Another Way to do Repetitions

This is a great idea that is perfect for smaller repetitions, like playing a whole piece or large sections of a piece...

Today when we were practicing I felt like my daughter needed to break down her piece into three main parts and practice them 5 times each.  I oversee her practice and help her when she needs it, but she is responsible for doing the bulk of the practicing on her own so this is how we decided to keep track of her repetitions each day.  We put 5 post-it flags on her music and she just moves them for each repetition.  Easy as that.

Enhance Practice with a Cube Timer

Yesterday I shot this quick video during my daughter's practice.  I didn't have time to clean up or do my hair and make-up, it's a raw video, but that is because I had to catch this girl in the moment.  Emma was practicing so well and I went in to check up on her and she had this set up with three different cube timers and a bead counter.  She was practicing spots slowly and over and over and organizing her practice so she could get everything done.  Here it is - it's only 1:15 minutes long.  Enjoy!

Here is another post about the cube timer.

  

Cube Timer Wonder

I've been so delighted with these new Cube Timers that I found recently.  I have had several people request that I put these online and I love how this spices up our practice!

My daughter's teacher just concluded a contest that really helped reinforce smart practicing!  I often roll a die or spin a wheel or just tell my students or children to do an over-and-over spot _____ amount of times.  I often do 10 times per day because I use a bead counter a lot.  If it's a short over and over it may be 20 or 30 times a day.  This contest counted the TIME rather than the repetitions and the great thing about using time instead of the number of times is that the quality of overs and overs is better.

Each student has a cube timer and would practice hard spots in their piece over and over for that amount of time.  My younger daughter only has the attention span to do 1 minute at a time - so we flip the cube to the 1 and it would automatically start a 1-minute timer.  She'd practice her spot for 1 minute and when the timer would go off she'd finish her spot and be done.  (If she needed more time we'd do another minute.)  My older daughter would do her spots for longer - 3, 5, or 7 minutes.  For every minute they did an over-and-over spot they would color in that many numbers on this chart. (5 minutes of overs and overs would be 5 numbers.)  At the end of the summer, every student handed in their charts, and everyone got a prize, but the people with the most minutes got to choose first.

Since the contest finished we have still been practicing using the cube timer almost daily...it's become part of our routine.  My 4-year-old does at least one task for 1 minute using the cube timer each day (this week it's circle bows.)  My 7-year-old uses part of her practice just going over difficult spots in her pieces using the cube timer.  With her I sometimes roll a die to determine how many spots we need to do - and then we do that many spots with the timer.  The biggest success has been with my 11-year-old who practices on her own.  She's using the timer to practice all sorts of spots in her pieces.  Her practicing has gone from playing her pieces over and over to playing spots in her pieces over and over.

What I like most about these cube timers is that they are so easy to use.  I know most timers aren't very hard to use, but it requires pushing buttons and setting or resetting the timer.  With the cube timer, all you have to do is just flip the cube and the timer starts.  There is a digital timer on the bottom if you are curious about how far along you are on the timer.  There is light on the top so you know it's working.

We've been mainly using the 1, 3, 5, 7 timer, but I really like the longer timers as well because you can break a practice session into 15-minute sessions, or use the timer to time the practicing.  I'm also thinking I may use it to time computer time for my kids (30 minutes - no buttons, just turn the timer over.)

Practicing Lots of Pieces

We've been in need of fun practicing ideas at our household this week.  The holidays are here and my kids don't want to practice.  My darling 6-year-old has SO MUCH to practice each day, but her attention span is only good for about 35-45 minutes.  So, we get done what we can in that amount of time.  She's learning to read clocks at school so I tell her where the hand will be and she can be done.  I don't always make my kids practice for a set amount of time - in fact, most of the time we just practice until we're done.  Lately, looking at the clock works for us.

One of the many things she needs to practice at this time of year is CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!  She needs to practice 15 Christmas songs and instead of droning through the list, we made this chart together.  I've assigned each of her pieces a number and she randomly picks a number on the chart and plays the song assigned to that number.  We then put a sticker on the number.  I've offered her a piece of candy when she's finished (hopefully by the end of the week).  Just as simple as that and she's happy to practice her Christmas music again.

You can assign your own pieces 1-15 and play this with your children.  This would be a great way to review!  I also made one for a list of 10.

Find these charts here and here.

Enjoy!

Witches Dance

My 6-year-old is a great player by ear.  You can ask her to play just about any song and she can figure it out.  It cracks me up when she starts playing Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.

This can, however, be difficult sometimes when it comes to polishing pieces.  With Witches Dance in Suzuki Book 2 we went over the tough fingering sections one week and then one day she just played the whole piece - with a lot of "blips!"  I thought this might go away after practicing it, but she still can't seem to play through the whole piece without fumbling up her fingers.  She's never really taught her hand how to play - she just plays it by ear still.

So, we need to do more overs and overs.  I created this chart for Witches Dance.  The piece basically has four different sections (the BOO!, twirling witches, scary witch, and the ending) and she needs to play each section 5 times to fill in a circle.  There might be some sort of reward for finishing the chart - but maybe not.  It's just motivating us to concentrate on smart practicing.

Today we spent a good 15 minutes just on this piece.  It improved SOOOO much and she was even having fun.  I used a bead counter to count each 5 times and then she'd fill in another circle and choose which section to play next.  She was skipping around and ended up playing each section at least 10 times.  In the end, I told her to play the piece through again and she only did one little "blip."  It'll be extraordinary after we finish this chart!  

I can't wait!
(Find this chart here)