Many articles have been written theorizing about why piano students, especially kids, allegedly ‘hate’ practice.
Firstly, just to dispel a minor myth… it is absolutely untrue that all kids hate piano practice — no one hates practice all the time.
What is true is that all students, regardless of age, go through various phases.
There are times when piano practice lifts your spirit like few other things in this world… there are times when it feels anywhere from slightly enjoyable to very enjoyable… and then there are times when you feel like giving up.
To some extent, this is the nature of any worthwhile long term endeavor. However, the rewards far outweigh the effort of persisting through those occasional periods when you may feel like giving up.
Fortunately the more advanced you become, and the older you become — which inevitably coincide — the greater the percentage of your practice time you will spend enjoying the fulfilling / transcendental aspects of piano practice.
That said, one of the main challenges for most students — especially if they are young and still developing the ability to work independently — is that during traditional piano practice, there is no support.
Traditionally, when you practice, there is no one beside you to guide and encourage you — to witness and praise your successes, and to help you break down seemingly insurmountable problems into small manageable pieces.
By contrast in a traditional piano lesson, the teacher is there beside you, holding your hand (metaphorically speaking). While you may be challenged during your piano lesson, at least you have the reassurance of knowing you will not get totally lost and be left floundering on your own.
For this reason, most students enjoy their piano lessons (even if they are not so keen on practice). And of course, at the risk of stating the obvious, students will get far more out of their lessons and find lessons more enjoyable if they have done a reasonable amount of practice since the previous lesson.
However, one of the main downsides to traditional piano lessons is of course that a traditional piano teacher can only be with you during your lesson, which usually takes place once a week.
The rest of the time, you are left to your own devices, i.e. solitary, unsupported piano practice.
This is the aspect of learning piano that many students struggle to cope with, and this is largely why many younger students are less than keen on practicing piano.
Fortunately, there is a solution — and it is NOT simply not practicing.
On a website I recently stumbled across that promotes traditional piano lessons, I was amused to read the following:
“Regardless of the amount of practice you do, if you commit to your weekly piano lesson, you will keep getting better”.
In other words, if you don’t do any piano practice, the author of that article would have you believe that you can just keep attending (and paying for) their piano lessons regardless, and it will still be a fruitful and rewarding experience. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
In a traditional piano lesson scenario, practice is at least as important as your lessons, if not more so. If you don’t or can’t manage at least a small amount of regular practice several times a week, your lessons will be boring and unstimulating because you and your teacher will be going over the same material that you didn’t practice from the previous week.
And if this happens a few weeks in a row, both you and your teacher will sink deeper and deeper into despondence and despair.
So what is the solution?
Simple… You need a perpetual piano lesson — a guided learning environment in which lesson time and practice time become one… a simple shift in the dynamic whereby every time you sit down at a piano keyboard to spend some time progressing through your pieces, your piano teacher is there with you.
A perpetual piano lesson, as I like to call it, is the optimal learning environment, and you can only get it here at www.musiah.com when you take piano lessons with Musiah — the world’s first A.I. (Artificially Intelligent) virtual piano teacher.
With Musiah, there is no traditional solitary unsupported practice — as Musiah, your teacher, is with you every step of the way, guiding you towards achieving your goals.
This is a large part of why Musiah piano lessons are so much more effective than any other piano lessons available anywhere online or offline. Students have the support and guidance of their teacher at all times, and this is why students of all ages are achieving amazing results with Musiah.
On a side note, in the case of young children, to obtain optimal results, I recommend initially (where possible) that at least one parent also learns the first 1-2 levels of the Musiah piano course.
By doing this, you are setting a great example for your children — an example that shows them the value you place on learning, in this case, learning the piano. And, with encouragement, they will aspire to follow your example.
Plus, many kids love to be able to say that they are more advanced (even if just by a few lessons) than their parents. So just by doing a few lessons every so often, you can really encourage and motivate your kids to work hard in order to stay ahead of you.
With advances in technology, opportunities for self-improvement and self-learning have never been more abundant. We are truly blessed to live in such awesome times.
So whether you are considering piano lessons for yourself as an adult and / or for your children, with Musiah’s perpetual piano lesson guided learning environment, you really are placing yourself in the best possible position to achieve your goal of learning to play the piano in the most enjoyable, cost efficient and effective way.
To start your piano lessons journey and experience firsthand Musiah's perpetual piano lessons, simply take our 14 Day Free Trial — available for a strictly limited time.
Thanks for reading.
Brendan Hogan L.Mus.A, A.Mus.A.
Piano Teacher & Musiah Inventor
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