McPherson, G. E., & Davidson, J. W. (2002). Musical Practice Mother and Child Interactions During the First Nine Months of Learning a Musical Instrument. Music Education Research,

Music Education Research, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2002

Musical Practice: mother and childinteractions during the rst year of learningan instrument

GARY E. MCPHERSON & JANE W. DAVIDSON, University of New SouthWales, Sydney, Australia; University of Shef eld (Email: [email protected]) ;Music Department, University of Shef eld, 38 Taptonville Road, Shef eld S10 2TN,UK (Email: j.w.Davidson@shef eld.ac.uk)

ABSTRACT Mother and child interviews were analysed for a group of 157 beginninginstrumentalists aged 79 during the rst year of their learning. The purpose was tostudy interactions in terms of the quantity and content of the childrens practice, themothers support and supervision of home practice, the relationship of previousexposure to learning an instrument and consistency of practice, and differences inexpectations and practice habits of children who ceased instruction compared to thosewho continued learning. The childrens mothers were able to make accurate assessmentsof how much support they would need to provide for their child even before instructionbegan. Mothers who reported that they were worried about practice before their childcommenced lessons were more likely to have children who ceased instruction. Childrenwho ceased learning typically had unrealistically high expectations about how muchpractice they would undertake even before commencing lessons. After they started, andthe reality of learning set in, they also consistently undertook less practice than theirpeers who chose to continue. Implications for future research are discussed based on theresults of the study.

Introduction

The consideration of the acquisition of new skills and the sustaining of progress in thoseskills over long periods of time are important areas for research into learning, and musicis no exception. A number of studies have investigated signi cant in uences upon thelearning process in music, including the choice of instrument (Fortney, Boyle &DeCarbo, 1993), the age and sex of the learner (Sergeant, 1969; Shuter-Dyson &Gabriel, 1981), the gender association between learner and musical instrument (ONeill

ISSN 1461-3808 print; ISSN 1469-9893 online/02/010141-16 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1461380022011982 2

142 G. E. McPherson & J. W. Davidson

& Boulton, 1995), and the learners personality (Kemp, 1996). Some of these factors arespeci c to music, whilst others, such as internal versus external motivation for learning(Sloboda & Howe, 1991), the learners self-ef cacy (Dweck, 1986), and the childsrelationship with teacher, parents and key others (Davidson, Howe, Moore & Sloboda,1996, 1998) have implications stretching beyond the learning of a musical instrument tothe childs all round intellectual development.Of the skills required to learn a musical instrument, no single factor appears to

dominate the current research literature. What can be said is that a wide range ofintrapersonal and environmental factors is involved, and that sustained musical involve-ment will only occur when certain conditions are met. One of the most important is theparent or guardian, who is a critical motivator of practice (Hallam, 1998; Davidson etal., 1996; McPherson, 1993). Obviously, there are other key individuals who canin uence the child: instrument teacher, class teacher, ensemble conductor, but here it isour intention to focus on the music practice that goes on at home; therefore, we wish toinvestigate the nature of the relationship around music practice between parent and child.Since the children involved in our study tended to come from traditional family unitswhere mothers were the primary carers, we decided to focus on the relationship betweenmother and child.It is self-evident that some children who begin instrumental lessons will give up while

others will go on to become competent performers. A longer-term aim of our large-scaleresearch, therefore, is to trace the children we are currently studying over an extendedperiod of years to establish how and why some achieve competence while others do not.The current study focuses on the initial and we believe critical rst stage. We focus onwhat occurs in the rst academic year of learning (9 calendar months), since this appearsto be a time in the learning process during which the initial novelty for learning aninstrument diminishes and children begin to form a more sophisticated understanding ofthe effort needed to sustain their own progression.Methodologically, there have been a number of approaches towards isolating the

factors associated with successful learning, with Davidson, Howe and Sloboda (1997)using retrospective accounts of successful young musicians biographies. McPherson(1993, 1995; McPherson, Bailey & Sinclair, 1997), by contrast, looked at the real-timeachievements of children aged 1018 years and examined the skills employed by eachchild and compared this with the level of performance attained. From our knowledge ofthese different approaches, we have decided to use real-time reporting of the learningprocess in order to gain access to mother and child interactions during the very beginningstages of musical learning.Examining the outcomes of different research studies, we have concluded (Davidson

& McPherson, 1998) in relation to the parent, that a child has more chance ofexperiencing success if exposed to an environment involving the following conditions:

1. A non-threatening home environment in which experimentation with music ispossible;

2. Frequent and regular practice sessions in which activities are clearly supported by theparent; and

3. The childs display of an initial enthusiasm for beginning (such as to keep up witha friend) evolves into an internal desire to continue as engagement with musicalactivity develops.

