Piano practice at home is the best way for your child to improve their playing. In fact, music lessons are a complete waste of time and money if you don’t prioritise practice throughout the week.
A great way to make piano practice less of a chore is by using a supervised music practice service such as Practice Pal. Students are connected to professional music mentors who guide them and give feedback as they play.
We understand how challenging it can be to encourage your child to practice their piano outside of lessons. So, we have listed six ways to practice the piano at home:
1. Stick it in the diary
Piano practice should be part of your child’s weekly routine – so stick it in the diary! Don’t wait for a bit of downtime to coax your in-house musician to take up their instrument.
Agreeing when to practice and for how long will make it feel like part of the schedule rather than an extra chore you’ve just thought up.
2. Create a practice space
There are no two ways about it, if your child plays the piano, you need to create a devoted space in your home for your piano. And it needs to be accessible.
If you turn your piano into a place to display your photos, and your piano stool a place to dump all your stuff, they’ll never get around to using the piano for the purpose it was born for.
Make sure you have easy access to the piano, and that everything else you use it for is a secondary bonus.
You should also ensure that the space around you is calm but close enough to the action of the rest of the house that they don’t feel abandoned in their practice!
3. Come up with a plan
When your child heads off to do their piano practice without knowing what to practice, you will probably stick your head around the door and find they’ve been doing anything but playing the piano after 20 minutes!
Practice isn’t going to be effective if you spend most of your time working out what to do.
Let’s be honest learning how to play the piano isn’t easy so any help that can be given by you as a parent will be beneficial!
Read their teachers notes and write out a plan for the week, including exercises and parts of the pieces they’re learning that need the most practice.
Try filling with your child before their first post-lesson practice and see if tracking their progress encourages them to keep going.
4. Ensure they keep hydrated
Playing the piano is mentally and physically exhausting. Just take a look at the professionals mopping off the sweat after a performance.
Navigating their way around the keyboard will take its toll, so to make sure your child can focus and get through the time you’ve set, make sure they have a bottle of water to take with them.
5. Set a time limit
Music practice needs a start, middle and, perhaps most importantly, an end. An endless piano practice evening will result in distraction, confusion and boredom. But if you set a time limit to the practice, your child will be way more focused.
And if you have a treat planned for the end of each piano practice session, they’ll be all the more keen to make sure they get their reward at the end!
6. Try supervised practice
Practising piano at home becomes easier the more you have prepared, but making your child’s music practice count takes time and knowledge of best practice.
While you can be a real help by encouraging your child along the way, we’ve made it even easier with our online supervised practice. Just book a recurring practice slot, login to the learner app and get practising.
We connect you to a professional musician who watches and listens to your child’s practice, giving tips, advice and encouragement through our in-app messaging service.
Why not give supervised practice a try and see how much easier it is to practice piano at home with a professional musician helping you along the way? No matter if you’re using a piano or keyboard, our piano teachers specialise in both and many other different types of pianos.
