How much should my child practice?
The answer to “How much should my child practice?” depends heavily on the path that student is pursuing.
At Music Pillars, we think about students as being on one of three general paths: Enrichment, Growth, or Mastery. Those paths have different goals, so it doesn’t make sense to give every child and every family exactly the same practice expectations.
A student taking music primarily for enrichment should not have the same expectations as a student who wants significant musical growth, and neither should necessarily have the same expectations as a student pursuing mastery.
A better way to think about practice is through five questions:
How should they practice?
What should they practice?
When should they practice?
Where should they practice?
And why should they practice?
The Enrichment Path
For students on the Enrichment Path, music is primarily a vehicle for development, enjoyment, and learning. Musical progress matters, but achieving a particular level of musical mastery is not the primary goal.
In fact, for these students, we do not expect them to practice at home. Their dedicated practice happens during the lab portion of their time at Music Pillars.
How should an Enrichment student practice?
The biggest thing is mindset and effort.
When students enter the lab, they should give the work their best effort. Learning music is hard. There will be times when a student is frustrated because something simply isn't working yet.
That's part of learning.
One of the most important skills we teach students is that when something is too difficult, make it smaller.
Don't try to learn an entire song in five minutes.
Maybe the goal right now is four measures.
Maybe it's only the right hand for those four measures.
Maybe it's the left hand for two measures.
Maybe it's four notes with the correct fingering.
When you can't do something, make it smaller.
The goal isn't instant perfection. The student learns to focus, work through difficulty, solve a smaller problem, and then gradually put those smaller pieces together.
What should an Enrichment student practice?
Enrichment students primarily work on two categories of music:
Songs in their Song Book, which they work toward passing off as they progress.
Music they are preparing for upcoming Weekend Showcases.
But even within those pieces, the practice target should usually be small.
Rather than, “I'm going to practice this whole song,” the target might be:
“I am going to learn the right hand of these four measures.”
Or:
“I am going to get the fingering correct in these two measures.”
What they practice should be small enough that they can actually accomplish something.
When should an Enrichment student practice?
Their practice happens during the second 30 minutes of their class, during their lab time.
That structure is intentional. One of the reasons Music Pillars moved to an hour-long format rather than only a 30-minute lesson was to create dedicated time in which students could actually work on what they're learning with teachers and teaching assistants available to help them.
Where should an Enrichment student practice?
At the Music Pillars studio, during the lab portion of their class.
There is no expectation that an Enrichment student has to recreate that practice environment at home.
Why should an Enrichment student practice?
This is probably the most important part:
For an Enrichment student, the biggest reason to practice isn't actually the music.
Learning how to sit and work on one thing for an extended period of time is incredibly valuable for a child.
Music happens to be an unusually powerful vehicle for developing that ability because music demands a fairly high level of precision.
The notes matter.
The rhythm matters.
The timing matters.
The student has to coordinate what they're thinking with what their hands are doing, while potentially reading music, counting, listening, and keeping everything moving together in time.
That's hard work for the brain.
Practice helps children develop focus, persistence, coordination, problem-solving, and grit.
So on the Enrichment Path, music is the vehicle.
The development of the child is the larger goal.
The Growth Path
Students on the Growth Path want to become increasingly capable musicians. They want to learn more music, progress through increasingly difficult material, and develop skills that allow them to play more complex and beautiful music.
Because the goal has changed, the role of practice changes as well.
Unlike the Enrichment Path, Growth students do practice at home.
How should a Growth student practice?
Many of the principles from the Enrichment Path still apply.
Students should approach practice expecting to put in effort.
And again:
When something is too difficult, make it smaller.
Instead of trying to play an entire piece repeatedly from beginning to end, isolate the problem.
Practice only the right hand.
Practice only the left hand.
Work on two measures.
Work on four measures.
Slow it down.
Figure out exactly where the difficulty is and work on that small problem.
Good practice isn't simply repeatedly playing a song from beginning to end.
It is learning how to identify what you can't do yet, make the problem smaller, and work on it deliberately.
Also - make sure to use our software to track your progress and see your pacing. We wrote a lengthier article about how to know if your child is making progress here.
What should a Growth student practice?
Growth students have a somewhat broader range of material.
They should practice:
Songs from their Song Book
Music for upcoming Weekend Showcases
Additional music that they personally enjoy and want to learn
At each level, students can have access to a collection of additional level-appropriate songs. They can choose something that interests them simply because they think it would be fun to learn.
