Friday 14 October 2011

Keeping going

My posting on this site has slowed down recently because, as you may know from reading my other site, we've recently moved to Taiwan. This has been an upheaval and, I have to admit, a serious challenge to my son's piano practice. A piano isn't the kind of instrument you can take anywhere, and we decided that we would ship our piano here rather than sell it and buy another when we arrived. Consequently, my son hasn't had a proper acoustic piano to practice on for several weeks now.

In an earlier post I wrote about how it was important when you start out to buy the best instrument you can afford because this impacts the quality of learning your child experiences. I warned against hiring a tutor who teaches on an acoustic piano but allows your child to practice on a digital piano at home. Now that we've been keeping our son's practice going until his piano arrives with the use of a digital one, I can safely echo the advice I gave earlier. There are many things that my son learned to do that he simply can't practice using a different kind of instrument, such as playing legato and echoes. While it's been better than nothing, using a digital piano has reinforced my understanding of how it is a completely different instrument from an acoustic piano, and the perceived similarities are merely surface appearances.

From our experiences, I can give some tips as to how to keep going if you're moving house or even just going on holiday.

DO

  • Define a practice location in your accommodation. This helps reinforce the idea that practising is an important part of everyday life.
  • Stick to your normal routine as much as possible. Practising an instrument should be like a habit - don't get out of the habit!
  • Carry on learning. It can be tempting to put progress on hold until circumstances improve, but for many children one of their greatest pleasures is learning new songs. Don't deprive your child of a sense of progress and achievement.
  • Maintain musical interest. It easy to ignore those aspects of life that support learning and motivation, but continuing to listen to music, watch performances and read about composers are some of the easiest activities to sustain.

DON'T
  • Substitute a poorer quality instrument if you can avoid it. Some piano shops will hire out pianos for practice, or if you're very lucky your hotel may have one in the lounge!
  • Delay finding another teacher. It's taken us some time to locate the possibilities in our area, and minimising the break between lessons is ideal.
  • Forget to allow for practice time every day (or however often is normal for your family). This is very easily done when other routines are disrupted.
Continuing to work with your child in their musical education can be challenging when your everyday lives are temporarily or permanently changed. One positive thing to come out of this is the knowledge that if you can manage to maintain good habits during these times, then you're on a steady path for the future.