Of course, the childs internal drives and personality have roles to play here, and it seemsprobable that a conscientious and well-motivated child, supported in an encouraging

Musical Practice 143

atmosphere, will be at an advantage in acquiring musical skills. Conversely, a child whois largely unsupported, and has begun instrumental lessons with unrealistic expectations,is unlikely to meet with the same degree of success. In fact, of the existing literature, fewstudies focus on the initial period of learning, a critical phase in securing positiveattitudes and successful strategies in order for musical development to be sustained. Thework of ONeill (1996) is an exception, as she studied a cohort of children for the rst9 months of their instrumental lessons. She found that children who displayed a failureorientation did less well after 9 months of instrumental instruction than children whodisplayed positive behavioural attributes to failure and success. So, in addition to socialsupport, more xed attributes like personality could contribute towards the childs desireto begin and persist with music learning.The study undertaken here is unique because it looks at children who are starting to

learn at the same age (79 years) and on the same family of instruments (brass andwoodwind). Also, all the children in the study are from similar socioeconomic back-grounds, principally middle class, and receive similar kinds of individual and groupinstruction as they are all part of a bands programme in eight different primary schoolsacross the Sydney Metropolitan area.

Methodology

The current study is part of a much larger 3-year project undertaken at the Universityof New South Wales, Sydney, and the University of Shef eld, where the rst 3 years oflearning an instrument in eight different school instrumental programmes is being traced.A total of 157 children were surveyed through structured questions in the form ofinterviews, musical tasks and tests undertaken with the learners, their parents, teachers,band conductors and classroom teachers. During the rst 9 months, the children weresurveyed immediately before commencing instruction and then again 9 months later.Each childs mother was interviewed around the time the child was given an instrumentand then approximately 1, 3 and 89 months after their child began formal instruction.Music and classroom teachers were interviewed 9 months after instruction began andadditional data were collected by analysing the childrens school records and informationsupplied by their classroom teacher. The interviews with the children and their motherscovered a broad range of topics, but those considered here are directly related to practiceactivities undertaken in the home.

Results and Discussion

Reported Practice

In previous research studies practice undertaken by children has often been self-reportedin the form of practice diaries (Sloboda, Davidson, Howe & Moore, 1996), and generallyspeaking the parents have been found to corroborate the quantities of practice undertakenon the childrens practice record or estimate. The agreement between the two partiescould be because the children had been playing for some time and had a realistic viewof time. In the current study we felt it was important to see whether children at the startof practice could predict or indeed estimate how much practice they were undertaking,therefore comparisons with parental estimates were perceived as being critical to theresearch.


As part of the information supplied before the study commenced, mothers were toldthat they would be asked questions concerning the practice habits of their child. Insubsequent interviews, the mothers were asked how many days the child had practisedin the last month, and how many minutes the child had practised during each session.Individual daily practice averages ranged from no practice up to 30 or more minutesevery day, with a typical description reported by the mother as: Fifteen minutes fourtimes a week. However, we found a signi cant difference between what the childrensaid they were doing in our private interviews and what their mothers reported [t-testsigni cance level, p , 0.0001]. Even after 9 months of learning the childs estimate oftheir own average daily practice was 11.04 minutes (SD 5 7.33), as opposed to themothers estimate of 6.82 minutes (SD 5 6.78). This nding has several critical implica-tions:

The children studied here did not have a realistic understanding of time as a concept.Indeed, in this study all children were 79 years old and just at the point when theywere beginning to develop a clear concept of time. Therefore, it could be that previousresearch has actually overestimated the practice children do because parents havesimply agreed with a practice record, rather than actually stating how much and howoften they heard/saw their child practice. In addition, our interviews with the childrenand analysis of their practice videos (McPherson & Renwick, 2000) also revealed thatthe childs concept of practice was much broader than their mothers. The childrenincluded in their estimation the time it took to set up beforehand and pack up theirinstrument afterwards, whereas the mothers were more consistent with reporting theactual time spent playing. Because of the variability in the mother and child reports, in the current study we havedecided to rely on the mothers estimates of practice. Indeed, in one extreme case wehad a child reporting that he was doing up to 3 hours of practice a day, when hismother reported that he was doing no more 20 minutes.

