Six Practice Steps for Beginning Piano Students
I love working with beginning piano students.
Our lessons are always full of imagination and creative exploration—their eyes wide with excitement and wonder when they make a connection or discover something new—and I always learn so much about myself as a teacher as we walk those first steps in their musical journey together.
That being said, we all know that when learning a new instrument, productive practice time at home is essential to learning and developing as a musician.
Most of us see our beginning students for only 30 minutes a week, so time spent at the keyboard in between lessons can really make or break a student’s progress and the fulfillment they find in music-making.
Related content: Ep. 074 - What a First Piano Lesson Looks Like (Here’s My Lesson Plan)
Over the years, I’ve pulled together a list of helpful practice steps (mostly based on the suggestions in the Music Tree series). Add these into your young students’ lesson notebooks and practicing assignments, share them with parents, and work through them in your lessons together.
Practicing can be a little mysterious to those without much musical experience, so breaking down the process into small, easy steps can be a useful and effective way to help your beginning students develop successful practicing habits, from the very first lesson.
*Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means if you decide to purchase through any of them, I will earn a small commission. This helps support the blog and allows me to continue creating free content. Thank you for your support!
Teach Your Beginning Piano Students How to Practice
6 Steps for Learning a New Piece and Practicing at Home
Note to teachers: I’m writing this to the student. Feel free to use this in lessons to teach your beginning students *how* to practice or write some of these questions into their assignment sheets.
Practice Step No. 1 - Preparation
Choose a piece you’re working on. What’s it about?
Think about how you want it to sound. Look at the name of the piece, the pictures, the words/lyrics, and any expressive markings (dynamic markings, slurs, and staccato dots).
Plan the sound before you begin. Is it loud or soft? Slow or fast? High or low? Are the notes smooth and connected or short and separated?
Related post: How to Channel Your Inner Five-Year-Old
Practice Step No. 2 - Rhythm + Movement
Feel the heartbeat of the music before you play.
Here are a few activities we can use:
Swing your arm like a pendulum (side to side, in front of your body) and speak the text with a strong rhythmic pulse. Use one full-arm swing for each quarter note and two full-arm swings for each half note. Then, try stepping the steady beat. Walk around the room and say the words.
Close the keyboard cover and tap the rhythm of the piece as you count or chant the words. Tap the right-hand notes with your right hand and the left-hand notes with your left hand. Then, try pointing to each note in the music as you count out loud.
In the beginning, we’ll start by counting “1” for each quarter note, “1-2” for half notes, “1-2-3” for dotted half notes, and “1-2-3-4” for whole notes.
Related post: 36 Ways to Use Rhythm Pattern Cards in Your Teaching
Practice Step No. 3 - Keyboard Positions
Look for places where you need to move your hand to a new position on the keyboard. Does it go higher or lower?
Find your starting hand position on the keys (remember to float up from your lap!) and practice these moves by floating (rather than sliding) to each new position.
Pretend you’re drawing a rainbow with your wrist as you move.
When you’re finished, float your hands off the keys and back to your lap. Remember, the piece isn’t finished until your hands are back in your lap!
Practice Step No. 4 - Sight-Reading
Let’s see what this piece sounds like!
When you’re ready, play it all the way through in a slow, steady tempo. Next, see if you can sing or speak the name of the first note and the interval and direction of each note that follows, like this: “Treble G, up a second, down a second, up a third, down a second, down a second.”
Can you spot all the skips in this melody? Let’s circle them.
Practice Step No. 5 - Evaluation
How did that go? Did the piece sound the way you thought it would sound? Is there anything you want to do differently next time?
Practice Step No. 6 - Creativity
Let’s make a new version of this piece.
Here are a few ideas:
Try switching parts for each hand, playing it in a different octave, playing it faster or slower (but still steady!), changing the dynamics, or adding some short, staccato notes if everything is smooth and connected (or vice versa). Try adding the damper pedal (the one all the way on the right) for an extra-special effect!
