John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) explain why play in music lessons should come before practice in final installment of their three part series, Play Beats Practice. In this episode, they share practical strategies for educating parents, aligning instructors, and offering measures of progress beyond minutes practiced, including newsletters, handouts, lobby displays, and staff training.
Included:
- Why practice is not only skill-building work like scales and technique, but also experience practice, where play, exploration, and musical engagement count too.
- What to do when parents often expect practice to mean minutes per day, and instructors may not feel equipped to answer questions about how much practice is enough.
- Why we create a reason to quit when placing an emphasis on practice minutes, and parents may assume that if a child is not practicing, they are failing or lessons are not working.
- Instead of defaulting to “20 minutes a day,” how teachers can explain different kinds of practice and point families to other meaningful musical activities.
This episode includes practical ways to explain why play, exploration, and experience-based activities count as practice too. Outlined are simple studio systems for repeating the message clearly, consistently, and in multiple formats so families and teachers can understand it.
Rock School Proprietor is a podcast for independent music school owners and lesson studio operators looking to attract more students and create a sustainable business. New episodes drop Wednesdays at RockSchoolProprietor.com and on all podcast streaming platforms.
————————————–
Your ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast and Spotify are always appreciated!
Join our private Facebook group, “The Modern Music School,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Looking for a simple and effective guitar curriculum that includes FREE instructor training and support? Consider John’s book, Complete Guitar Strumming.
Episode Transcript:
(Please note: This transcript was generated by robots. There may be errors. For the best experience, please listen to the podcast episode.)
John Kozicki (00:01.176)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is John Kazicki.
Mandy York (00:05.772)
And I’m Mandy York.
John Kozicki (00:08.403)
And Mandy, this is our we’re gonna go into part three of our three-part series on practice and sort of redefining practice and really leaning into this idea of play as practice in music lessons and how play should count as practice. And we did an episode long, long ago in the early days of the podcast.
Mandy York (00:28.023)
yeah.
John Kozicki (00:36.691)
Called What Counts as Practice. And we’re reevaluating all of that and sort of breaking it down into a three-part series. So, part one, we discussed why playing music, playing your instrument should count as practice, and how, if we lead with play, what that does is that encourages that more traditional form of practice, which is about
running scales and and perf perfecting technique and and working on those types of things. And we laid out the idea of kind of two types of practice, which is your skill building practice, and that’s what we traditionally think of when we talk about practice, and experience practice. And that is much of what we’re talking about now, like different ways to think about practice and play as practice.
The second episode in the series, we gave 10 examples of play-based activities that should count as practice, and we leaned way into that, those ideas that are exploratory and involve playing your instrument and talking about music and exploring and learning about music that aren’t necessarily logging practice minutes or hours.
and on this one, we’re gonna bring it all all together. So that was a really long intro. Thoughts on any of that stuff before we we sort of position what we’re talking about today.
Mandy York (02:14.709)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (02:21.705)
No, that’s what that’s what’s brought us here, right? These ideas. And I think today we need to talk about the practicality of it. How do we implement this in in our studios, right?
John Kozicki (02:35.218)
Exactly. I think because everything that we’ve talked about is really great from a philosophical perspective. but I think we we have two major hurdles in actually delivering this and executing it. Number one, there’s a really, really long tradition in private music lessons when we talk about practice.
The prescription is minutes per week or minutes per day or something like that. So parents, number one, have that expectation. So our first hurdle is like how do we articulate that to the parents in our studios and really get them on board with this idea and these philosophies that like logging minutes of practice.
while beneficial in certain situations, can also, you know, be a detriment and cause friction. And so getting getting parents to really understand, like, okay, let’s look at these other things that are happening because of these music lessons and position those as important as the logging minutes.
And then we have the instructor side. Now, if if people listening to this are like myself, where or you, where we’ve got other instructors working in our studios, number one, how do we get them on board with these philosophies? And then two, how do we give them the tools to speak with parents of their students in our studio when the parents ask them, well, how much time should we be practicing?
Or how much time should my child be practicing every week?