Quantity and Content of Practice

The childrens practice was often undertaken in their bedroom or the family lounge, andusually after school, or immediately before going to bed. The content of the childrenspersonal practice was very standardised across schools, teachers, parents and instru-ments: playing through a small number of scales or other technical exercises, playingthrough some simple solo repertoire and then playing through selected band pieces.Interviews with the instrumental music teachers revealed that the standard advice aboutpractice given to the students was to work for 1520 minutes, 5 days in the week, andthat this should consist of repeating pieces and exercises until a degree of uency wasreached. However, our separate analyses of the childrens practice videos reveals that,typically, they had no practice strategies other than simply playing the piece throughwithout any other strategy being used (Pitts, Davidson & McPherson, 2000). In fact,about 90% of practising time was spent playing through a piece or exercise only oncebefore moving on to the next assigned work (McPherson & Renwick, 2000). At thisearly stage, if the play-through is the major individual practice style, then perhapsquantity of practice could be a critical determinant of progress, as Sloboda et al. (1996)have suggested.The children averaged 7.33 minutes average daily practice across their rst 9 months

of learning. After 1 month of learning they were typically practising 4.4 days a week for


TABLE 1. Average practice per day across the rst nine months of learning

Ceased Continuedplaying playingN 5 24 N 5 133

Average daily practice Mean S.D. Mean S.D. P-value

Child report: predicted before commencing instrument 24.72 39.96 13.80 10.46 , 0.01

Mother report: after one month of learning 5.50 4.51 9.59 4.90 , 0.001Mother report: after three months of learning 4.91 5.61 8.91 5.26 , 0.01Mother report: after eight-nine months of learning 2.82 3.23 6.90 6.12 , 0.05

Mother report: average over year based on reports at 3.49 4.52 8.02 4.52 , 0.0001one, three and eight-nine months of learning

about 15 minutes each session. By the end of their third month of learning the childrenaveraged 3.6 days practice per week in sessions that averaged 16.4 minutes. Nine monthsafter commencing they were averaging 3.0 days per week in sessions that lastedapproximately 16.9 minutes. Overall then, most of the children were doing between 15and 20 minutes practice per session, but the number of days each week that they actuallypractised decreased over the year.Looking through the qualitative comments made about practising, many of the

children described their practice as a chore or boring and in many ways similar tohomework, so it was not surprising to nd that only 28% of the children reportedpractising on Saturdays and 24% on Sundays, because, as they reported in theirinterviews, weekends were seen as important for other aspects of their lives, such ashaving fun, playing sport or just relaxing.As shown in Table 1, the 24 (15.28%) children who ceased instruction during their

rst 9 months practised an average of 3.49 (SD 5 0.90) minutes a day as compared tothose who continued to learn who practised for 8.02 (SD 5 4.52) minutes. Indeed,examining these data for signi cance, and looking at children who persisted in theirlearning and those who gave up during the rst 9 months, an analysis of variance(ANOVA) of the mothers reports of practice undertaken across the year revealed asigni cant interaction between quantity of practice done and whether the child persistedor gave up [F 5 21.21 (1,155), p , 0.0001].So, across the rst 9 months of learning, the children who gave up were in fact

undertaking less than half the individual practice of their peers who persisted, and ataround the time they gave up, their daily average drops. For example, mothers reportaverage minutes of practice for the children who cease to be 5.50 (SD 5 4.51) minutesat survey 1 (1 month into learning the instrument), 4.91 (SD 5 5.61) minutes at survey2 (3 months into learning), and only 2.82 (SD 5 3.23) minutes of practice by survey 3(89 months into learning and around the time when most of the children cease, i.e. atthe end of the school year). By contrast, the children who continue to play were moreconsistent with their practice over the 9-month period, beginning with 9.59 (SD 5 4.90)minutes, then 8.91 (SD 5 5.26) minutes, and ending the school year with 6.90(SD 5 6.12) minutes of average daily practice.Interestingly, Table 1 also shows that children who ceased learning were far more

likely to have unrealistically high expectations about the amount of practice they thoughtthey would undertake immediately before commencing their instrument [F 5 7.06


