by Heather Baldwin - July, 2021

Several times a week, students arrive at a lesson and tell me, “I had trouble with . . .” or “I couldn’t remember how to do . . . .” When their struggles are with passages we covered the week before, it doesn’t take too much digging to find the root cause of the problem: In most cases, the student didn’t practice on the days immediately following their lesson.

FHP students know the goal is to practice five days a week. But those five days aren’t all created equal. For beginning students especially, the first three days after the lesson are "can't-miss" practice days. In other words, if the lesson is on a Tuesday, a good, focused practice effort on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is essential to mastering assigned material and making steady forward progress. The other two practice days – wherever they may fall – really just solidify the hard work of these first three days.

I can't emphasize this enough. When students review the material we covered while it's still fresh in their minds, they are able to master it pretty quickly. This leads to practice time feeling increasingly “easier” and more satisfying as the week progresses. Best of all, success feeds on itself: The better students get at playing their music, the more they want to play it. When students miss those first three days, their lessons usually end up repeating much of the material from the previous week.

Believe me, I get the temptation to procrastinate. It's human nature. When the next lesson is a whole week away, it can feel like there's plenty of time to practice "later." For elementary-level students, the problem with waiting until "later" is that by the time the next lesson is looming and they are feeling pressure to open their books, they usually find they can't remember how we worked through difficult or new material. Practice becomes much more challenging and stressful.

The importance of the first three days lessens as students progress into higher levels. But for beginning students, it is the golden ticket to mastery. It’s that “magic pill” every student wishes they could swallow and suddenly be able to play whatever song they are working on. 

One year, I had a student who came in week after week struggling with the same sections in her music. After working together at her lesson, she could play everything. Then she’d come back the following week and we were right back at square one. Each week, she confessed that she had waited until right before her lesson to practice and had forgotten everything. Rinse, repeat. 

One day, she came in, sat down, and performed her entire piece flawlessly. I was speechless. “What did you do differently this week?” I asked. 

She gave me a sheepish smile and said, “I finally did what you told me to do. I went home and practiced the three days after our lesson.” It was that simple.