Mandy York (04:35.233)
Yep. I think that can be that can be difficult for instructors communicat communicating these ideas with parents. And it’s our job to, like you said, to give them the tools and make sure that they’re prepared for that question.
John Kozicki (04:48.996)
Yeah. so I guess first, along that idea of this longstanding tradition of I mean, I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked like how much time should my kid be practicing every week? it’s almost like that it’s this innate thing, like music lessons equal practice. so the
Like how do we you know, how do we
I I’m trying to put this delicately.
If I’m putting it not delicately, how do we tell parents that that’s wrong? And and convince them that there’s there’s more going on. You know, like how do we how do we do that in a way that isn’t off-putting when they think like, well my kid’s taking music lessons, they should be practicing, right? And then we go, nope.
Mandy York (05:29.709)
Yeah.
Mandy York (05:38.807)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (05:53.102)
Right. Yeah. Yes. I totally mm-hmm. Yeah, I totally get this. I I I’m continuously educating parents. We’ve talked about this. Parent education is really important in what I do, what we do. and just to kind of draw a parallel, like parents think that if their child is not
John Kozicki (05:56.155)
Without them thinking like, Wait, what? Yeah.
Mandy York (06:19.077)
actively moving, singing, dancing in my classes, that they don’t like it and they’re doing something wrong. And how do you tell a parent that, nope, you’re wrong. It’s they’re observing. They’re taking it all, right? And you do that, you do that gently, you know, with an understanding that they just, they don’t have all the information that they need. This isn’t their world. You have to educate them. And over time,
John Kozicki (06:25.01)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (06:31.505)
Yeah.
Mandy York (06:49.035)
Right, I think is important. This is something that has to be reiterated and repeated throughout their child’s journey in music lessons.
John Kozicki (06:51.909)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (06:58.65)
Right. And I think for both parents and our instructors, we have to give them a way to sort of see that taking music lessons, studying music, see all these other benefits that are associated with it, s that are are not just like my kid isn’t practicing.
it must not be working, right? They must not like it. Or my kid isn’t practicing. They’re not getting any better. Why are we doing this? Right. And and a big part of why I’m passionate about this is because I feel like that’s a friction point with private lessons, music lessons, is, my kid needs to be practicing or they need to be improving in order for this to be worth it.
And if we’re reiterating that when asked how much time should my kid be practicing, ten minutes a day. You know, it’s giving this metric that’s like only it’s only that, you know, and it’s not considering any other benefits. So go ahead, yeah.
Mandy York (08:15.362)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (08:18.751)
And and if if I could, I’m sorry, if the if the parent sees that j their child is not doing it, then they see their child is failing. Right? And that’s we need to let them know that’s not the case. Sorry, I just wanted to
John Kozicki (08:28.657)
Right.
Yeah, and that doesn’t happen in any other kids’ activities. None. You know, it’s like baseball, dance, theater, whatever. There’s there’s no like logging minutes of practice at home for soccer.
Mandy York (08:39.351)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (08:57.239)
Yep. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (08:57.295)
You know, there’s not this hyperfixation on practice for progress. It like it’s more just accepted that well, this is a good activity for my kid to be in because socialization and exercise and makes them a better person and teamwork and sportsmanship and whatever it is, right? There’s like this
far bigger picture associated with these other activities that we have in music also.
Mandy York (09:36.619)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:38.117)
But when we say, well, they should be practicing, it it’s like it wipes all that away. And it’s just about practice.
Mandy York (09:49.356)
Yeah. I I mean, and how many of us have kids on teams that they’re not the best player on the team, right? How many of our kids just enjoy being there? Right? They enjoy being there, they enjoy the the bit of playing time that they get. And we’re not pulling our kids out because they’re not making the most goals, right? So it’s we this sport is valuable.
John Kozicki (10:00.027)
Yes.
Right.
John Kozicki (10:13.613)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Mandy York (10:18.849)
Because our kids enjoy it and they’re yeah, they’re getting something out of it. But if they’re not practicing, yeah.
John Kozicki (10:23.375)
Right.
