More about the "practice habit"

Here are some more ideas...some are more relevant to adults, some more for children.

1. Hopefully your practice area has something beautiful in it to inspire your practicing! There is a window next to my piano that looks out into the woods and sometimes I get to see birds and squirrels playing in the trees. I also have framed pictures of three of my favorite artists/thinkers/philosophers/poets--John Cage, Henry David Thoreau, and Gary Snyder--with some of my favorite quotes by them.

2. This one is for parents--how can you make your kid's practice time "sacred"?

3. Try out different times and practice lengths and know that different things work for different people. The most important thing is that the time that you are at your instrument is really fun and productive. An hour of mindless practicing is not as good as ten minutes of concentrated, mindful practicing.

4. Make improvising, or singing with your piano, or playing older songs you've already learned part of the practice session. This keeps things fun! I personally like to warm up for 5-10 minutes with exercises and scales, go into playing older music for about 20 minutes, and then work on my newer pieces for the remainder of my session.

5. Create small goals for a practice session. These should be reachable yet challenging! For example, perfecting a five measure scale passage a little bit under tempo. Or working toward a better posture on the bench. Or slowing things down a bit rather than plowing through mistakes. Etc.

Hope you like these new ideas!