How to get students to practice.
You can't.
When I taught a full roster of piano students, I rarely had an issue with practice.
How?
Well, I never asked my students if they practiced. I never needed to. For students reading this, spoiler alert: we always know if you practiced.
In my mind, that's not what I wanted to know anyway.
Instead, I would ask some variation of, “What are you working on?”
That's what I really wanted to know, and that question allows for unexpected answers that indicated that, indeed, they were practicing—just not on what I assigned.
I can't tell you how many times students shared videos they worked on with friends, or band rehearsals in basements, or mastermind groups converging over mixing boards.
Sometimes they were working on projects that were far more complex than what I was assigning, yet the thing I was assigning usually was exactly what they needed to strengthen a phrase or get a handle on trills or get that harmony right. When I'd discover these connections—wow. Amazing. The teaching was electric because the student could see in real time how something written 175 years ago can help him with his mix.
Asking, “What are you working on?” also primes their mind. They begin to assume that I am assuming they're doing something artistic and I'm down to know what's up. You know from your own experiences; when your teacher is excited about your work, you work harder and more intense and with greater purpose without even realizing it because you want that elevation from your instructor.
Same.
So, knowing what I know about neuroscience, socioeconomics, the human life span and the psychological phases therein and having taught for a bunch of years, I can tell you:
You cannot make anyone practice. Motivation comes from within.
There is absolutely nothing you can do to get anyone to do anything freely. I mean, you can make your kid practice four hours a day, and they’d be great pianists—we see it all the time—but are they happy? Are they inspired to do so, or forced by someone else’s agenda? What're we talkin’ about here?
Instead, you can liken the process to planting seeds. When you plant a seed, you can't make the seed grow. But you can provide the necessary components to help it grow, like soil and water and sunshine and love. Similarly, creating a learning attitude and environment that inspires the student to grow ought to be the focus. That's what makes students want to go home and work on stuff.
We teach this to teachers.