Yes. So the idea here is that we want to give and help parents and our instructors visualize like what are these other things that are happening because of these music lessons that we see our students reaping the benefits that have nothing to do with progress, right? That have nothing to do with like, they they’re playing this much more cleanly or they’re like
Playing this faster, or they’re more on on beat, or whatever. You know, like, yeah, those things happen in sports too, but we’re not we’re not evaluating that weekly. You know? So well, so we’ll break this down into like parent education and then talk about instructors and and giving them the tools. So you’re passionate about parent education. So
Mandy York (11:05.079)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (11:23.873)
My take on this is where we’re typically as music schools or music instructors, where we’re maybe failing in executing these these allowing giving our parents other things to see that are benefits other than that idea of practice and progress. we’re not giving them the messages early, we’re not giving them the messages often, and we’re not giving them the messages.
in an on in an ongoing basis. But I will say you’re the exception in that case because I think you do a great job of that.
Mandy York (12:03.283)
I and I I think over the last six months even I’ve stepped this up a little bit. And I I see the benefits of it. And I yeah, it’s been great for our studio. I think like initially, consider this like part of your culture when you’re and I’m just talking about your family, as instructors are a different thing too. There’s a different approach there, but you know, you do a really good job. Like
having phone conversations, giving tours of your facility. Like you can explain your culture of how you what your expectations are as far as practice goes and and what that means and how you’re building whole musicians, not just kids that are gonna spend 20 minutes a day alone, you know, strumming a guitar. so I think that’s what I do at my studio. Now I’m not asking my my toddlers to spend 20 minutes a day practice you they’re not they’re not building a
skill set on a particular instrument. But I think the parallel of like the expectation of how parents think their toddlers should behave in my classes is maybe how I can approach this subject because that’s what I get the most. they’re just not participating. And we’ve talked about this before. Participating looks different in in different kids and lots of things count as participation.
John Kozicki (13:15.631)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (13:30.774)
So yeah, maybe this is a good parallel to to my world versus yours. And giving the giving the parents like a call to action. well like explaining, educating them that participation looks different in different kids and and they are absorbing all the time and your your child is right on track and they’re doing what they they need to do. you know, when you’re at home, make sure you have a dance party in the kitchen. you know.
John Kozicki (13:58.361)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (13:59.852)
Are you singing lullabies at night? That can be a really good bonding experience and the kids pick their favorites and it’s a good way to calm down after, you know, before bedtime. Or, you know, do you have a play along with kitchen instruments? Call to action like that. Like, try these things at home and come back in a few weeks and tell me what what kind of behaviors or differences you’re seeing in your children’s musicality. But
John Kozicki (14:25.912)
That’s that’s a great point. And and I’m glad you mentioned that because as you were saying and I wrote down changing expectations. And I think that like big picture is really what this is. Right now, because of tradition, we have this expectation in music lessons that you have to practice. Right. You sign up for the music lessons and you have to practice, and that is the expectation. And yes, yeah. Right.
Mandy York (14:49.781)
And practice makes perfect. R I mean, there you go. It’s embedded in our culture.
John Kozicki (14:56.886)
Yes. And I think all of this is just about changing those expectations. Not necessarily saying, like, you don’t need to practice, because we’ve had that discussion in in this series and and before. but that is not the only thing. And w like putting everything out there, again, going back to that that that parallel between music and sports.
All of those benefits, like that. I guess we do hear associated with music lessons. kids who take music lessons get better grades in school and they’ll like blah blah blah, and they whatever. Exactly, because what that is what that’s doing, though, also it’s creating more unrealistic expectations, you know. So the the other benefits, like like again, the
Mandy York (15:36.865)
Yeah. Not my favorite. Yeah.
Mandy York (15:45.933)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (15:53.721)
Athletics and dance do so well. teamwork and better human beings and like culturally richer and like activating the creative brain. those things that are harder to measure, but so so important with kids, right? so and I gotta put this out there.
Mandy York (16:13.911)
Yeah. For sure.
