 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Jane
Date: 1999-03-30 01:08
My 10-year-old daughter is in her first year of playing the clarinet. She, as so many other kids do, simply hates practicing. (So did I at her age and up!) She is in her first year and she is very good, but she doesn't think she is. She's ahead of the other 5th graders - I think she's probably playing at least at a 7th or 8th grade level. Any advice out there from other young people who have hated to practice and now love it? She doesn't realize what a wonderful gift she has and that it shouldn't be wasted. What has/hasn't worked for others out there?
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-03-30 01:55
As a reward, get her books that have tunes she likes in them. Your local store will often have books for the various instruments (such as clarinet), that will have Disney music or pop tunes in them. I don't remember all the books that I have bought for my kids but I know that I have gotten ones for The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, and Hunchback of Notre Dame.
If you play an instrument, play along with her (but NO critiquing). The ones I mentioned (and others) are available in a wide range of instruments so if you are/were a flutist for example, you could get the clarinet version for her and the flute version for yourself and make beautiful music together.
With my older daughter, I was able to "trick" her. I'ld tell her that if she would just go practice for 10 minutes, I'ld let her stop for the day if she wanted to. But guess what, she'ld get so wrapped up in her playing, I'ld have to go up a half hour or hour later and tell her to stop when I could hear her embouchure give out (I play clarinet myself so I could tell when she was done in). However this doesn't work with the other daughter.
My younger one likes to play duets with me though so I try to pick something that will give her a bit of a challenge compared to her school stuff but not so hard that she wants to "bail out".
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Author: Ginny
Date: 1999-03-30 01:59
One of my friends relates that her now 17 yo son, thanked her for making him practice and informed his younger brother that she had been right. He plays beautifully and wants to major in jazz clarinet in college. Mom says no, however.
I get my kids to practice in several ways (10 and 13.) First, they get out of chores to practice(table setting and clean up afterwards.) Second, I have a limit on TV and ninetendo of 5 hours per week. Except you can earn time by reading or practicing. I also make sure that it is scheduled for a specific time each day (after dinner, for a few minutes and one evening per week additional.) We have a family band and I transcribe tunes they like (ninetendo) and they write videogame like music for our band as well as some easy classical arrangements and folk music.
But I want to hear from Mark C. and some of the younger posters.
Ginny
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 1999-03-30 17:26
When I had just started to play 5 years ago ( I was 9 ), I also hated to practice. But after about 2 years I loved it. In the period that I didn't want to studie, I really hated it when my mom forced me to. And then I hated it much more to play. So don't force your daughter to play!. That absolutely doesn't work.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-03-30 20:51
Ginny wrote:
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But I want to hear from Mark C. and some of the younger posters.
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Love being lumped in with the "younger posters" :^)
I never had to struggle with any of my children to practice (3 kids). I think one of the reasons was that I started piano lessons as the same time as the first kid, and practiced during my "slot" every day. All the kids saw me struggle and wishing I didn't have to practice, too, so I think they figured that since I stuck with it, they coukld too.
I dropped piano when I started the clarinet, but I practice just about every day on the clarinet now. My kids don't have a real excuse not to practice (they know I'm even busier than they are), so I get no arguments.
Out of this has come a young clarinetist (and pretty accomplished pianist) ready for college, a high school freshman who is rapidly becoming an accomplished classical pianist (he makes side money by being an accompaniast for others during S & E competitions) & jazz trumpeter (he's the only freshman in the Jazz I band, normally reserved for junior & senior musicians), and a 4th grader who's piano playing is actually enjoyable to hear - and who's thinking about playing clarinet :^)
I don't expect the kids to become musicians (well, the younger two, anyway) but they'll have a lot of fun with music their whole lives - and if they want to become musicians, I'll encourage them in any way I can.
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Author: Marty J
Date: 1999-03-31 02:14
I think that kids who are perfectionists sometimes "hate to practice" What they really hate is making mistakes and not being great the first time a lesson is put in front of them. I tell my kids to "love your mistakes" and be able to laugh at them. How else do we learn?. Besides, they have to listen to me practice, and they can get a lot of laughs out of that.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-03-31 02:24
Marty J wrote:
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I think that kids who are perfectionists sometimes "hate to practice" What they really hate is making mistakes and not being great the first time a lesson is put in front of them. I tell my kids to "love your mistakes" and be able to laugh at them. How else do we learn?. Besides, they have to listen to me practice, and they can get a lot of laughs out of that.
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I think there may be a lot of truth to this. I once read about a study where they took students who were having difficulty in composition class and put them on computers (this was before computers in the classroom were so common). They found that once the kids did not have to deal with messy papers resulting from erasing and striking out things they wanted to change, the quality of their work shot up. They could make all the changes they wanted to and then have a nice, clean, perfect looking paper. Prior to this, they wouldn't edit or correct their first attempts because they didn't want to produce a messy looking paper.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-03-31 02:34
Another aspect of some students being perfectionists is the experience that I had with my older daughter. I really would have like to play duets, etc with her. But she was uncomfortable with the fact that I played much better than she did. She did not want to risk making a mistake when playing together with me (but it didn't bother her with her teacher). I tried to assure her that it was just for fun but still no luck. Even when she got to where she played really well, she wouldn't risk it.
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