Are you looking for practicing incentives?  Are you finding it hard to practice for yourself or your student on a daily basis? 

One of the best ways to keep practicing consistent is to make it part of the daily routine. Dr. Suzuki would say, "only practice on the days you eat!" as an easy way to remind parents that daily practice is essential. Finding the same time in the day to complete practicing will ensure not only that it will happen, but make it easier for you and for your child to know when practicing will happen. This results in less resistance.  As a parent, when my two children were young, we would practice after teeth brushing and pajamas.  As two working parents, this was the time that I was most focused on the children. Yes, at that point children are tired, but also they could sense that I was more relaxed at that time of day.  Practicing was a way for them to procrastinate having to go to sleep.  It was also a natural time to turn on the recording for the kids to listen to right after having played the pieces in their practice. When I was out of town, I would call home before bedtime and listen to them play their violins over the phone. 

A friend of mine would get up regularly at 6:30 am and practice with the children before school. Because so many different activities would happen after school and evenings were not always times when she would be home, this was their best solution.  For others, I have recommended immediately upon getting home. When you walk in the door, take off your coat, you wash your hands and you get out your instrument to practice. Another suggestion is to break up the practicing into two or even three small sessions. This might be easier to handle and certainly can lead to better focus for these shorter periods of time.

For those that follow a routine or those that don't, special projects can be a special way to create new enthusiasm for practicing.  For this, we are holding a school-wide PLAYATHON 2023. This is going to be ten-days of special practicing goals followed by a performance celebration at The Shops at Chestnut Hill on March 26th, 2023 from 12 noon to 6 pm.  Similar to a marathon race, we use the event as a way to publicly acknowledge the effort by the participant AND we are seeking charitable donations towards supporting need-based music scholarships at the Suzuki School of Newton. We will have special prizes for students, and the performance is in a location that is out of the ordinary which makes it extra fun.  Your excitement and enthusiasm makes it an additional incentive in inspiring the student to feel that making music can make a difference to others.

Sign-ups will start mid-February and students will decide with their teacher their practicing goal for the ten days from March 16th to March 25th. You will also sign up for a performance time on Sunday, March 26th. Because it involves the whole school, we will be providing 6 hours of continuous music, and we will have both individual solos and groups performing. 

Fun ideas like these help to build our school spirit, but also to lift our own spirits to get involved in the community!  I hope you all will join us on March 26th for the Playathon 2023---and feel free to invite friends and neighbors to come listen to our music, shop, or go out to eat on our Playathon Day.

Sachiko