THE PIANO
PRACTICE COACH

Here is the step by step guide our coaches use when they start a practice session with your child.

Step 1: Smile

Make sure to greet the student warmly. If you are friendly and kind, the student will feel more at home, and more ready to learn.

Step 2: Determine What the Student was Assigned.

Usually piano teachers will have given their students an assignment through a notebook or an app. It will look something like this:

• Repertoire: Minuet in D minor, page 10 Please note the phrasing.
• Technic: G major scale, hands together. Even tempo
• Sight reading: Page 12-24. Consider the key signatures

Teachers can use our platform free of charge and input the students assignments directly. If this is the case, you will see the assignment from their dashboard.

If not, ask the student for the information.

Step 3: Determine the Goals

The next job is to determine the goals the teacher has set. Teachers usually have a goal in mind for their student that goes beyond their assignment. The assignments are a means to an end to teach more important musical concepts and abilities.

So the goals from the assignments might look like this:

Repertoire

• Goal: Instinctively play notes under a slur legato

Technic

• Goal: Eliminate tempo fluctuations from scales

Sight Reading

• Goal: Develop muscle memory for G and D major key signatures.

Once again, teachers can input goals directly into the piano practice coach platform so that you will be able to see them from your dashboard. If teachers haven’t done so, try to glean this from the assignments above and conversation with the students, then input these directly.

Once the goal(s) have been determined, move on to step 4.

Step 4: Determine the Tactics.

Coaches will now assign the best tactics to reach those goals. These are the tools and techniques that are employed to make progress.

We’ll add tactics to the above example:

Repertoire

• Goal: Instinctively play notes under a slur legato
• Tactics: sing “smooth” for all notes under the slur, then “up” when a slur is complete

Technic

• Goal: Eliminate tempo fluctuations from scales
• Tactics: play using the metronome at a wide variety of tempi

Sight Reading

• Goal: Develop muscle memory for G and D major key signatures
• Tactics: Play 2 pages of the Sight Reading book per day, circling the sharps ahead of time.

Sometimes students will come up with other tactics, or other ways of reaching the assigned goals. Encourage this. Students who are able to generate their own ideas for improvement will be able to make good progress even after they have discontinued formal lessons.

Step 5: Observe the Practice Session

Ask the student to play each section of their assignment in order, and observe the student.

Do not correct every mistake you hear, simply ensure that the students are actively employing the appropriate tactics for each goal and correct mistakes that may prevent the student from reaching their goal. The following examples show mistakes that may require immediate correction:

Repertoire

• Goal: Instinctively play notes under a slur legato
• Tactic: sing “smooth” for all notes under the slur, then say “up” when a slur is complete

Some mistakes that may require immediate correction:

G major scale

• Goal: Eliminate tempo fluctuations from scales
• Tactic: play using the metronome at a wide variety of tempi

Some mistakes that may require immediate correction:

Sight reading

• Goal: Develop muscle memory for G and D major key signatures
• Tactic: Play 2 pages of the Sight Reading book per day, circling the sharps ahead of time.

Some mistakes that may require immediate correction:

Ask the student to repeat the exercise until the required time limit for that portion of the practice session is complete, or if the student completes the assigned goal (step 5 below), whichever comes first.

Step 6: Assess Goal Completion (Verification)

An important step is understanding whether the student has achieved their goal. The step of verification answers the question: How do we know we’ve achieved the goal? Examples of verification have been added to our sample student:

Repertoire

• Goal: Instinctively play notes under a slur legato
• Tactics: sing “smooth” for all notes under the slur, then “up” when a slur is complete
• Verification: Student play piece two times in a row without major phrasing errors

Technic

• Goal: Eliminate tempo fluctuations from scales
• Tactics: play using the metronome at a wide variety of tempi
• Verification: Student play scale two times in a row and ends on correct beat

Sight Reading

• Goal: Develop muscle memory for G and D major key signatures
• Tactics: Play 2 pages of the Sight Reading book per day, circling the sharps ahead of time.
• Verification: Student plays 16 measures of an unseen piece without key signature errors

Keep an ear out for signals that the student has completed the goal. Once you verify completion, click the "completed" button next to that particular goal.

3 minutes before the end of the practice time, conclude the session.

Step 7: Conclusion:

Commend the student. If the student has completed goals, let them know. Thank them for their hard work. Effort should be praised. We don’t tell students that they are good, we tell them have done good work (if it’s true) and we appreciate the effort they have made.

It’s best to point to specific examples of where they have made progress. If we note any area where they employed the assigned tactics (or tactics they used without being assigned), please let them know you have noticed and value their effort. Point out any positive results they have achieved even if it did not result in an achieved goal.

Review uncompleted goals. At the end of a practice session, there will likely be uncompleted goals. Review these with the student and make sure they understand what the goal is and how to employ the tactics.