(1,149), p , 0.01]. Children who eventually ceased instruction predicted they would do24.72 (SD 5 39.96) minutes of practice per day before commencing their instrument, incontrast to children who continued learning who predicted that they would average 13.80(SD 5 10.46) minutes per day.In terms of band practice, all the children studied engaged in twice-weekly instrumen-

tal sessions, either as a band rehearsal or instrumental lesson. In all schools, thesepractice sessions were either before or during school activities lasting for 1 hour. Again,despite differences in conductor style, the content of the practice was fairly consistent,as would be expected of the method book approach to learning: playing throughsections of music with some small, phrase level repetition and intensive rehearsal, plusbrief comments made by the conductor about the co-ordination of timing and dynamics.As shown in Table 1, the patterns of practice, as viewed from the mothers andchildrens perspectives, suggest that individual practice in itself is clearly a criticalvariable in determining persistence, as opposed to group rehearsal.

Motivation to Practice

Mothers Supervision

Given that the children perceived their practice as something akin to homework, it wasnot surprising to discover during their rst few months of learning that a majority(80.25%) needed some sort of reminder or support from their parents in order to do theirpractice. Prior to starting lessons, mothers were asked to predict whether they felt thatthey would need to supervise their childs practice and whether they were worried thattheir child would not do enough practice. These predictions were clearly based on themothers understanding of their childs personality, gained from previous knowledge ofhow their child undertook a variety of tasks, including homework.The predictions were examined in relation to the childs initial quantities of practice

undertaken (sampled during the rst month of playing). An ANOVA showed asigni cant effect of the childs investment in practice according to whether the motherpredicted that their child would need to be supervised [F 5 6.197 (1, 139), p 5 0.0140],and whether they were worried that they would not do enough practice [F 5 10.807 (1,137), p 5 0.0012]. It reveals that mothers who predicted that their child would need tobe supervised have children who undertake 7.84 (SD 5 4.45) minutes of practice, incomparison with mothers who predicted that their child would not need to be supervisedwho undertook 9.31 (SD 5 5.44) minutes of practice. Likewise, mothers who wereworried that their child would not do enough practice had children who averaged 6.74(SD 5 3.42) minutes, as compared to children whose mothers were not worried whoaveraged 9.85 (SD 5 5.22) minutes.By the end of the rst 9 months of learning mothers reminded their child less often

to practice (down to 48% after 9 months). This suggests that the mothers tended to bereactive to their childs practice. If the child began with enthusiasm, s/he was left to geton with the practice alone. Much of the qualitative reporting supports this assertion:

Mother: She didnt need me because she just loved doing it.

Mother: At the beginning when she started to learn I did support her bylistening, but not any more. She gets on with it now.

Mother: Sometimes I played teacher and played duets with her but she didntalways want me there.


Mother: Id wander in and out when she wanted me to.

Mother: I listened to him about two of the sessions a week.

Mother: I always go in when shes doing a new pieceshed ask me to listen.

Mother: He doesnt like to be monitored so we leave him alone.

From the data above, mothers in the current study generally made some consciousassessment of what needed to be done in order to get their child to practice, but in manycases this seems to have been based on how the child felt about having the motheraround. Indeed, looking at those children who gave up, by the point at which they ceasedlessons and involvement in the band, many were not practising at all, but the mothersdid not force their children to practice:

Mother: By the time she stopped she was not bothering. Right over thevacation she didnt get her instrument out once. I wasnt going to nag her. Ithought, its her decision, and so Ill respect that.

Mother: It was clear he wasnt interested. Its a shame, but theres no use inforcing the issue.

Mother: Initially I was trying to help her, but as she lost interest I didnt forceher to do it. When she lost interest I just went along with it.

Mother: I wasnt very effective at all. She didnt always remember to practiceand I gured that if you loved something youd do it anyway.

Mother: There was no problem at the beginning but towards the end I didntpush her if she didnt want to practice.

Mothers Musical Experiences and Practice

An analysis of the mothers comments from the interviews revealed a number ofinteresting differences concerning the way mothers supported their childs learning,especially in terms of their own previous musical experience. At the extremes, we foundmothers who appeared to have little idea about how to support their childrens practice,and therefore allowed them to do very low levels of practice. Other mothers had moreexigent standards and expected some sort of routine and a consistent approach topractice. The following qualitative comments show the range of differences:

Mother: Ive never learned, so a little bit of practice every now and thenseemed OK to be starting off.

