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September 29, 2025 14 mins

Can We Really Control Piano Practice?

Reflections from My Studio Workshop


In this episode of The Scrappy Piano Teacher, I share reflections from the OhioMTA state conference and walk you through a practice workshop I held in my studio. Together we will think about how practice strategies, student engagement, and teaching philosophy connect to real life for our students.

We all know piano practice is one of the hardest parts of piano teaching. In this episode you will hear how I approached practice routines with my students, how I explained the difference between practicing playing and performing, and why creating a practice workshop can help students build confidence. This is encouragement for teachers who want practical piano practice tips that actually make sense in the lesson.

Here are some of the takeaways from this episode

● Piano practice is the number one challenge for many teachers

● Encouragement and perspective matter more than guilt

● Leadership in piano teaching means guiding students in how to practice

● A practice workshop can support both students and parents

● Self care strategies for teachers help prevent burnout and keep us strong for our students

This episode is for any teacher looking for ways to help students build realistic practice habits at home. It is about teaching students what to practice, how to practice ,and how to connect piano practicing to their daily lives.

For more resources visit scrappypianoteacher.com and subscribe for access to my full practice workshop lesson plan, and check out the abacus blog post mentioned at composecreate.com/get-rid-of-mindless-practice/


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Scrappy
Piano Teacher. If you are new here, I am
Jacqueline Rosick, but you can call me Jackie.
And this is the podcast where independent music teachers get
real talk, encouragement, and sometimes a little sarcasm about
what it's really like to run a music studio.

(00:25):
Today's episode is going to be alittle bit more reflective
because we are talking about done practice.
And if you've been teaching for any length of time at all, like
even for 5 minutes, then you know as well as I do that
practice is one of the biggest challenges that we face as

(00:46):
teachers. I don't have a magic solution,
sorry, and I'm not going to pretend like I do.
But what I do have is a little bit of encouragement, some
perspective, and a look inside the practice workshop I ran in
my own studio. My hope today for you is that it
stirs up some fresh thinking about how we prepare our
students to actually practice athome, not just play their

(01:09):
pieces, but to understand the act of practicing itself.
Right. We're teachers.
We teach music. Do we teach practice?
Maybe. Hopefully.
Before I jump into the workshop,let me share a little about the
Ohio MTA State Conference that Iattended with my good friend
Elizabeth Swift, who, by the way, it was just recognized as
the 2025 Certified Teacher of the Year in Ohio.

(01:31):
Yay, Elizabeth Wu. The conference itself ran
Thursday through Saturday, but because of our teaching
schedules, Elizabeth and I arrived Thursday evening for the
banquet. So we attended all the sessions
on Friday, and then we zipped back home right afterwards.
So yes, we missed some incredibly fantastic sessions on

(01:52):
Thursday and Saturday, but I have to tell you, I was pretty
impressed with how packed full of awesomeness Friday was.
It was, it was really good. One of my favorite sessions was
in the afternoon. It was self-care essentials
strategies for preventing teacher burnout, and it was led
by Doctor Paula Savito. I think and hope that I'm saying

(02:13):
that right, She's DMA and CTM from the University of Michigan.
OK, I am a Buckeye fan. I'm not going to lie, I heard a
little bit when I heard that shewas from Michigan, but she more
than earned my respect. I was like, wow, just don't tell
any of my Ohio people. Then there was also fascinating
session on contemporary composerEmma Lou Deemer.

(02:34):
I think I'm saying that right, too.
Her music is so exploratory. Outer space themes, they pluck
the insides of the piano, just all kinds of creative boundary
pushing work that was very interesting.
The lovely Amy Chaplin from Piano Pantry podcast was there
and I was so excited to see her face.

(02:56):
She LED a session on audiation and it was a blast because she
had us up out of our chairs singing and moving, which that
energy really was necessary because by the time her session
came along, we had been sitting there for a while.
And finally, Jana Williamson, who I elevenador travelled in

(03:17):
from Illinois to share her session, which was titled
Stepping up the Unexpected Role of Leadership in the Piano
Studio. She gave us a refreshing
reminder that there are things we can control in the studio and
things we simply cannot control.And as we were talking about
this, or should I say as she wastalking about this, I looked

(03:37):
around the room briefly. And everyone in there, all the
teachers just nodding along like, Yep, we understand what
you're talking about. And one of her reminders really
connected to practice. You know, what can we control in
the studio about practice and what can we control outside of
the studio about practice? Because let's face it, we cannot