Give your new piece a name. Can you create a special ending for your piece?
Related post: 40 Ideas to Inspire Creativity in Your Students
Summary
Helping your elementary piano students develop effective practice habits from the beginning is vital to their musical growth and development. By incorporating structured, creative, and accessible practice steps into their routine, you can foster meaningful practice at home during the week. These six practice steps demystify the process for parents and empower young students to take ownership of their learning.
Here are those six steps once more:
Preparation
Rhythm & Movement
Keyboard Positions
Sight-Reading
Evaluation
Creativity
I’d love to hear from you:
Do you have any beginning practice steps to add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
Piano duets are one of the most enjoyable ways to make music with another person—whether you're adding something special to a worship service, planning a studio recital or informance, or just looking for an excuse to sit down at the piano and play with a friend or student.
In my experience, most piano students love the chance to perform together, and even small churches have at least one person in the congregation with some playing experience. Often, people just need to be asked and invited to participate.
I love starting the New Year with a new reading list.
It’s my tradition here on the blog to share my book list in January: this year, I’m planning to read a mix of novels, personal & intellectual books, nonfiction & memoir, and a couple of business books to balance things out.
Have you ever thought about how you give praise and offer encouraging words in your teaching? Is there a way to do this that promotes learning?
How can you use your words to foster the development of intrinsic motivation and a positive self-image in your students?
One of my favorite ways to kick off the New Year is by diving into a new reading list. It’s become a tradition here on the blog to share my book picks at the start of each year—a mix of business insights, inspiring memoirs, thought-provoking nonfiction, and a few captivating novels to round things out.
Do your students love Halloween as much as mine do? 🎃
Every week they come to lessons so excited to tell me about their costume plans and the decorations in their classroom or at home.
Several years ago, I started introducing Halloween and fall-themed music and lesson activities during the months of October and November and it has been a big hit.
I choose games and activities for my beginning and elementary students to do throughout the month (or to use in our October studio classes) and I often choose a special piece of sheet music (or a piece to teach by rote) that ties in with the season.
Rhythm pattern cards are a great way to teach new rhythmic concepts, reinforce familiar patterns, and build that all-important music vocabulary (the ability to understand and create your own musical patterns and sequences).
There are lots of different types of rhythm pattern cards out there - some you can buy, some you can download and print for free (like the set I'm sharing below!), and ideas for making some of your own.
They don’t have to be fancy! The ones I'm sharing today can be printed at home on white cardstock and cut into quarters (postcard-size).
I love working with beginning piano students.
Our lessons are always full of imagination and creative exploration—their eyes wide with excitement and wonder when they make a connection or discover something new—and I always learn so much about myself as a teacher as we walk those first steps in their musical journey together.
That being said, we all know that when learning a new instrument, productive practice time at home is essential to learning and developing as a musician.
Most of us see our beginning students for only 30 minutes a week, so time spent at the keyboard in between lessons can really make or break a student’s progress and the fulfillment they find in music-making.
As music teachers, it’s important to think about what motivates us as musicians and what motivates our students, choir members, and ensemble members to play and learn music.
I remember studying the theory of motivation as a grad student and was fascinated by the science behind it. For this reason, I really enjoyed reading Daniel H. Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
Happy New Year! I’m excited to share my book list for 2024.
I like to vary my reading material throughout the year by choosing books from several different categories. Here’s what’s on this year’s list:
It’s that time of year—time to share my book list for 2023.
As you know, I like to mix up my reading material throughout the year by choosing books from several different categories.
A friend reached out recently to ask about how to find a piano teacher for her two young children.
"Any pointers on how to find the right person?" she asked. "Do you think going to a school is better or finding someone to come to us is better?"
The interview process for finding a music teacher goes both ways:
I first heard about this book from one of my grad school professors.
We were sitting around a long table one snowy January evening at our annual dinner for current and prospective doctoral students. I asked my professor about books he was reading lately and he named several including Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Carol Dweck's Mindset.
