Effective Practice Strategies to Maximise Your Child's Musical Progress.
For your child to get the most out of their music lessons, we recommend 4 practice sessions per week. Each practice session should go for 15-30mins in duration including warms ups etc.
It's been proven that smaller practice sessions that occur more often enable students to progress more rapidly and encourage students to take accountability for their progress through consistency and discipline. All Melbourne Music Academy teachers tailor each lesson to suit your child and their learning style, but your child's weekly learning tasks are also designed to be engaging and fun so that practice doesn't feel like a chore :-)
Some tips:
We've found that many students respond well to having a set practice time that forms part of their daily routine (other students respond better to a more spontaneous practice schedule) but regardless of when your child practices, a consistent area or space/room in the house will be beneficial as it minimises distractions and is familiar to your child.
Each student enrolled in the Melbourne Music Academy program has an A4 branded practice diary that their teacher writes in to set weekly practice tasks. Teachers are trained to write very specific practice tasks that students can understand, so each student knows exactly what, and how to practice each week which promotes the most efficient progress.
If your child experiences some difficulty on a certain musical part or phrase/song etc during the week, we encourage parents to email us with an audio or video query which we can then pass onto the teacher and then, forward you their reply to continue to assist your child's practice. This is extremely important and we're only too happy to help with this because when it comes to music practice, consistency and momentum is key. If your child is side-lined for the whole week because they're struggling on a certain part, this could potentially make them not want to continue playing.
As parents, we live extremely busy lives but from time to time, we encourage you to check in on your child's practice which will give them that extra little bit of encouragement. Staging some little mini concerts for friends and family once your child has built up some repertoire of songs is also a great way to consolidate their practice as it moves them into 'performance' mode, which amplifies everything they've been practicing :-)
If your child is struggling to get motivated to practice, please email us as we can then work together with their teacher to tweak part of their curriculum which can help motivate and engage your child in a more positive manner.