I Hate to Practice!
By Dr. Haruko Kataoka
No piano student likes to practice very much. Actually, there is no child in the entire world who likes practicing. They all wonder why they have to do it. Parents all wish that their child would start practicing on his or her own, if even just once. Among various unpleasant types of piano practice, the one which is most hated by students is having to repeat short sections with one hand hundreds of times.

All children tend to play piano pieces from beginning to end, laboriously, with hands together unless a teacher is teaching them exactly how to practice. Long ago I was the same way as a child. When I was told to practice, I too just played my pieces over and over with hands together. Because my teacher had not shown me how to practice, I spent only short amounts of time practicing in short sections, and this only when I was just learning a new piece. But at least when playing hands together, whether the performance is any good or not, one can at least enjoy the wonderful music and harmony of the piece. It is very different from enduring the monotonous work of repeating a single phrase over and over. Yes, truly, all children hate to practice!

However, without exception, they all love music!

Human beings have their Left Brain for knowledge and the Right Brain for sensibility. In recent times, academic education, coupled with the overflow of information in our daily lives, takes care of our need for knowledge without any extra effort. For the Right Brain, however, since our body must learn through feeling, we need repetition and practice regardless of how intelligent we may be. It is said in Japan that the child's music lesson should begin on the sixth day of the sixth month in the child's sixth year. Dr. Suzuki said that waiting until age six is too late. Education of a child should start when the baby is still in the mother's womb.

Therefore, when a child starts studying piano he or she must make a habit of doing the unpleasant practice of small sections from the very beginning. Effort put into doing this will become immeasurably useful tools for the child's life. One can obtain the basic of the basics only with the correct repetition of the simplest element. These basics include the abilities of patience, effort, concentration, etc.

Throughout my long teaching career I have witnessed so many children who have been brought up in different ways. These can be divided into two groups.

In the first group there is a strong-minded mother [or father, ed.] who supervises the children's practice and understands what the teacher is teaching during the lesson. She makes her child practice every day, strictly adhering to what the teacher has asked, with patience. This child is lucky. The small child does not have a desire to choose, either a good or a bad way. That is why the child needs an adult who has a desire to choose a good way.

But children who were obedient in the beginning, start to get rebellious when they get a little older. By the time they are in late elementary school or junior high school they begin to refuse to let parents help them practice. They no longer listen to you, and they refuse to practice any longer in reaction to having been obedient since the age of three. However, interestingly they do not want to stop taking piano lessons either, because they like music by then. When this happens, the teacher should understand the student's situation and keep giving enjoyable lessons to them no matter how little they practice. It is now the adults, parents and teachers, who must have patience. If we continue patiently to try getting along with them, they start practicing again, suddenly from their own desire, as they reach high school or college.

It is at this time that the basics, which have been accumulated with the help of parents in early childhood, make piano playing truly enjoyable. If a student has solid basics, even after a period of time with no practice at all, playing difficult pieces with ease is possible. Whenever I witness this phenomenon it makes me so very happy. And the mother who made the effort for her child is happy also.

The second group of children have parents who are so busy with their own work that they cannot supervise adequate practice. Teachers must go slowly in such cases. Parents in this situation should not be hurried when they absolutely cannot find time for practice, even if you think they are lazy. The teacher should not give a lukewarm lesson because the student has not practiced. The teacher should teach every student important basics with great care.

It is all right even if the student does not move forward. Encourage the child that their time will come. Please make it a habit for the child to play the piano even if the parents are never at home. Make an effort to have the children listen to recordings. Create opportunities for the child to perform on the stage several times during the year. Interestingly, even though children hate to practice, they like concerts for various reasons. I think they like the sense of achievement when they perform well.

Although they all come from different home environments, children grow up and identify with music. At the same time they have developed patience, effort and concentration through their unpleasant practice. The practice is painful. It is natural for children to hate it. It is not necessary for them to like it. However, adults have to make the child do distasteful practice with love and effort to raise that child to become a fine adult.


Translated by Ken Matsuda
Edited by Dr. Karen Hagberg
Hard Copy Cartoons Illustrated by Juli Kataoka
From Matsumoto Piano Newsletter
Volume 10, Number 8, 2000