Mother: I guess little and often is OK. (No previous experience.)

Mother: I think you need to do regular substantive amounts [of practice] ifyoure going to improve (No previous experience.)

Mother: Shes got to get down to regular practice otherwise she wont learnanything. (No previous experience.)

Mother: I remember doing a little bit of practice three times a week at his age,that seemed ne, and its enough when theyve band rehearsals too. (Formerlearner.)


Mother: Realistically, about ten minutes a day is all you can expect an 8 yearold to do. I did about that much. (Former learner.)

Mother: We insisted on the practice but it was like pulling her teeth (Formerlearner).

The interviews show that mothers approach to the child and his or her practising seemto in uence their overall impression of what they considered best for their child plus howmuch, or how little, they could intervene in the process of encouraging their child topractice. Of course, many children in this study, 76 (48% of the total), already had priorinstrumental learning experience, and so it is worth exploring this issue to see if itimpacted on their practice of the band instrument.

Previous Exposure to Music

Of the total sample of 157 children, 81 (52%) were novices who had never learnt aninstrument previously, 43 (27%) had learnt another instrument such as piano, but ceasedinstruction by the time they commenced their band instrument, and 33 (21%) werecontinuing on a second instrument (94% piano) along with their new band instrument.The vast majority of the children with former instrumental experience played eitherpiano or electronic keyboard (86%), and a small number played strings (4%) orwoodwind instruments (6%), while one child had received singing lessons. Very few(4%) had learned more than one other instrument, and for these children it was eitherrecorder or another woodwind instrument such as the ute as a second instrument to thepiano.Interestingly, there was a signi cant difference [F 5 21.15(1, 72), p 5 0.001] in the

number of months of musical involvement with the previous instrument between thosewho had learned but ceased prior to commencing their band instrument and those whocontinued playing while taking up the band instrument as a second instrument. Childrenwho ceased their instrument before taking up the band instrument had averaged 12months of learning (SD 5 7.70), whereas children who continued playing had beenplaying for an average of 21.81 (SD 5 10.66) months.Table 2 shows that there were no signi cant differences between these three groups

of children in terms of the amount of practice they predicted or were reported to havedone at various stages of their development.As shown in Table 2 (and also Table 1) the average number of minutes the children

practised each day decreased signi cantly across the 9-month period studied, once theinitial novelty of learning and the reality of having to practice to maintain progress setin (t-test signi cance level, p , 0.0001). Seeking out reasons for these differences, aqualitative analysis of themes emerging from the structured interviews with mothers andchildren raise a number of possibilities:

A: Children with Previous Instrument Learning Experience, Who are doing LessPractice

(i) The band instrument is less easy to play, therefore, less interesting to practice:

Mother: Its disappointing really. He plays nice advanced piano pieces with anice style, but the trombone is a bit rough and blurry, so its hard to adjust tothis.


TABLE 2. Previous exposure to learning an instrument

ContinuingCeased other other

Novices instrument instrumentN 5 81 N 5 43 N 5 33

Average daily practice Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Sig

Child Report: Predicted before commencing 17.29 23.41 14.96 11.98 11.67 9.31 NSinstrument

Mother report: After one month of learning 9.06 4.91 9.44 6.28 7.97 3.62 NSMother report: After three months of learning 8.06 5.33 8.72 5.65 8.20 5.91 NSMother report: After eight-nine months oflearning 7.16 7.39 5.96 4.50 5.96 4.13 NS

Mother report: Average over year based on 7.74 5.35 7.02 4.46 6.75 3.13 NSmothers reports at one, three and eight-nine months of learning

Mother: When practising it there were foghorn sounds at the beginning andthis was a bit frustratingshe thought shed be able to play a tune straightaway like on the pianobut not so.

(ii) More effort involved in getting the instrument out to practice:

Mother: This ones a pain in the neck to lug around. It requires an outlay ofmoney and its not easy to pack away at the end of each practice session.

Child: Im sick of the physical effort of getting it out of its case and puttingit together. I like the piano more because its always there; you just play it.