John Kozicki (16:20.138)
you had you mentioned I do a really good job in my studio and like quick story, we you know this, but we share w one of the students in in my studio is also a student in your studio and so we share this family. And I had an interaction with their parent earlier this week where they came in and they were like, Whoa, we didn’t get notification about this and you know, what’s going on with this and and I was thinking in my head, well
Mandy York (16:32.205)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (16:50.074)
We sent out the email multiple times. We sent, you know, we gave handouts in the classes. And I didn’t say any of this, but in my in the back of my head, I was like, Mandy does such a good job giving them the information. I’ve got to up my game on this. because they didn’t get it from me, but like maybe their expectations are super high because of your studio.
Mandy York (16:56.941)
Right up.
Mandy York (17:14.393)
man, man. You know, it’s like it’s a little exhausting though, isn’t it? And like, if I’m being honest, a little annoying. But like you have to you have to be so redundant and you have to put this information out in so many places and multiple times. But it’s just the reality. And to me, it it’s worth it because I I want everybody to have have this information however they choose to get it. And and perhaps like that is the
John Kozicki (17:20.152)
Yeah, yeah.
Mandy York (17:43.671)
That’s the issue. Some people want a text message. Some people will never read that text message they want it in an email. So it is what it is.
John Kozicki (17:46.885)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So bringing it back around to like, well, what do you do? Practical, practical ideas. and and this honestly, a lot of this I kind of wrote these down thinking, like, okay, how do I do a better job in my studio with this? And some of these I have already, but some of them I could I could do better and fine-tune. So I got four bullet points for
Mandy York (17:56.994)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (18:16.89)
Parent education around this idea of all these other benefits and what maybe counts as practice or taking that hyperfixation away from the idea of logging minutes for practice. Number one, you can do a website article. You know, you can put an article or a blog on your website. Number two, and this is again, I think where you do a really great job.
regular emails consistently. You know, if you’re I was thinking for my case with our band sessions, we we run on basically like a four month cycle. So creating a sequence, and I you know I can reuse it every four months, but creating a sequence of just regular emails that go out throughout the the the four months and rinse and repeat.
You know, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel because as you said, people aren’t always seeing these, right? So if they saw it once, then okay, they saw it already. But maybe they missed the second one or whatever. so regular emails. I know you do this as well, handouts and flyers in the studio. and then maybe like some brochures. And in the handout for me, I think of handouts and flyers as
Mandy York (19:15.093)
yeah.
John Kozicki (19:43.845)
like printed on like regular paper or maybe like colored paper with like text but not too elaborate. brochures I think make a more of an impact because you get full color and include like infographics and photos and yeah. So those are those are kind of my ideas for parent education and engaging parents in this idea.
Mandy York (20:04.034)
Yeah.
Mandy York (20:10.861)
Mm-hmm. Yep, I love it. I I do these things too. I have like you talk about your like a website article. One piece I really like is a what to expect. What to expect at music time. I give it, whenever when someone comes to visit a class, I give them that. if if someone just signs up blindly for a semester, their first day, I give them this piece.
John Kozicki (20:25.505)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (20:38.665)
I also feed pieces of this information into my classes, though, also, right? Now, I have I have the benefit of having the ear of my families in my class, right? Now, your kids are just you just have students inside the classroom. So maybe it is more beneficial to give them a piece of paper to take to the lobby in hand to their caregiver. but that is posted on the website.
Every new person gets it. And these are kind of basics that I will cover over the first two weeks. don’t fret if your child is not actively singing with us. Don’t fret if your child is on the other side of the room moving freely through the space. Kind of those kind of things. and then the deeper, you know, parent ed pieces, I I have a TV. This is something I I
It’s just another it’s just another thing. But like I see this in a lot of music schools. Well you see it in lobbies everywhere, but I I have a T V in my studio now. with like an Apple T V hooked up to it and I run a slideshow. Do you have a TV in your lobby? You show f you show pictures, right? Yeah.
John Kozicki (21:53.316)
I do.
Uh-huh, photos from although I’ll full disclosure, we forget to turn it on more than than it’s actually on. But yeah, it’s got basically a a slideshow of of of students performing from our our concerts.
Mandy York (22:03.137)
Yeah, yeah.
