Tag: practice plan

Adult Beginners on Musical Instruments are Fabulous

Adult beginners take up about 20% of my studio. I absolutely love to teach them how to play a musical instrument for many reasons. Here’s why.

Adult Beginners Are Dedicated

Adult beginners are generally really good at practicing regularly. They have a goal – to play well – and they know there’s only one way to achieve it. Practice.

Adult Beginners Learn Quickly

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” ~ Chinese Proverb.

Many adults want to catch up to where they would be if they started learning as a child. Luckily, their brains are fully developed so in the first year they gain about three years’ worth of skill. Children’s brains and muscles are still developing, so they take longer to learn things

Don’t believe me? Check out an adult beginner’s piano book. The last pieces are about the same level as the end of the third book in the children’s series.

I Don’t Have to Dumb Myself Down

When I teach a practice technique to a grade schooler, if they ask why it works, I have to say, “magic,” because I will completely lose them if I explained why.

When I teach a practice technique to an adult, I can go into the psychology of why it works and how we’re going around a wall our subconscious minds built rather than through. This is one of my favorite things.

Emotional Performances

This goes back to having a fully developed brain. It also goes to having more life experiences. If I assign something like the Moonlight Sonata, which should be played with tons of emotion, I can get it instantly from an adult. I usually have to teach someone younger than 8th grade how to fake it.

Adult Beginners Know What They Want

Most adult beginners usually have a clear vision of what they want to get out of their music lessons. While my job is to push them forward, they will show me the direction they want to be pushed.

Most want to use the piano to relax and maybe release some emotions. These are things that are necessary to life as a musician, anyway.

Some absolutely love the classical music and they want to be classically trained. The classical music is what drives them. Some are driven by pop, musicals, and Disney.

Some adults have a different purpose to learning their instrument. They want to learn how to compose or play in a band or church. I keep these things in mind when helping them decide on repertoire.

Ergonomics

Maybe I’m crazy, but I absolutely love helping people with the ergonomics of their instrument. I want them to enjoy the life-building activity of playing their instrument. I don’t want them to have to deal with tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, or some other form of tendonitis.

Because our bodies are not what they used to be, we have to be more careful about injury. Depending on the person, I sometimes start out with various upper-body stretches that target the common issues that flutists or pianists have. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I Get to Watch their Brain Grow

Studies have shown how great learning an instrument is for your brain. Here’s an article with a few different studies about that.

With kids, I don’t notice the difference because their brain is growing, anyway. I can’t always tell that their brain growing faster than it was before because I didn’t necessarily know them before.

With adults, I can really see a difference after the first year of playing an instrument. I’m not sure how to measure it, but they learn faster, remember things better, and are all-around sharper. It’s fun to see.

Conclusion

As you can see, I love working with adult beginners. I think it’s fabulous to see people learn new skills at every stage of life. If you’re not feeling great about starting later, I hope this either helps you strengthen your resolve or decide to start.

Learning a Large Amount of Music By the Deadline

We get over-scheduled so easily. It’s hard to judge our limits. Sometimes we need a plan to dig ourselves out and learn a large amount of music quickly.

I’ve gotten this question a few times in the past week or so, but not necessarily from students. The people have over-committed and need to learn a large amount of music in a specified time period. I looked at the time period and it’s definitely doable, but they can’t find a way through it.

It’s recital season, competition season, and musical season. What that means is that there’s a ton of stuff going on in the spring. Because of this, quite a few musicians get extra music to play for their activities, their friends’ activities, and maybe even get some extra gigs.

Whoohoo! Extra opportunities to play!

Sometimes this means that we accept too many opportunities to play and we have more to practice than we can handle. Here’s a plan to dig out of that hole.

Step 1: Make a plan

Here’s an old joke that doubles as an adage: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The adage portion of that joke means that if you have too much to do, make a plan.

This doesn’t have to be a formal plan, it can be a process inside your head. Here’s an example.

  1. Practice twice a day (either morning and night or afternoon and evening).
  2. Play through all pieces during each practice session.
  3. Focus on one piece per session, putting extra focus on a different page or section per day.

It’s important to note – if you’re practicing twice a day, you don’t have to practice warm-ups and technique at both practice sessions. Once a day is fine for those exercises.

Step 2: Follow Your Plan

Figure out how to fit your practice times into your schedule. Keep a practice journal to keep yourself honest or stack your books in such a way that you know where you are in your process.

Not every day is going to be perfect, and that’s fine. Don’t beat yourself up for it. We’re human. Life happens. If you miss one of your scheduled practice sessions this week, it’s not the end of the world. Don’t miss more than a quarter of your practice sessions per week.

Step 3: Help Your Plan Along

There are several things you can do to help your plan along. Here are a few, I hope you can come up with more.

Take naps between practice sessions. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the naps help your body produce myelin which coats the new synapses you’re making by learning the new pieces of music. There’s more information on myelin here.

Work out every day. The article I just referenced in the last paragraph stated that working out also helps the body create myelin. It also increases blood flow to the brain, making it work more efficiently.

Use practice techniques. I go into this more in-depth here. Practice techniques different ways to work around your mind blocks. When I’m teaching them to kids, I tell them that they work like magic.

Watch your technique. You don’t want pain to sideline you while you’re doing all this extra work. Proper technique reduces tension which also reduces pain.

Take stretching breaks. I wrote in this article about how your brain only works optimally for 20 minutes at a time. Because of this, it’s a good idea to set the timer for 20 minutes and make sure you stretch in between your 20 minute sessions. This practice is actually prescribed to me by my doctor and I can really tell a difference when I forget to set a timer.

Conclusion

We get over-scheduled so easily. It’s hard to say no. It’s also hard to judge your limits. Sometimes we need a plan to dig ourselves out and learn that large amount of music that we promised we’d learn.

The end goal of this plan is to learn from our mistakes. This isn’t information to help you make your situation worse. It’s information to get you through a tough time so you can make better choices in the future.