(iii) Having a realistic view of practising

Mother: Shes realistic about practice: a bit of piano and a bit of band stuff.Both instruments have their place.

Child: I think 10 minutes a day is enough to get your lip right and play whatyouve got to learn. I do a bit more on the piano, but you can play that forlonger without getting too tired.

B: Children Learning for the First Time

(i) Enthusiasm

Mother: Hes eager to get home to try out the trombone, I guess its thenovelty.

Child: I like looking at my new trumpet and trying to make all those funnysounds.

(ii) Naivete

Mother: I guess I dont know what to advise Five, ten fteen minutes a day,it all seems much the same.

Mother: Well, for how long can you expect a child to blow a French horn?


FIG. 1 Mean average predictions of average daily practice according to previous experience and whetherthe child ceased or continued playing during the rst year of learning.

Comparison of Children Who Ceased and Continued Playing

Of the 24 children who gave up in the rst year, 15 (62%) were children who werelearning an instrument for the rst time, four (17%) were children who had learned aprevious instrument but ceased playing that instrument by the time they commencedlearning the band instrument, and ve(21%) were continuing to learn another instrumentin addition to their new band instrument. These children represent 19% of all learnerswho were playing an instrument for the rst time, 9% of all children who had learneda previous instrument but ceased before learning the band instrument, and 15% of allchildren who had learned a previous instrument and were continuing with it. Achi-squared analysis showed that children without former experience were no morelikely to cease instruction than children with prior experience were.A 3 3 2 design ANOVA procedure was used to compare the effects of the childrens

previous exposure to learning an instrument and whether they continued playing withtheir predictions of how much practice they thought they might do before commencinginstruction. As shown in Figure 1, this analysis revealed a signi cant interaction[F 5 4.63 (2,145) 6.74, p 5 0.011]. Children who were continuing to learn at the end ofthe rst year were remarkably consistent in their reports of how much daily practice theypredicted they would do before commencing instruction, even though they may havebeen novice learners, had learnt an instrument previously and given up, or werecontinuing with a second instrument. However, there were important differences amongthese groups for children who ceased learning. Novice players and children who hadlearned another instrument but ceased before taking up their new band instrumenttypically overestimated the amount of practice they thought they might do (means of32.58 and 23.33 minutes per day). Children who were continuing with their otherinstrument tended to report that they would have much less time to practice their newband instrument because of the problem of having to maintain practice on twoinstruments (1.97 minutes per day).


As the analysis in Figure 1 shows, children who continued learning tended to havemore realistic expectations about the practising process even before beginning instruc-tion. Indeed, the qualitative data for the children who ceased learning indicates that theydecided whether to commit themselves to a regular schedule of practice soon after theycommenced learning their instrument.

Children with Previous Experience

Child: I love the piano and I am considered talented at it, but I got sick of thepractice for the horn. When I announced I was giving up my parents wereupset.

Mother: Clarinet is her second instrument and piano is her rst instrument. Shesoon realised that it was too much for her to practice two instruments.

First Time Learners

Mother: He enjoyed practising when it was easy at rst but as soon as his pieces got hardhe refused.

Child: It was good at rst. But, I wasnt good enough to tour with the school band soI couldnt be bothered to try.

Mother: She only did it for 9 monthsthere was no real problem, she just couldntsustain the dedication.

Child: I loved being able to play but I hated practising.

Child: Fitting in the times so dif cult (to practice) as I get older.

Mother: She didnt want to get out of bed early enough to go to the band rehearsal beforeschool. She had a lot of things on and she needed to make a decision on what she wantedto devote some time to.Although interviews with the children and their mothers who ceased instruction revealeda number of reasons why the children stopped playing, not investing enough time inpractice kept appearing as a critical factor:

Child: Learning the instrument was hard. I didnt have enough time to practice,so I couldnt read the notes.

Mother: He wasnt practising and he was complaining about having to go topractices at school. He lost interest and didnt pick it up unless it was to taketo school. He just didnt like it.

Mother: His teacher told him to practice, but he didnt practice. I told theteacher what was going on, and he told him that if he didnt practice theywould take his instrument away from him. He didnt practice so in the end histeacher said that he would give it to someone who would practice.