Mandy York (22:12.351)
Yes. And you do so great like with your photography. I’ve I’ve noticed it in your lobby. Super cool. I do the same thing. I have different slides, slideshows that run through, but interspersed, I’ll I have a slide of like one of my students and then like a s a short parent ed piece next to it. Like, why why we sing songs without words? What is the benefit of that? XYZ. Try this at home. And then the next slide is just a fun
John Kozicki (22:31.407)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (22:39.034)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (22:41.493)
slide or a reminder of dates about an upcoming registration deadline. I like that. and
John Kozicki (22:49.956)
I could see that being useful. I could see that that same strategy being useful as like a series of benefits that aren’t practice, right? Worried about practice? Don’t be. Here’s why. Is your student doing this? Is your student doing this? Is your student doing this? All those things count.
Mandy York (23:05.825)
Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Call to action. Yeah. Tip number one, you could have a whole series and you’ve got you have parents sitting in the lobby. A lot of music schools do, right? Waiting for their students to come out. That’s gonna catch their eye. And then if they’ve you know, if they received this information also on the first day of the new semester, it’s being reiterated again. If it comes in a a newsletter, they’re seeing it there also.
I feel sometimes like I am repeating myself too much. and that makes me a little uncomfortable, but I have I’ve I’ve really started to let go, like I said, within the last six months of revamping how I do some of these things. because just like you with the dad that came into the studio not knowing how to register and missing emails, I’m so surprised how some
John Kozicki (24:06.063)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (24:07.627)
Times parents will say, you know, wow, I didn’t know that And I’ll be like, I’ve been telling you for months, you know.
John Kozicki (24:12.781)
Yeah.
Right. Well so yeah, and and one of the things I wanted to mention and this is like something that I’m guilty of, and this goes back to the idea of you know, creating website articles or blog posts, I know I’ve been guilty of doing the work and putting that stuff out there on the website and then essentially, you know, kind of hoping people find it. And it’s you know, in my mind I’m like, yeah, that’s that’s kinda dumb. Why don’t why not why am I not just
pointing them toward that on a consistent basis, right? It’s the information’s already there. Why am I not just pointing them to it?
Mandy York (24:55.361)
Yep. Yep. I know. Don’t don’t don’t worry about being repetitive. Because and then in the opposite direction, you know, the person that says they never knew this, but then I I’ve been doing weekly emails too. and they’ve been very well received and I’m so pleased with the number of people that will come in and mention something that was in the newsletter. Like awesome, this is great. I’m and like you said, you develop
you know, how many months worth and then you just reuse them, right? You can mix it up a little bit, but don’t remake the wheel. That’s what we’re working on right now is building a library of these articles and yeah, newsletters to put together. It’s great stuff. I think it’s really great. I think the the families find value in that. I I put you can you can go all out with this, but like I put in my newsletters at the bottom
John Kozicki (25:28.961)
Yeah, yep.
John Kozicki (25:33.016)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (25:41.645)
Yeah.
Mandy York (25:54.988)
like local happenings. maybe unrelated to music. There’s a community picnic at the park. There’s a touch a truck event for toddlers. That kind of stuff. So maybe they’re opening the email to get that information and seeing the other stuff, right?
John Kozicki (25:57.288)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (26:12.218)
Mm, that’s a good strategy.
Mandy York (26:14.833)
And but also like you know, maybe music time is having an event or there’s another like music concert for kids. Which I think works for music studios. Hey, check out this band coming up, you know, performing here or this and that.
John Kozicki (26:26.799)
Sure. Sure. All right. So that’s the getting parents on board with this, right? Lots of education, lots of lots of strategies for making them aware of all these other benefits that sort of distract, or I shouldn’t say distract, but build on the idea of what the benefits of music lessons are and like why.
not to focus on hyperfixate on practice. now the next our next hurdle, as I mentioned, is if you have instructors or if you are a solo instructor, even if you are a solo instructor because you don’t have a lot of time between students, right? You got what, a minute? Here’s what we did. Here’s what they should be working on, right? Parent says, hey, how much time should they be practicing? 10 minutes. Bye. I gotta go to my next lesson.
