Playing a musical instrument is a fun and rewarding experience, with many opportunities to build friendships, work together as a team, and learn new skills. If listening to music is something you enjoy, then playing an instrument will make music much more fun!
Playing an instrument is much more fun when you’re good at it. When you know that you are doing it right, everything comes together. When you feel like you’re getting better at it, it’s really fun! But playing music is a complex set of skills - you have to:
Know how to hold the instrument
Know how to make a good sound on the instrument
Know how to play the different notes
Know how to read the notes and rhythms
Know how to count while you play
Know if you’re playing a song right by how it sounds
The only way to learn those skills is to spend time playing the instrument. Playing in Instrumental Music class once a week is not enough! To learn and instrument is not only learning one skill, but a whole set of skills. Coaches, trainers, educators, and neuroscientists agree that learning a new skill requires working on it with spaced repetition, with enough frequency to make it stick.
Far too often, students join a Band or Orchestra program and rarely or never play the instrument at home. They are not playing with enough frequency to develop skills that can be built upon. Those students do not feel themselves getting better at the instrument, so they don’t enjoy playing, don’t enjoy Music class, and give up. This is unfortunate, and completely avoidable!
The word “practice” isn’t very appealing for a lot of young musicians. They put that word in the same category with “homework” and “chores.” Playing an instrument at home, though, doesn’t necessarily need to take a lot of time. The biggest problem I see with first-year students isn’t as much time spent practicing (this becomes more important as the student progresses) as it is frequency of playing.
Here is what I suggest: Get the instrument out of the case once per day, five days a week, and play ONE SONG. If you make a mistake, just keep going! The most important thing is that the instrument gets played 5 TIMES PER WEEK (most songs in the Band and Orchestra Karate books can be played in less than a minute). Don’t like the word “practicing?” Then don’t call it that! Call it “playing” instead. That’s a much nicer word (who doesn’t like to “play”?), and it’s easier. Just play for one minute!
Of course, if you want to get better faster, you’ll need to spend a little more time with the instrument. There is an excellent guide near the beginning of the Karate books (around page 3 or 4, depending on the book) that says, “Do You Know How To Practice?” at the top of the page. It includes instructions for setting up a good practice space, and what material to work on.
In the last few months, I’ve been giving students their “once per day” practice assignments in class. Students who’ve missed a class should be able to find out from a fellow student, or they can ask you to send an email to me. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO PRACTICE. Parents should be hearing their students play at home at least five days a week.
If you have any questions about this, or about anything else with the program, please don’t hesitate to contact me - I’d love to hear from you!