Importantly, a chi-square analysis (c 5 7.985, p 5 0.0047) revealed that mothers whowere worried that their child would not do enough practice before they began instructionhad children who were more likely to cease within the rst year of learning. This nding,highlighted in the qualitative comments below, suggests that the mothers were able tomake judgements about whether or not their child would practice regularly before theybegan instruction. Some indicative comments from mothers before their child com-menced lessons include:


Mother: He has a high potential ability, but once I stop pushing I dont knowif hell stick with it.

Mother: Im not sure about practice at all. She tends to give up if things gettoo hard.

Mother: Practice is de nitely a worryshe probably wont be interested inpractisingshes a clock-watcher.

Mother: She wont practise without prompting.

Mother: Not a worry. Shed rather practise and learn it than be behind in band.Ive never had a problem with her not doing homework.

Mother: I think she will practice. Shes the type who feels she has to do thingsif the school tells her to.

Mother: I think shell practise the sax more than she did the piano, butprobably not much on weekends.

Conclusions

An inevitable consequence of taking up a musical instrument is that progress can onlybe achieved with a degree of initial commitment coupled with persistent practice(McPherson, 2000; Sloboda et al., 1996). It is therefore important to study how youngbeginners practice plus the mechanisms that support their efforts. Indeed, learning toplay a musical instrument is in many ways similar to other areas of a childs learning,in that no one would expect children of 79 years of age to undertake literacy practicesuch as reading aloud or writing without a great deal of support and individual attention.We found important differences between the childrens conception of how much

practice they were doing and what their mothers reported they were actually doing. Inmany cases the children perceived their practice in the same way as their homework, inthat it was often regarded as a chore or even boring. In some situations the childspractice seemed to focus not so much on the actual quality of what they were practising,but rather the mechanics of playing through the assigned repertoire with little regard tohow they might improve their performance or develop their own skills as a musician.Observing their teachers and/or parents requests to practice for a set time, typicallybetween 15 and 20 minutes, meant that many of the children lled in their practice witha variety of non-playing activities such as nding music to play, setting up andmaintaining the instrument (e.g. oiling valves), in addition to playing their assignedrepertoire. This sometimes resulted in considerable friction, where the child wasperceived by a parent to be actually wasting time, whereas the child viewed this activityas a legitimate part of the process. Overall, the children undertook relatively smallamounts of practice each week during the period studied, with most practising 3 or 4days a week, in addition to their normal lessons and band rehearsals. As with homework,the children typically left their weekends free for other activities.One of our more important ndings concerns the differing perceptions of the children

and their mothers before they commenced formal tuition. Children who ceased learningtypically had unrealistically high expectations about how much practice they wouldundertake even before commencing lessons. After they started, and the reality of learningset in, they also consistently undertook less practice than their peers who chose tocontinue. This nding is particularly interesting, because it suggests that some xed


attributes such as personality and temperament could contribute towards a childs desireto begin and persist with music learning. Apart from some preliminary observationsabout expert musicians and gifted youngsters (Kemp, 1996), this aspect has been largelyunexplored within the research literature, and so we intend to study this in more detailas part of our longitudinal work with the sample of students studied here.Another important nding is that the childrens mothers were able to make assess-

ments, based on their knowledge of their child, of how much support they would needto provide even before instruction began. Within the rst month of learning, they hadalso determined how much or how little they would enforce practice, based not only ontheir view of how much their child enjoyed learning, but also how much effort theythemselves were willing to invest in helping to maintain their childs practice schedule.In some cases practice, like homework, was regimented and seen very much as anactivity that had to be completed before the child was allowed out to play or engage inother activities. Other parents were far less strict, and did not encourage their child tostick to a regular schedule.Studies on school homework show that young children agree that homework is

important, but are often unable to make the link that it is their responsibility to rememberthat it must be completed (Warton, 1997). For example, Warton (1997) found that lessthan one-third of Grade 2 children viewed homework as their own responsibility toremember that it must be completed. Consequently, around 76% of younger childrenreported being reminded by their parents to do their homework, with one Grade 2 girlstating: It would be a favour to Mum if I remember without her having to tell me(Warton, 1997, p. 219). For school homework, a considerable level of support in theform of reminders and checking from teachers and parents is maintained across the entireprimary school grades.Studies also show that parents view homework as something of value and an

important component of their childs learning (Cooper, 1989; Warton, 1997; Xu &Corno, 1998). Over 90% of Grade 5 parents (Chen & Stevenson, 1989) believe thathelping their child to complete assigned homework is part of their responsibility.Throughout primary school and into the early years of high school, parents typicallycontinue to remind their child to complete their homework and often well after they havedemonstrated complete reliability at remembering it themselves (Warton, 1997). Theyhelp their child in three distinct ways:

