Mindset | Christine Goodner: The Suzuki Triangle Blog, Author, Speaker, Podcaster

5 Ways to Help Your Child Enjoy The Process of Learning Music

This post is the last in a series about inspiring and motivating students through lessons and practice. You can read the other posts here: Overview, Seeing Progress & Feeling Capable.

Learning to enjoy the process is a critical part of helping our children and students stay motivated and inspired. Of any of the aspects of motivation we have discussed in this series, it has the most long-lasting effects on them as people and musicians. It is easy to get too focused on outcomes and results and kill the joy of learning in the process. Let’s find ways to help both students and ourselves (as teachers and parents) enjoy this process together!

If learning something new is a daunting and dreaded task then why would anyone want to keep doing it?

I often tell parents that games and rewards can be very useful for very young students until they start to see learning music (and enjoying that process) as the reward. How do we develop this in our children and students?

Below are 5 great ways to help students develop the ability to enjoy the process of learning music. I was inspired for this post by a great article on the website Parents.com (click here to read) . The points in the article really echo what I see in my teaching and I expanded on some of them to fit our experiences as Suzuki parents and teachers.

Understand how your child learns – Young students learn very differently from teens (or how we learn as adults). Within each age group there are variations in the style of learning that works best for each individual student as well.

This Post is third in a series on keeping students inspired and motivated. You can read the first two posts here: Overview, Why Students Need Help Seeing Progress.

“I can’t do this!” “It’s too hard!” “I’ll never get it!”

Comments like these (or trying to avoid practicing a specific practice task) are strong indications that a student does not feel they are capable of something we are asking them to do.

Some students may not even be able to verbalize these thoughts and simply act out or seem to lose interest in studying their instrument.

To keep our students motivated it’s important to to address these feelings. Feeling capable and seeing that it is possible to accomplish something plays a huge role in staying motivated.

I’d like to suggest 4 ways to help students feel capable & would love to hear what you think works the best for your children or students.

3 Ways to Keep Students Motivated & Inspired

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

-William Butler Yeats

Happy New Year! I love the feeling of a fresh start that the new year brings. I am coming back from a couple weeks off feeling refreshed and with a renewed commitment to help keep my students motivated and inspired this year.

As a teacher I feel strongly that my job goes beyond teaching the mechanics of playing the violin or viola. If all my students get from me is some technical knowledge about their instrument then I don’t think I’ve really done my job.

One of my first jobs as a teacher is to instill a love of music in my students, once that has been established it is much easier to expect them to work hard. Working hard at something we love is a totally different feeling than working hard on something someone else loves. How do we get this to happen?

Why Short-Term Commitments to Music Don’t Work

why-short-term-comittments-to-music-dont-work I get many calls for prospective violin & viola students from parents requesting more information. I always explain my program and direct them to my website for more information.

A phrase I hear some parents use when they describe why they want to start lessons is: my child seems interested in music (or the violin) and we want to try it out to see if they will like it.

As a parent I completely understand that this is the approach we take for many things we sign our children up for. We often sign them up for many different types of activities in order to expose them to a wide variety of things and to see what they enjoy.

A word of caution though.

3 Ways Students Can Learn To Give Through Music

3 Ways Students Can Learn to Give Through Music

It’s the time of year when many people are focused on the holidays and on giving. When this season is at it’s best, there is a big focus on acts of service and spreading joy. It is also a great time to teach our children and students about giving. Music can be a great way to do this!

Sharing music with family, friends and the community can be a great way to learn the power of giving. It’s an important value I want my own children and my students to adopt, this time of year, and all year long.

Here are some ways you can think about helping your students or children give the gift of music this season:

3 Ways to Focus on the Big Picture in Practice

3 ways to focus on the Big Picture

One thing I’ve noticed about students and families that are successful in the Suzuki Method, is their ability to stay focused on the big picture.

There are endless details to keep in mind when learning a musical instrument, and it’s easy to get over focused on some of them and forget what is really important.

As a teacher I like to think of three basic ways for students and families to focus on the big picture: Tone, Technique, and Character.