(03:59):
control our students schedules. We can't control their parents
involvement or what goes on at home.
And most importantly, we can't control how much they practice
outside of the studio. What we can control is what
happens inside of our lessons. We can show the students how to
practice, we can set up a simplepractice routine, and we can

(04:21):
keep the conversation alive, right?
We can't control their home hours, but we can guide how they
use the minutes that they do have.
And this makes me think of guidance for students and maybe
not putting on the guilt. So example, do any of you have a
high schooler that might be juggling, I don't know, CCP

(04:43):
classes, AP classes, a job, sports, or maybe they're just
trying to survive high school, right?
They might genuinely only have one or two days a week to
practice. And instead of stressing about
that, we can instead help them create a realistic approach.
Now let's compare that to maybe 1/3 grader who can practice

(05:05):
daily. And of course, their pieces and
music is going to be much shorter, a little bit more
simple, right? Without variety, their routine
can feel incredibly repetitive, and they can dread it.
I have a feeling that there might be more students who dread
practice than we like to admit, and that's for all of us.
I think I might be included in that equation, as much as I hate

(05:26):
to admit that, but it does happen.
So this is where we want to stepin and think about some creative
strategies and help them know what to practice each day.
And here's the big reminder again, I'm going to bring this
up. We don't want to make students
feel guilty about the amount of time that they're able to
practice. Many kids do not control their

(05:46):
schedules. Honestly, a lot of times, even
as adults aren't able to controlour schedules.
We're all limited by family, work, and life.
Our job is to equip our students, not to shame them.
So if your studio expects rigorous daily practice, that is
fine, that is great, there is a place for that.
But those expectations need to be crystal clear at the start

(06:08):
with parents and revisited when the student's life changes a bit
as they grow older. So this ties back to your
teaching philosophy and policies, which I've covered in
previous episodes. So if you go back through the
teaching philosophy questions, Ihave a resource at on my website
if you want to check that out orlisten to the episode as well.

(06:28):
But as you ask yourself these questions, it's good for you to
know as you take students on to help avoid that frustration down
the road if their practice habits don't align with your
philosophy. OK, so I'm going to go ahead and
switch gears and tell you a little bit about my practice
workshop and why I did a practice workshop this year.

(06:49):
So every year I start the week before Labor Day and then the
week of Labor Day. I do group classes for everyone.
I mean everyone. I don't care if they're already
in buddy lessons and group lessons and private lessons.
I merge them all together mainlybecause I don't teach on Labor
Day and so it just makes sense. Has worked out really, really

(07:11):
well every year because it givesus a good start to the year of
expectations. We do some ensemble work, we do
all kinds of things. This is the first year that I've
labeled it as a quote UN quote practice workshop.
And I have to tell you, it went so well.
And I've already been seeing results from that as we're

(07:33):
nearing the end of September that I'm pretty sure I'm going
to be doing this for a long, long time.
And I just thought, you know, this would be a good way for us
to just talk about the upcoming year, talk about what our goals
are and how we are going to attain those and how we're going
to practice at home. So this is what we did starting
out. I always like to do some kind of
an icebreaker warm up. So I decided for this year we

(07:56):
were just going to do a simple true or false about practice
somewhere a little bit more silly, you know, like true or
false. We're more efficient practicers
with a cat in a lap or true or false.
Your piano should be directly next to the family TV while your
father is watching the football game at full volume.
I mean, obviously hello. But it really got them to stop

(08:18):
and think and it got them giggling.
And suddenly we were having really good conversations about
practicing and I was getting a really good insight as to the
setup that students were having at home.
So I'm going to put together a resource about this workshop, by
the way, and I'll have those true or false questions on there
if you want them. So next after that, all the

(08:40):
students had to pull out a pieceof paper and write down all the
days of the week and under each day they had to map out their
schedule. So school, sports, lessons,
jobs, everything. Then we looked at where the
windows of time might be and talked about attaching practice
to a habit that they already had.
So example, homeschoolers might link it to school work.
I mean, they're already doing school work every day, why not
throw a piano in there? Busy kids might practice right

(09:02):
after their daily snack. You know, you get home.
What's the first thing most kidsdo?
They run to the pantry and they grab a snack.
After the snack, piano practice.I think the hardest part for
students really is just startingand just getting into the
routine. So touching that practice is
something consistent makes it a lot easier.
Then what I had them do is I hadthem pull out their actual

(09:23):
music. Hey guys, let's take a look at
it. What would be your approach at
home? What would you be doing?
You know, we talked about the difference between practicing
playing and performing. You know, if you're just running
through your piece of music three times from start to finish
and you know, check, check, check, bada Bing, bada, boom,
well, is that really practicing or is that playing?