That personal choice becomes increasingly valuable on the Growth Path because students are beginning to develop their own musical interests and identity.
When should a Growth student practice?
There isn't necessarily a magical time of day when every child should practice.
Morning practice can be great, but for many families it's simply unrealistic. Children have school, sports, homework, family commitments, and plenty of other activities.
The more important word is:
Routine.
Practice needs to become a predictable, scheduled part of the child's week.
Families schedule soccer practice.
They schedule dance.
They schedule tutoring.
Music practice should work similarly.
Maybe piano happens Wednesdays and Thursdays at 6:00.
Maybe it happens immediately after school.
Maybe it happens after a snack and before dinner.
The exact time matters less than the predictability of the routine.
When practice isn't scheduled and the family simply hopes they'll find time for it, there's a good chance it won't happen.
Where should a Growth student practice?
Growth students will primarily practice at home, but the physical environment matters.
First, students should have a reasonably distraction-free place to work. A television shouldn't be playing nearby, and the instrument should ideally be somewhere the child can use regularly without disrupting the entire household.
For some families, having the piano in the living room works perfectly well. For others, a separate room makes more sense.
The important thing is creating a stable, usable practice environment.
The physical setup of the instrument matters as well.
Bench height is particularly important.
As a general guideline, when the student is sitting properly at the keyboard, the belly button should roughly line up with the bottom of the white keys.
If the student's chest is at keyboard level, they're sitting much too low.
If their belly button is above the keyboard, they're sitting too high.
It doesn't need to be measured to the millimeter, but the student needs a comfortable physical position that allows the hands and arms to function properly.
Why should a Growth student practice?
All of the developmental benefits of the Enrichment Path still apply.
Students are developing concentration, persistence, coordination, discipline, and grit.
But Growth students have another reason:
They want to progress musically.
Consistent practice allows students to learn more music, progress more quickly, and gradually play music that is more sophisticated, complex, and beautiful.
The more consistently students break difficult music into manageable pieces and make practice part of their normal routine, the more their musical ability can grow.
The Mastery Path
The Mastery Path is different again.
These are students pursuing a much higher degree of musical proficiency. Their goals may eventually include advanced repertoire, auditions, examinations, competitions, significant performances, or other long-term musical goals.
At this level, practice isn't merely helpful.
Practice is part of the discipline itself.
How should a Mastery student practice?
Practice should be deliberate, focused, and highly specific.
Many of the same principles still apply:
Break difficult music into small sections.
Practice hands separately when necessary.
Slow difficult passages down.
Use a metronome when appropriate.
Identify mistakes rather than simply playing through them.
Then work slowly and deliberately until those problems are corrected.
A Mastery student isn't measuring practice primarily by how many times they played a piece.
The question becomes:
What specifically improved during this practice session?
What should a Mastery student practice?
A Mastery student's practice will generally include a broader and more demanding body of work.
That can include:
Core repertoire
Current performance material
Technically challenging or “stretch” pieces
Sight-reading
Ear training
Technical exercises
Specific skills or weaknesses identified by the teacher
The exact balance will change depending upon the student's level and goals.
When should a Mastery student practice?
For Mastery students, practice needs to happen consistently throughout the week.
Ideally, that means daily or close to daily practice—something like six days per week rather than trying to accomplish everything in one or two marathon sessions.
Consistency matters more than cramming.
Practice should also be scheduled.
It needs to become part of the student's normal life rather than something that happens only when there happens to be extra time.
Where should a Mastery student practice?
A Mastery student needs a consistent, distraction-free practice environment with an appropriate instrument and physical setup.
The same principles regarding bench height and posture apply, but at this level the quality and consistency of the practice environment become increasingly important.
The instrument should be ready to use.
The music should be accessible.
The bench should be properly positioned.
The student should be able to begin working without having to create a practice environment from scratch every time.
Why should a Mastery student practice?
Mastery requires consistency, accumulated skill, and time on task.
There isn't a shortcut around that.
Advanced musical skills are layered. What a student is able to accomplish today depends upon skills that were developed previously, and those skills become the foundation for increasingly sophisticated music.
Students on this path may be preparing for auditions, examinations, competitions, advanced performances, or simply pursuing the personal goal of becoming an exceptional musician.
The developmental benefits are still there—focus, resilience, discipline, coordination, persistence, and grit.
But on the Mastery Path, there is an additional objective:
The student is deliberately pursuing musical excellence.
