Practice Environment 5

(checklist 5 of 6 from the article A Healthy Practice Environment)

Instead of an article, this month I would like to pass on a series of checklists to help you and your student examine your practice process.  Practice is the most time consuming part of learning the instrument, and the part that happens without any teacher supervision, so it is worthwhile to re-evaluate from time to time to make sure you are on the right track.

What can we do to change our practice routine a little?

• Practice everything in a different place on your instrument (use notes that are higher or lower)
• Play a practice game.  Check your September article for a few ideas, or ask Mrs. Baylor for some more!
• Start at the end of your lesson notes and work to the top, just for a temporary change of pace.
• Have the student practice with a different parent.  Not something to do every single time, but sometimes the parent who hasn’t attended the lesson has different insights or notices different things, and the student will learn a lot by trying to remember and explain the lesson notes to someone new.

 Try to mark one thing from this section that you want to add to your practice environment!