTICALLY Decide the days you will and won't practice ahead of time - if it's a non-practice day then listen to your recording on a flight instead, do some theory practice in the car on a long drive to a relative’s, or do an impromptu concert.
2. Use a Holiday Practice Activity
I cannot emphasize this one enough. Make some progress by reviewing and upgrading pieces as a focus. At our school the teachers took the month of November, and each lesson did a few review/upgrade pieces with each student and wrote them down for about 6 weeks until December when I collected all of their beards back filled out and made these “Santas growing beard” activities for them. Making about 250 of these Santas took a bit of time but worth it!!! The payback in reviewing/ upgrading over the holidays will be HUGE in our school, and students will work hard knowing that the WHOLE community is doing this Christmas-practicing activity together. When they return after break I'll hang them on the wall so they can see all the work in the community. There will be a few who literally still have those in their lesson bags unopened since their last lesson. This wall of hard-working Santa beards will fill and be swapped out for a few weeks so that child can do a few in lessons with their teacher and head home with the goal to finish it in the new year. PERFECT TIMING and motivation to help them learn to practice daily and troubleshoot some reasons why it could feel hard in their lives right now. Its also a grea time to challenge a parent to join the Practicing Pro Academy starting in the new year! See more about that at the end.
There are other activities from Practicing Pro available to you as well like this Christmas tree, Santa Advent, Creative Snowflake and Music Charades! I have included a link and short description for each activity as well as the end.
3. Plan unstructured times to enjoy music and share it with others
Has this ever happened to you?
After a wonderful Christmas dinner with family, Grandma exclaims, “Johnny, play a song on the piano for your grandma”.
Johnny replies, “Do I have to? I am not good at playing the piano!”
Playing spontaneous musical requests is very popular during the Holiday when others come to visit, especially the piano since it's a visible instrument right out in the open. It can be difficult to be put on the spot to perform at Christmas for visitors.
SO - Be prepared! Anticipate this happening.
Choose a song ahead of time that your child chooses themself and loves to play. Help them make a choice thas not too hard and will bring them success. Something that will leave them feeling good about themselves.
You can also consider what kinds of songs people like to hear. At Christmas, it’s usually a Holiday song followed by your favourite song of choice. Choose an easy-for-you Christmas song that others can sing along to.
At our school, we learn “Jingle Bells” as the staple. It's easy for a beginner to learn the chorus, and then more advanced players can learn the verse, harmony and accompaniment. We start it in November so that by Christmas, request time is old news for them, and they have the confidence they need to play in front of someone, with singers, or even with an unfamiliar instrument. Jingle Bells is also great to sing along to, so if you know your child is uncomfortable as an adult, you can jump in and say,” YES, they will play it but let's all sing along too,” and that way, it's a win-win. Last weekend at our school holiday carol event, about a dozen violins played jingle bells (at 4 degrees C) outside to door at over a dozen houses with about 80 other people singing along. By the time they were done, they knew the song! Once back at the school, we had hot chocolate and cookies. While people were socializing, a group of players played from a book series we all use at the School called the “Christmas Kalidescope” series. Some of the students parents have bought their own copies, some did with their teachers a few songs and also used them for sight reading practice in their orchestras. A few hadn't seen them before. There was NO COMPARISON, in confidence and participation! The ones who knew a few songs or owned the books jumped right in requesting their favourites and bravely trying new ones in our eclectic group of musicians of all ages and levels. The ones who hadn't been prepared were shy and reticent to join and even hesitant to stay close and watch. Once they felt comfortable, they all joined eventually with coaxing but the difference of involvement had everything to do with their preparation by their teachers and parents or not, and nothing to do with their personalities. So as a school. Choose a book - everyone uses it! As a family - same. As a teacher in a music studio - same. If everyone has a comm on resource, they will enjoy music together more successfully. This is one of the foundations of the Suzuki Method. Suzuki students can go anywhere in the world and just jump right into a new Suzuki School of Studio and make friends to play with instantly. This is what you can also create at Christmas time!
Another advantage to using the same books is that when you get together you can play harmonies. I find that at Chrostmas if I really embrace Holiday music that my students sight reading curve SOARS!!! They know the songs from TV shows, the mall, school etc… Even if they are not Christians, or celebrate Christmas at all they will still have heard the songs in their travels each December enough to make playing the tunes easier but not completely m=by ear either. This helps so much with sightreading!
Plan times beforehand to play songs for visitors and to sing along that are really comfortable for your child. That way, they are not caught off guard when a spontaneous time to perform comes along and have already practiced! Also, make sure they happen at the right time during the event too. Are they tired after 8 pm? Do they not want to leave playing a game with cousins to perform for the adults? Watch for all of these things and have a plan for their success.
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