7 ‘Shockingly’ Simply Ways To Ensure your Child Succeeds When Learning Piano Online

While online courses continue to increase in popularity, one thing I continue to hear from parents is that keeping kids motivated is very difficult. 

Many parents’ themselves have confessed that they don’t have enough discipline to keep their kids engaged in the courses they start and thus, what is started is often never completed. 

So in today’s post, I thought it is best I address these concerns and give you some tips on how you can help increase your child’s success rate when learning to play an instrument with an online course. 

Create A Routine 

I simply cannot stress the importance of this enough. 

If you don’t create a routine and make this a habit, it will never stick and your child will never complete what he starts. 

So the first step is to carve out at least 10 minutes a day, every single day for practice. You will need to carve out more time for more advanced levels. 

Besides the time for practice, also carve out an additional 20 – 30 minutes once a week to introduce/learn new material. 

Once you carve out the time, schedule it into the calendar and stick to it. 

When carving out the necessary time, make sure that it is around the same time everyday and that even on the busiest of days, you can still make it work. 

Learn With Your Child/Be A Facilitator

Research indicates that parents who learn and are highly involved in their children’s education often get better results from their efforts. 

If you are a homeschooling parent, you no doubt agree with me on this.

So why do many parents opt to take the ‘hands off’ approach when it comes to music?

Learning to play an instrument is no different from any other subject. So be involved. 

If you have never learned to play an instrument in your life, then learn along side your child. 

Don’t know, where to find such a course? Why not try out my Free Piano Lessons, where I will  teach you (even though you may never have learned to play an instrument in your life), how to teach your child to Read Music Notes, and Play the Piano in 5 Days. 

Celebrate The Smallest Victories

Don’t be highly critical of your child. Even if she is only able to play a single bar of music without a mistake, celebrate it and encourage her to keep progressing. 

If she is frustrated that she is making mistakes, assure her that ‘a person who has never made mistakes, has never made anything’, so the fact that she is making mistakes is a good thing and that she will be able to play mistake free, very soon, provided she doesn’t give up. 

KISS (Keep It Short and Sweet)

When I tell parents that piano practice or practicing any musical instrument for that matter should be very short, they gasp. 

Honestly though, it is very important that you keep it very short (ten minutes or less) for beginners and young learners. More advanced and older learners should practice for twenty minutes or less. 

The reason for this is that, short spurts make it manageable. It is not overwhelming to parent nor child.

It goes by quickly. It is not daunting, and most importantly it keeps them hungry to learn, excited and wanting more. 

Besides all of the above, short daily practice sessions produce better results than a three hour practice session once a week. 

Let Your Child Teach You

If you opt to learn with your child, then always encourage her to teach you. 

Not only does this help with retention, but also will give your child immense confidence and she will love the learning process, because now she’s teaching mom and feels really ‘cool’.

Celebrate The Failures

Even though this may sound counter intuitive to you, please hear me out. 

A child that can recognize the mistakes, when playing an instrument is a child whose musical ear is developing. It also means her sight reading is improving. 

So even though she may have made a mistake, she is developing her skill and that is a cause for celebration, not frustration. Tell her that and encourage her to continue. 

Track Progress

Being conscious of the progress that is made will help to build confidence in your child. It will show your child that hard work pays off and most importantly it will help her to build on her success. 

So tracking progress and patting her on the back for getting as far as he has gotten is very important. 

In conclusion it is important to note that if you are unable to put all the above tips into practice, at least begin with one and then continue to add more as you go along.