The piano teacher has 4 essential jobs; to impart knowledge (especially to beginners), to coach the student in the development of their technique and musicality, to inspire them to raise their standards and to teach them how to practise. The last of these is in fact the teacher's most important responsibility. Most of the progress takes place during practice, rather than during lessons.
Practice is the core of the whole process; the process will fail if the student doesn’t practise enough, or practises ineffectively. The main focus of the weekly lesson is assessing the progress made during the previous week's practice and adjusting the goals and strategies for the next. A lesson after a week of ineffective or too little practice loses a lot of value, since by necessity it has to cover much of the same ground as the previous week. Lessons like this are demotivating to the student, even if they are only occasional. Consistent effective daily practice is the key to enjoyment and progress.
Because the effectiveness of the practice - the quality - is as important as practice quantity, I write a unique weekly Practice Guide for each student. The closer they follow it, the better their progress.
I suggest that for solid, not necessarily speedy, progress, the beginner should start at 5 minutes and increase to 20 minutes by the time they are preparing for Grade 1. Then they should increase by 5 minutes per grade; 25 minutes for Grade 2, 40 minutes for Grade 5.
At 75% of these practice amounts, as long as the practice is daily and not squashed into longer bursts twice a week, progress will be slower but will still happen.
At 50% there is not much point in taking lessons.
After Initial Grade standard is reached (Initial Grade comes before Grade 1), most students practising as much as I suggest, assuming they follow my Practice Guides, should be able to achieve roughly a grade a year. The more talented students (those that might eventually be capable of studying music to GSCE or A’Level) could probably progress faster.
Note that between the grades they will be studying much more repertoire than only the three exam pieces per grade.
It is difficult to predict how long it will take for a student to get to Initial Grade. It can be anything from 6 months to 3 years, depending on their age, their natural ability, and to some extent on parental support (more about that below).
Most young students need support from their family simply to get their practice done - establishing routines, reminding daily, even (gently) nagging sometimes. I think it is naive to imagine that all children have enough consistent motivation and self-organisation to do all their practice without any help, even though some do.
Take me, for example. Obviously I always had a very deep love of music and gained a great sense of accomplishment from my music studies, to the extent that I became a professional musician, and yet my parents had to nag me a few times a week to practise, well into my teens!
I believe it is simply human nature to be distracted by whatever is in front of one’s face, and to resist switching to anything that feels even slightly like “work”.
It is hard for younger children to plan their own time and constantly generate mini-goals, which is what a lot of practice is about. I adapt the Practice Guide according to age, but the younger students always benefit from support and feedback during the week, since they might oversimplify or even completely misunderstand the basic practice strategies.
Common misconceptions include: playing once through a piece of music means practice is “done”; playing a scale or a line of music 3 times is “enough” even if it doesn’t improve at all; pausing while playing is bad even if it leads to mistakes; a wrong note needs correcting instantly and then it’s ok.
Because the process has a certain level of complexity I ask parents/carers of all students under 8, and some older students, to check in with them regularly during the week, asking them how they are working towards the goals written in the Practice Guide.
If the student needs more support than just checking in a few times a week, I encourage the parents/carers to sit in on practice sessions on a regular basis, when they are able, and try to guide the student towards the mini-goals, with the help of the Practice Guide.
Some parents/carers understandably suspect they will not be competent to take on this role, but I will always take the time to explain the basics. You really don’t need to know a lot of technical detail to be an effective week-time coach!
I feel it is important to mention that some people who have not learnt a musical instrument to an intermediate or advanced level might have misconceptions about what kind of “fun” practice is meant to be. Music practice is always self-directed goal-oriented "work", even when creativity is deeply involved. It is more similar to hobbies like building things, fixing things or collecting things than it is to team sports, sleepovers or reading Harry Potter. It also has some similarity to solitary sport skills training.
Performance is something else, of course. The experience of performing, whether playing a solo, or performing with others, can indeed feel like absoloute fun. And simply playing through a well learnt piece of music can be a deeply joyful experience, even when no-one is there to hear it.
This is a bit of a warning. Temporarily reducing the amount of practice, for whatever reason, can be surprisingly damaging to overall progress, especially in the beginning stages (before Grade 1). The student instantly senses that they have “stalled”. Not only is this demotivating but I have often seen it quickly lead to unhelpful habits, even after as little as three weeks of disruption.
One serious unhelpful habit is resisting reading the music properly and instead half-guessing what is on the page. Another is spending practice time on familiar music rather than trying to learn any new material. When these new unhelpful habits kick in, the student alarmingly quickly loses their sense of autonomy and competence, even though their knowledge and skills are still there. They perceive learning new pieces as tasks too large for them to cope with, despite my encouraging them to break the task down into small but definite goals while they recover their confidence.
Disruptions like this also break the expectation of the routine of practising, and some students never manage to return to the same level of practice.
I know situations like this can happen through no-one’s fault, but at times of disruption, or when other activities suddenly become too time-consuming, I encourage all children, with their parents’ support, to keep up regular, if shorter, “maintenance” practice until normal schedules can return. This ensures that nothing already learnt is forgotten, while small but noticeable steps of progress continue.