Practice Tips
We often have many parents enquire about how best to help children with music practice at home so thought that the following points may give you some pointers. I Hope it helps!!
Focusing on these 3-4 simple tips will dramatically improve your child’s practice time:
1. Sing notes as you play.
Ask your child to sing the names of the notes out loud as they play. This will really help consolidate note recognition, so it becomes second-nature. (It’s like learning a language.)
3. Spot practice (isolate tricky bits).
Circle any stumbles with a pencil. Then spend the next few practice sessions JUST going over the trouble spots. Practice each trouble spot 10x without mistakes before attempting to play the whole piece again. You might find that you spend the whole week just doing a few tricky bars! That’s ok.
2. Play slowly.
Play the music SLOWLY and EVENLY. The speed should be slow enough to enable the child to play at an even tempo (pace) without any pauses to find tricky notes.
4. Hands separately.
If your child is up to hands-together pieces, ensure that they warm up by practicing each hand separately. They should be confident with each hand (no stumbles or pauses) before attempting to put hands together.