1. Modelling: helping their child complete tasks and therefore showing that it is of valueand important,

2. Direct instruction: drill and practice, plus questioning to promotes factual learningand cognitive ability, and

3. Reinforcement: praise and encouraging comments (Balli, 1998).

In our study, approximately 80% of the children were reminded to do their practiceduring the rst month of learning, even though most came to their learning as eager,interested learners. Nine months later, the mothers reminders had dropped to 48%.Clearly, for many of our children the initial interest and novelty of learning a newinstrument quickly diminished soon after they commence instruction. Our analysis ofpractice videos (McPherson & Renwick, 2000) shows that parents were in closeproximity about 65% of the time when their child was practising, and that 81% of thistime was spent listening, 12% guiding (e.g. asking what piece the child would play next),and only 6% in an active teaching role (1% of the time was spent distracting the child


from his/her practice). Overall, our analysis of practice videos and the data reported herereveals important connections between how children and their mothers view schoolhomework and musical practice. Like school homework, children view their practice asimportant. However, our analyses of the student interviews and their parents reports ofpractice and how often they needed reminding, suggest that most children needed to bereminded by their mothers in order to practice regularly. It also reveals, however, thatvery soon after the children commenced learning, their mothers made an assessment oftheir childs ability to cope with practice, as well as their own capacity to devote energyto regulating the childs practice through continual reminders and encouragement topractice. As our qualitative comments reveal, some of the mothers continued to supportpractice schedules even though the childs interest had decreased markedly. Othermothers tended to withdraw their reminders, based on an assessment that the child wasnot coping emotionally, that if they were really interested then they would do it anyway,or because they were unwilling themselves to invest in the time and effort needed toregulate their childs daily schedule.In her book on practising, Bruser (1999) describes how the word practice conjures

up a variety of images and feelings among children and adults. Some remember thecountless hours spent on drill and practice activities and the feeling that it was more likepunishment than a worthwhile musical experience. For others, practice is a welcomerelief from other pursuits and an activity in which they feel free to express themselves.Whatever the perspective, practising challenges our physical, mental and emotionalcapabilities.In terms of the results reported here, the above comments have enormous implications.

A major problem for teaching is that many children probably associate practice with the rst of Brusers images than the latter, because in the beginning stages of developmentafter the initial burst of excitement has worn off, practising a musical instrument cancause a mix of emotions, many of which may not seem very pleasant. Studies concernedwith childrens homework show that parents can have an important in uence in helpingtheir child develop the skills necessary for self-monitoring, motivation, controllingattention and handling emotional dif culties (Xu & Corno, 1998). As with homework,the role of a parent in helping a child to cope with emotional dif culties is especiallyimportant, given that some of the mothers reported instances where their childsfrustration had escalated into anger at not being able to play something on theirinstrument. Encouraging the child to take a break, sitting with them and talking theproblem through, or even providing an encouraging comment, can go a long way inhelping a child to cope with the demands of learning an instrument. As researchers beginto unravel the elements which impact on ef cient and effective practice we will be ina better position to more clearly understand, and hopefully therefore correct, some of theproblems that face very young instrumentalists.In summary, being able to practice ef ciently requires skills that take years to develop.

If students are to improve their musical practice, teachers need to show them how topractice, to set manageable and appropriate goals for their progression, and to monitorthe success or otherwise of the practice strategies they employ while learning theirinstrument. Obviously, the role of parents, especially the mother, is also of vitalimportance although it is much harder to cite a concrete set of suggestions that couldeasily be implemented. What the results of this and other studies suggest however, is thatthere is a great deal more to be learned if we are to more fully understand the types ofphysical, mental and emotional resources which tax all young learners when theypractice at home.


Acknowledgement

This research has been supported by a large Australian Research Council grant (No.A79700682) , awarded for a 3-year study that commenced in 1997.

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Documents

McPherson, G. E., & Davidson, J. W. (2002). Musical Practice Mother and Child Interactions During the First Nine Months of Learning a Musical Instrument. Music Education Research,