Big Picture Focus: Tone

If you are working on a piece in practice and you are unsure of what to work on next, Tone is always a good answer.

Tone is defined (by the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary) as “the quality of sound produced by a musical instrument or singing voice.” It goes beyond playing in tune. How warm is the sound? Does it having a ringing quality or harsh quality to it?

Confessions of a Suzuki Parent . . .

Confessions of a Suzuki Parent

I’d like to sit behind my computer screen and present a perfect image of myself as a Suzuki teacher and parent. But I have to be honest – the reason I’m so passionate about writing on the topic of Suzuki parenting and trying to help parents be successful, is that I was far from perfect as a Suzuki parent.

As my children have grown and I learned the hard way, I have also read and learned everything I can on the subject to help the families I work with. I could have really used that help myself!

I had my kids while in college so I was a younger mom. In fact, I was just starting out as a Suzuki teacher myself, when my oldest was four years old and we started the violin together . . . the same instrument I happened to teach . Some people do this beautifully and if this is you, you have much respect from me – I know it works really well for some people. But, it did not work well for us.

I’m not sure there is a way to accurately describe the struggle between a very opinionated and headstrong four your old and a very inexperienced and idealistic mom/teacher.

We struggled!

There were some epic showdowns where you could practically see the standoff happening like in an old Western movie, with the tumbleweed rolling by, as we sat in suspense about who would win the battle of wills this time. I so wanted to do it “just right” and she so wanted to avoid how hard it felt and most likely the pressure she felt from me.

How Repetition Develops Mastery

We all know the definition people throw around about insanity . . . doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I think this is how many adults feel in general about repeating something over and over again – no matter what the results. It can be a little crazy making.

It’s important to remember as parents (and communicate well as teachers) that not only does repetition feel totally different to young students and play an important role in the way they learn, but often they actually enjoy it. Can you think of that book or song that your child wanted (or currently wants) to hear over and over again?

When my own children were young they had a few favorite books that came out every night to be read & I dare not skip a page or two in the interest of time – they always noticed.

Repetition was something they craved – and it wasn’t only books. Certain Raffi songs and movies were requested over and over again as well. The repetition might have made my skin crawl at times, but they ate it up and it was exactly what they needed.

Repetition = Mastery

In fact, research shows that repetition plays a huge role in learning language, vocabulary, physical tasks and music.

Will Rewards for Practice Keep it From Becoming a Habit?

Rewards and Practice

Rewards can be powerful motivation! There are a lot of opinions about whether rewards really help or hurt motivation and that has gotten me thinking lately about how I use rewards with my students.

As a music teacher I’d like my students to be motivated by making great music. While I think that’s a reasonable goal for older students, very young students may need some additional outside motivation to keep them going (at least that’s what I’ve found).

I’ve gone through many phases as a teacher – some where I give out a lot of stickers and little prizes to students & some where I give ideas to parents and let them implement what they think will work with their children at home. Other times I haven’t really done much at all.

Lately I’ve been doing a few practice challenges in my studio and have been re-thinking how much rewards are helping vs hurting students. I read an interesting perspective on this from Gretchen Rubin who studies how people make and keep habits & her research has helped me clarify how I want to go about reward giving going forward. . .

What You Practice Today is Not Important

The Suzuki Method is amazing . . . I could fill a whole book with stories about students, teachers and families who can attest to the fact that their lives have been changed for the better because of how this method has impacted them in musical and non musical ways alike.

Professional orchestra players and a number of well-known soloists got their start through the Suzuki Method – so there’s proof that it works for raising professional musicians and great adults who pursue other careers alike.

Suzuki parents: all the effort and hard work you put into this is worth it. There are a lot of must dos in order to parent a Suzuki student : practice everyday, attend lessons and group classes, listen to recordings daily, and attend recitals and performances. Teachers constantly ask you ” Did you listen this week?” “How many days did you practice?” “Are you able to come to X,Y, Z event/class/workshop?”

So much to do in an already busy life . . .

But it’s not really about all that – it’s not about what your child does today that is most important.