What would you ask for if you were making a holiday wishlist for yourself as a teacher? New music? Curriculum resources? Piano-teaching games?
Today, I’m sharing a few ideas (and a few things that are on my teacher wishlist!) to help get you started. Enjoy!
How can we as teachers add variety and musical interest to their repertoire lists? How can we include more diversity in the composers we choose and the musical styles we teach?
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post with 15 supplemental collections for elementary piano students. Today, I’m sharing my favorites for intermediate students.
Supplemental collections are a great way to 1) incorporate a variety of musical styles into their repertoire plan, 2) expose your students to new voices (especially those who are underrepresented), and 3) foster motivation. Here are 15 of my favorite collections for elementary piano students.
I’m always looking for tools that are simple and easy to use. That’s why today, I’m excited to tell you about a (free!) web-based tool I’ve discovered to help me organize ideas, plan lessons, track assessments, and write curriculum content.
Confession: I’ve always struggled with written assignment sheets.
I know they’re important for home practice, but what about when a student doesn’t take their assignment notebook out of their bag all week? I wanted to find a better solution.
Looking for an alternative to handwritten assignment sheets in your studio? Here’s an easy 5-step guide to using Notability.
Have you ever used an incentive program in your music studio?
This might be a month-long practicing challenge, an annual assessment period, or a summer music camp (or other break-week).
This is a great way to keep momentum in the studio, encourage good practicing habits leading up to our end-of-year recital, and assess where my students are in all facets of their musicianship.
Looking for a fun, creative theme for your next studio incentive program? Here are five to consider.
Every year in my studio, we celebrate the end of the school year with a spring recital.
Each student prepares two pieces — sometimes memorized, sometimes with duets played by me or a parent or an older sibling or even a friend in the studio, and always with lots of supportive friends and family members in the audience.
This spring, like teachers around the world, I found myself suddenly immersed in the world of online teaching.
I knew that instead of gathering in person in the school theater on a Saturday morning in late May, we’d need to find another way to celebrate this year. We’d need to find a way to move the recital (like everything else in life) online.
A few weeks ago, I made the decision to keep my studio virtual this year.
Some schools are reopening here (with lots of precautions, staggered starts, alternating live and virtual days, etc.), including the school where I normally teach. I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about the in-person lesson experience and what that might look like:
A few years ago, I started teaching monthly group classes in my studio.
The idea was to include more opportunities for informal performance, observation, musical discussion, and developing musicianship skills in a supportive group environment. All students are invited and encouraged to play something each time, even just part of a piece.
This gives us an opportunity to:
show works in progress
talk about practicing, learning processes, challenges, and rewards
give feedback (positive + constructive)
I also plan a few musical games and activities related to listening, movement, creative musicianship, and composition — things we can’t really do in our one-on-one lessons.
This year, I planned to teach five studio classes specifically for 3rd-6th graders, two studio classes for 7th-12th graders, and monthly buddy lessons for my K-2nd grade students.
But what to do when the world shuts down and everything moves online?
Host a Zoom studio class, of course.
Last week, I taught two studio classes (3rd-6th grade and 7th-12th grade) and two buddy lessons (K-2nd grade). Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how I set these up, how I structured our time together, and what activities I created to play virtually.
Like many of you, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to teach music creatively online these past few weeks.
What tools work best to facilitate connection, dialogue, and musical experience?
What strategies lend themselves best to online teaching?
What assignments will foster music-learning during this time?
As many of us are navigating this new territory of learning how to teach online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought I’d put together a master list of ideas for teaching in a variety of settings: church music, community teaching, and K-12 music.
I’m also including a list of tech tools that I’m using personally, have used in the past, or have heard recommended from other music teachers in the field.
We’re living in unprecedented times.
With the recent worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, more and more schools and studios are choosing to close and transition to remote learning.
Maybe you’re like me in thinking that some subjects lend themselves well to being taught online: history, language, math. But music? How do you teaching piano to a 1st grader online? How do you teach choir or band? How do you teach group lessons?