Mandy York (27:21.226)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (27:23.181)
But if you have other instructors in your studio, as I mentioned, we’ve we’ve got to give them the same tools that that we’re trying to give to parents so that we’re a united front. and I think in speaking with instructors, what’s really gonna resonate with them is things that are gonna be a benefit to their own student retention. and I think
We have to have those conversations with the instructors. We maybe have to have staff meetings and explain the benefits to them. But really express that if you answer that question, how much time should my kid be practicing with 20 minutes per day, make sure your instructors know that what you’re really doing is you’re giving your students kind of like this pass-fail scenario.
If and you’re you’re telling the parents that too, right? Because then they go home. If the student isn’t practicing 20 minutes a day, then the parents are like, the instructor said they should be practicing 20 minutes a day. They’re not practicing 20 minutes a day. Why are we still doing this? You know, that’s that’s where this comes from. That’s where like people end up quitting. so explain that to the instructor.
And then give them the tools, right? Give them the tools to like have this conversation. Now the other thing that I know can be frustrating for instructors, because I hear this from some of my own instructors, is I’ll hear them say, that student, you know, they just don’t practice, they’re not progressing, they come in, we do the same thing week after week, right?
And then the instructor doesn’t really like working with that student because they’re not progressing, because they’re not practicing. In that situation, reframing, okay, let’s try and take the focus off of that, because that’s that’s not going to be a good situation for anyone in the private lesson. What are the things that you can do in the lessons besides focusing on progress?
John Kozicki (29:52.931)
that you see the student lighting up about, that you’re having fun working with the student on, like don’t worry so much about that progress. Right? So I think there’s
Mandy York (29:55.798)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (30:06.808)
There’s that retraining or
Maybe not retraining, opening up the perspective with some instructors, you know, because again, this this runs deep. Practice, practice, progress, practice. It’s like decades, centuries old in what we do. so yeah, go for it.
Mandy York (30:15.745)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (30:22.145)
Yeah.
Mandy York (30:28.523)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I felt the I have felt that too as an instructor. The you feel this pressure you know, to see progress, right? Like this is my job and I’m I’m failing as an instructor for not so you just kinda keep pushing. But like you said, reframing or I I like the word like inspire. Instead of pushing that progress, how can you inspire?
John Kozicki (30:43.308)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (30:54.072)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (30:57.805)
What can you do there? Yeah, be creative. Okay.
John Kozicki (30:58.092)
Yeah. Yes. So first I mean I think it’s obvious, you know, well we have those conversations with the instructors. We we educate them on getting them to understand like, okay, there is more than just practice and progress. and then give them ways to answer that question, how much time should my kid be practicing? So that their default is not twenty minutes per day.
Bye, gotta go to the next lesson, you know? and like I’m sensitive to it, you know, we we book those students back to back. There’s not much time. so give them other ways to to answer that question. If you know, we as a studio are like doing what we said we were doing before, articles on the website, handouts, brochures, constant parent education, right?
Mandy York (31:29.517)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (31:57.901)
Give them the tools so that they can say something like, you know what? well, yeah, sometimes practice 20 minutes a bit a day, but like I understand life gets busy. You know, I understand it. So let me give you this handout that explains like here’s some other benefits, right? So that you don’t feel that pressure. The the relief that parents would feel when they hear that also.
Mandy York (32:20.781)
Yeah.
Mandy York (32:24.81)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (32:27.53)
The relief that students are going to experience.
Mandy York (32:27.639)
Yeah.
Mandy York (32:33.047)
When their parents aren’t putting the pressure on them. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
John Kozicki (32:33.399)
I don’t know.
Yes. Yeah. So obviously then you want to have those materials available for the instructors. and and then they they because it is a long conversation, right? And that can open up the door for that conversation so that maybe next time the parents don’t feel so
Mandy York (32:52.279)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (33:03.394)
So much pressure about like, hey, you know, I’ve noticed they’re not really practicing between lessons. How much time should they be practicing? You know, if they’re if they have that information to read given to them by the instructor and it’s presented in a nice way, takes the pressure off of the parent, takes the pressure off the student, takes the pressure off of the instructor, opens up different conversations.
Mandy York (33:24.471)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. We we talked last week too about the different kinds of practice and what you can do as far as asking students to listen to an a new artist or, you know, there was lots of examples that we gave. You know, giving those students a call to action. I think depending on the student and depending on the age, you know, you can say, Hey, share this with your parents. Like try to make your parents part of the process too.
