Practice makes... Something...

Today I got a piece of news that I love to hear.  A student of mine, a beginning violist, spent something like an hour and a half the other night practicing on her own in her brand new strings book.  She came in this morning and told me she's already done the first 11 pages (the class is still on page 5).  I love to hear that a student is so motivated and willing to push themselves beyond what we are currently working on as a group.  I wish I had more students like that, students who are so eager to learn and do and create that they don't wait for instruction to be given to them; instead they want to blaze a trail on their own and ask for help only when they feel they need it.

Of course, like all things, this comes with a caveat.  While it's great that she is so motivated, I worry about any bad habits she might develop forging ahead on her own.  I also wonder how faithful she is being to proper technique, and how in-depth her practice is going.  Is she actually working out the notes and rhythms to be able to play them correctly, or is she glossing over some things just to get to the end?  Is she focusing on tone quality and a good, characteristic sound, or is her viola just making whatever sound it makes and that's it?

I feel like I need to overhaul my method of teaching students how to practice.  Clearly it does not do to only have one or two students motivated to practice, which is precisely what I am hearing right now (strange, both students whose parents have told me they are extremely motivated are third grade violists...). Practice needs to be something that is both useful and fun, otherwise it serves no purpose.  But how do you get a student to understand that practicing is fun?  And that down the road they will reap benefits that they currently cannot see?  I remember the feeling of standing in my parents' basement holding my brand new trombone in fifth grade and honking away for 5 minutes or so before getting frustrated that I didn't know how to do anything.  I wasn't a strong enough music reader to be able to pick up much from the texts, and I couldn't decipher the more advanced music in our method book.  I tried halfheartedly to pick out a few tunes by ear, but felt like the instrument was too cumbersome to be able to accomplish anything.

I don't want my students to feel that they don't know enough to make the next step on their own.  I also suspect that in a perfect world the motivation to practice and the benefits of practicing go so obviously hand-in-hand that all students grasp the importance of individual work.

Unfortunately, I suspect that so often in this world of standardized testing and group-think that the importance of each group member working out their own difficulties and facing their own barriers is downplayed.  The worst part is that students are avoiding practice because of the things they don't know during a time when the information they need to improve and succeed is more available than ever before.  In a brief search of YouTube I know I can come up with pages and pages of trombone lessons or clarinet lessons or violin lessons.  I'm fairly certain we can even find lessons on the serpent or ophicleide if we wanted.

But do students know this?  And more importantly, do they understand the incredible power that can give them?  Granted, watching internet videos, no matter how hi-def and in-depth, will never replace having a good teacher; the hands-on supervision of a lesson or ensemble can't be duplicated by the internet.  I find myself thinking that maybe my practice focus needs to shift on teaching students not only how to play and how to practice, but also how to find guidance and inspiration outside of class. If I can get a handful of students each year to find inspiration to work on their own who wouldn't otherwise do so, that would be a major victory.

I wish someone had told me just how much I could accomplish on my own with the right tools when I was in elementary music.  I can't help but wonder where that might have taken me.

Thoughts?