This week, numerous music educators have put together resources, kits, and teaching guides to help others transition to online learning, learn about tools that are available, and get ideas. There are Facebook groups and webinars, blog posts and Google Docs summarizing all the music-related tech tools that are offering special discounts right now.
Here in Rochester, NY, schools are closed and moving online until further notice.
As such, I’m transitioning my studio to online learning. Today, I want to share what that looks like, including:
The notes I’m sending home to parents
Three models for online education I’m offering to all my students (K-10th grade)
Steps I’m taking to plan and prepare for this change
Resources and printables I’m pulling together for the next few weeks
Tools I’m using on the tech side of things
My best recommendations for studio teachers in this situation
You know those things you’ve heard that seem true? I mean, they sound plausible. Plus, if enough people say it, it must be true, right?
Before long, we find ourselves buying into the hype, retelling the story, believing something we’ve heard without stopping to ask questions.
This is how myths begin.
Sometimes, there’s simply a lack of information—nothing to disprove this theory or that idea. Other times, they sound good on paper but are only surface-level with no substance to back them up.
Whatever the case may be, we’ve all encountered myths (big and small) in various parts of our lives.
But have you ever stopped to think about myths related to teaching and learning? What stories are being told out there that affect our work and how we approach things? What’s being shared as fact when there isn’t research to back it up?
Do you ever think back to the teachers you had growing up?
Maybe a private music teacher or a choir director or your high school English teacher or a professor you had in college.
What do you remember about them? What was your learning experience like? What approaches did you observe? What do you find yourself incorporating into your own teaching?
There’s an age-old adage that says we teach how we were taught.
This isn’t the full story, of course: we all have unique backgrounds and a variety of experiences that inform the people we are today and the teachers we are becoming.
This is a letter to all the parents and guardians and babysitters and older siblings and neighbors and friends who support young musicians: those who encourage the pursuit of music, tote children and books and accessories back and forth to lessons each week, and help with practicing at home.
Dear parents + guardians:
Thank you for supporting your child’s musical pursuits. You play a crucial role in your child’s success in learning to play an instrument. Even if you don't play the piano yourself, your support and guidance at home during the week is extremely important to their music-learning process.
A few summers ago, I attended the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) for the first time (read my recaps here, here, and here).
In addition to a wealth of new teaching ideas, I learned about new methods and curriculum materials, some of which I’ve been using in my teaching ever since.
Perhaps the most influential and valuable resource I discovered at NCKP was the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM—Canadian division) and Music Development Program (MDP - US division).
Founded with a commitment to developing strong musicianship skills from the very beginning, the program includes level-by-level guides to repertoire, technique, and musicianship skills (plus supplemental materials for music history and theory) for a variety of different instruments.
Every year, I plan and create a 6-8 week incentive program for my piano studio. Mostly, this is for my beginning and elementary students (through 5th grade), though my middle schoolers (6th-8th grade) have been known to join in!
I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I’ve found, while it's a great way to mix up our weekly lesson routine and give my students something fun to look forward to each week, it’s also a helpful way for me to assess their musicianship skills, take time to recognize their musical growth, and really tailor my instruction to each student.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner!
Now, I know what some of you are probably thinking: Valentine’s Day isn’t a real holiday! Why should we “celebrate” this in our lessons and rehearsals?
I’m inclined to agree that Valentine’s Day is basically a Hallmark holiday, but at this point in the year, I’ll take pretty much any excuse to mix up my regular teaching routine and introduce something a little whimsical and fun (especially when gummy candy is involved!).
When was the last time you sat down at your instrument and played music for fun? I mean, not music you had to practice or prepare, not your students’ repertoire, not music for your next rehearsal, but music you chose to play for yourself, for your own enjoyment?
As professionals, we don’t often make time for this. We assume that all the music we’re being paid to learn and practice will also count as the musical satisfaction we need to keep going in our career.