(09:44):
And every time you play for me in lessons, well, that's a
performance, right? How many times have we all heard
of it just doesn't sound like this at home.
It sounds so much better at homethan it does here.
Well, that's because you're hopefully practicing at home,
but here in lessons that is a form of a performance.
And you know, so we talked aboutwhat real practice looks like

(10:04):
finding the tricky spots. How are you supposed to approach
them? What are you supposed to do?
Then after that conversation, I showed them a short video.
I was felt a little bit weird about showing videos and
lessons, but I'm learning that it's not that big of a deal for
my group piano weeks and they often enjoy it and I keep them
very short. I try to find videos that are
like 3 minutes long ish, you know?

(10:27):
But this was a great video. It was about how the brain
builds pathways when we learn something new.
And then we did a quick hands onexperiment.
So we just took a piece of paper, rolled it up, taped it
together. I had holes cut throughout the
paper and then we were dropping beads through it to get from one
side to the next. And so of course a lot of beads

(10:49):
fell through the holes at first,which I explained to the
students, this is when we learn something new.
You're not going to retain all the information, like some of
the information is going to fallthrough.
But the more we repeat it, the stronger that pathway becomes.
And so it's like the holes getting covered up.
And the kids loved seeing that in action.

(11:10):
And then at the very end, I gavethem a chance to be really
creative. We made some abacuses, Abacus
with support Abacus, Abacus, plural Abacus to take home.
So I let them color them. You know, there was lots of
animals and rainbows, but there was also a lot of music symbols
too. So I felt justified that they
were, you know, practicing drawing music symbols.

(11:33):
And this I will put in the show notes.
It came from a blog post, an oldblog post from
composecreate.com. So I'll put that on there.
She lists off the materials and everything.
And I just followed it to AT andit was a hit.
It was really fun. It was creative and it gave
students a tool to remember which practice looks like.
And shockingly enough, they are using them and they're all using

(11:54):
them a little bit differently and that's OK because they're
using them. So that, in a nutshell, was my
practice workshop. And have I seen results from
that practice workshop? Absolutely.
Is that the first time I've talked to my students about
practice and talk to them about how to practice?
No, but it is my first time going in depth with them as a

(12:15):
group and I definitely think it was more effective.
Not to mention we are human and sometimes I think we can just
forget, you know, to tell everybody everything all the
time. There's a lot going on in
lessons. We have a lot that we're
preparing for and just doing in a group ensured that I had
covered it with everyone. Now, I don't pretend to have all

(12:38):
the answers on practice at all, because every student is
different, every studio is different, every studio culture
is different. I mean, just there's a lot of
things that are different, right?
And honestly, I think that this is the most talked about issue
in piano teaching now. Incentives, games, charts, all
of that kind of stuff. I do believe that can help.
I do it. I know lots of people who do it.

(13:00):
We all do it differently. But I believe that our biggest
influence comes from the conversations that we
continuously have in lessons andhelping students set up a
practice time. Clarifying what to practice,
clarifying how to practice, and encouraging them to approach
music differently if they need to each day can make a really,

(13:21):
really huge difference. We can't control the hours, but
we can't control the tools that we give to our students.
So there you have it. Those are my thoughts on
practice. And that was my practice
workshop. I will be sending out my full
practice workshop Lesson plan toe-mail subscribers.
It should already be in your inbox and if you want a copy, go

(13:42):
ahead and sign up. Because if I have done
everything that I am supposed todo at this time of September
2025 should be the freebie that you automatically receive if
you're listening at a later date.
I'm also going to post it on my website.
And before I go, a quick note that an upcoming episode will
feature Doctor Molly Gabrian, who is author of Learn Faster,

(14:06):
Perform Better, and she connectsneuroscience directly to
practicing. And I can't wait to share that
conversation with you when it's ready because her book heavily
influenced my practice workshop and I've been implementing her
strategies. And holy cannoli, you guys, it
is just, I cannot say enough amazing things about this gal.

(14:29):
You were not going to want to miss it.
So until then, keep encouraging your students, keep talking
about practice, and remember youdon't need the perfect system,
you just need the willingness toguide and support.
You guys are awesome and I will talk to you later.
Bye.
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