100 Day Practice Challenge

Since 2013 I have held one large studio performance a year for all my students from each studio locations. Everyone performs a solo piece and then we share more as a group during the reception. This is a highlight of each year for me because my students get to see all my other students – From the students who are just beginning and playing their first “Twinkle” to my students who have been preparing for college auditions. In one tight package, my students are given a reminder for how far they can go at the same time that they are reminded just how far they have come since their first time touching a violin. Perhaps you’ve seen something similar in your own studio? 

To prepare for last year’s recital, I created a little hand out for all my students to fill out with the goal of helping them feel ready for the big day. You can see it and download it for your own use here. For the parents, it specifically outlined the location, performance times and reminders about coordinating with the accompanist, while students were given check points for the two months prior to the recital. On the back of the handout, I also included 50 stars – One for each day before the recital they would practice and therefore ensure they would be prepared for the recital. Through the lens of the successful practice videos initially popularized by violinist Hilary Hahn and then others like Chloe Trevor emulated, I challenged my students to take the leap, too. 

If you are anything like the other teachers I know in my area, I already know what you are saying – “No way did you have students who practiced for 50 days straight!” 

I did actually. Out of a recital day with thirty-nine student performers, seven students completed the 50 day challenge. Not only that, but many other students got incredibly close and within the final goal by five or less days! It was especially exciting to see some of my older students get into the habit of sharing their progress on social media. I really felt this studio exercise helped my students familiarize themselves with the process of mapping out a goal, taking care of different aspects of a successful performance and kept the anticipation for a solo up in a healthier way. It was my hope that by being able to remind themselves they’ve done all the work they could beforehand, they could relax and enjoy the act of sharing their music with as little stress as possible. 

For all these reasons, I believe the first 50 day practice challenge in my studio was a success! I saw students who have long struggled with performance anxiety perform beautifully. I saw others surprise themselves with the realization that the time to practice, even just a little bit, every day is possible. For this year’s recital, I’m planning on doing this project in my studio again and amping up the expectations. Here are some things I’m planning to do to make it a successful challenge in my studio – Maybe they’ll help you implement something similar in your studio. 

·      Early Notification: Get this information and expectation out to your students as soon as possible! Start talking about it in passing by saying things like, “Well, you know our recital is coming up… Think you could practice every day for 50 days before the recital?” or “Do you know how many days there are until our recital? When we get to 100 days, let’s get down to business!”. Have practice habits as part of the conversation and mention the accounts and success stories of other musicians with successful challenges. This helps create an expectation of practice and starts to pump up students and their families for the challenge while making it seem achievable and not too large of struggle. You want it to seem difficult yes, impossible no. 

·      Increasing the Time Commitment: If they could practice for fifty days in a row, imagine what would happen if they practiced 100 days in a row? This year I’m giving them the full challenge – 100 days before our studio recital. 100 days of scales and etudes and pieces and listening to recordings of their music and more! This time last year I wasn’t sure how fifty days would go over in the studio. This year I feel confident that the students in this studio will rise to the challenge – I’m so excited to see their progress in this time. 

·      Schedule Posts on Social Media: To help students keep track of how close the recital was I continued to give students a countdown to the recital after the challenge had begun. I believe this particularly helped the students who might have fallen off the wagon, but still ended up in my group of students in the eighty or ninety day counts. By scheduling out posts on my studio Facebook page and my studio Instagram page, I was familiar at any given time with how many days remained until the recital. If you know from the beginning that you’re going to be doing this countdown, it also helps you keep your sanity and schedule out how you’ll share information with your studio, so it’s a win-win in my book! 

·      Give a Visual: However you present this challenge to your students, give them a visual! Something they can mark off each day to see their progress, see how far they’ve gone, how far they have yet to go. If you would like to see mine, I have a sample of the 50 day challenge available here through my Teachers Pay Teachers’ account. But creating one can be as simple as creating 100 boxes on a sheet of paper. Whatever you do, providing your students with something tangible will help them keep their eyes on the prize. 

·      Incentives: For the inaugural year, I did not offer any incentive to students other than a job well done. While I certainly believe this is still the best reward, I realize there are certain types of people who respond to this challenge better than others simply because they like tasks or check lists – Something I would enjoy as a student, too! I think it is important to remember that in a large studio you’ll have a variety of students and you need to tap into their motivation language. What motivates the students you work with? Some ideas I had as rewards included music study materials like a tuner, musical bookmarks, a collection of popular sheet music for violin or viola, a little gift card to a local music store and maybe a couple other things to access the students who might be a little more material minded. I’m still torn about this aspect and not sure how this would look in my studio so I’d love to hear what you think about this aspect. 

I’m looking forward to seeing how my studio responds to these changes and excited for our recital. I’m also curious – For other teachers, have you done something similar to this in your own studio? How do you think your students would respond? My annual recital has always been a huge event in my studio and I’m hoping to find some new ways to delegate tasks so I can fully enjoy the day more and celebrate with my students – Performance takes so much time, effort and determination to see it come together. I’m sure I’m not the only teacher thinking these things out there and I hope you’ve found some new ideas in today’s post! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!