John Kozicki (33:38.081)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (33:53.698)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (33:54.142)
Or when the parents ask you about practice after a after a lesson, you can say like, you know what? We were talking about you know, listening to a new artist this week, or we were talking about he really likes this band. if you could help them, right? Or if you have ideas, that would be great. That would be a great thing for him to do this week. Y so getting them part of the as part of the process too.
John Kozicki (34:14.326)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (34:19.116)
Yes, yes,
Right. And that’s another great example of another answer for that question. So you were referencing the the 10 activities that should count as practice. parent says to instructor, Hey, you know, they’re not really practicing at home. Should they be? How much time should they be practicing their their piano? and then a really quick answer. well, there’s actually different kinds of practice. There’s what you’re talking about is a skill building practice, but let me tell you all about.
Mandy York (34:23.905)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (34:28.194)
Yeah.
Mandy York (34:51.904)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (34:53.258)
experience practice. Let me tell you about all these other things that count. You know, that’s a su again, super quick answers for that question so that the that leads to a bigger discussion. It leads to like educating the families, educating the parents so that they’re not under the misconception that if their students not practicing every week and every day and making progress that they’re failing.
Mandy York (35:20.023)
Mm. Yeah. I I think as a parent too, like hearing that your instructor is getting to know your student, right? And talking about what kind of music that they like and like that that feels good to me, you know. ‘Cause I’ve experienced that with my kids. I’m like, that’s really great that her instructor is helping her explore this. I like that. This isn’t just method book, page one, two, three. Yeah.
John Kozicki (35:29.442)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (35:48.087)
Right. Yeah. And get creative with it. You know, come up with new ways to talk about what you’re doing in your studio. Like this is to me what this speaks to is like like it’s it’s a more holistic approach, you know? And like what a great buzzword to be able to use. Like like, hey, how much time should my kid be practicing? I heard they should be practicing like at least 10 minutes a day. yeah, that’s like old.
Mandy York (35:50.314)
Mm.
Mandy York (36:01.668)
yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (36:15.431)
old beliefs. We do a holistic approach here. Let me tell you all about it. You know what I mean? It’s like, how great is that?
Mandy York (36:18.285)
For sure. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. I think parents would very often be really receptive to that too.
John Kozicki (36:31.434)
Mm-hmm. Okay, well, so let’s bring this one home then. I’m really happy with this series. I think we got pretty heavy and pretty deep on this these ideas of practice. and there’s a lot of great information in these three episodes.
Mandy York (36:45.793)
Yes.
Mandy York (36:51.041)
I really like this too. I think, you know, we got pretty like philosophical, but we gave everyone some really concrete ideas and examples of how to roll these things out. What counts as practice, how to educate. So I I mean when I’m when I’m trying to learn, I always appreciate that. Real life examples. This is good stuff. Nice job, John. Hey hey.
John Kozicki (37:07.555)
Yes.
John Kozicki (37:15.574)
Right. well, nice nice job for you too. and as a final reminder, again, this all kind of stemmed from, I think it was episode four, man, way back, what counts as practice. So that’s worth going back to listen to. and when we released that episode, we we put a a download gu downloadable guide, ten ten activities that count as practice in the resources area of our website. So
Mandy York (37:26.688)
yeah. Yep.
Mandy York (37:39.709)
yeah.
John Kozicki (37:45.708)
Listeners can go there and download that. I I wanna say we even did an episode at one point, how to talk to parents about practice. man, I don’t remember what episode that was, but that’s in the back catalog too. Yeah, yeah. So all great resources to to reframe this idea of practice so it’s not so pass fail, not so focused on logging minutes per day.
Mandy York (37:59.277)
That that was early too. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (38:14.679)
Yep. A more holistic approach, if you will.
John Kozicki (38:17.034)
Mm more holistic approach. Yes. All right. And with that we’ll we’ll wrap this one up and we’ll see you next time.
Mandy York (38:19.221)
Yes.
Mandy York (38:24.088)
Sounds good. Thanks. Bye.
John Kozicki (38:25.731)
Bye.
