My D did piano lessons all the way through HS. She practiced between 15-30 minutes a day with more time before festivals. She was in band in MS and HS and practiced at home maybe 15-20 minutes over the course of a year. Most of her practice happened at school
Former musician here. The will to practice has to be self-motivated … you can’t legislate it. And, even if you force her to practice your specified time, it won’t be enough for her to progress if she doesn’t care. Drop the private lessons for now and let her continue with the school ensemble. If she notices she starts to lag and becomes motivated, then you can start them back up. But I certainly wouldn’t keep sinking money into something if she isn’t going to put forth the effort.
PS … I would practice about 30 minutes to an hour daily, because I wanted to. Rarely did a parent mention practicing.
Threw out the micromanaging term for thought. One of those things for parents to think about. We get so used to being a part of our kids’ lives that it is hard to put the brakes on and let them handle their lives more. For my son the era doesn’t matter- not a communicator, sigh. You do not need to give us many details- just take in our responses and see what might fit.
“Music parents” term only applies to some on this thread. Some are parents of serious musicians who went beyond HS, many of us were in band/orchestra or have had children in them. So many posts and both sets seem to follow the above #61 idea of self motivation. Many different levels of HS groups as well. My son was lucky to have an excellent orchestra teacher who one year was able to pull off a difficult piece with a solo for an exceptional violin player… I was in the color guard for HS band (darn- it got cold) since bassoon players couldn’t march- and dragged out the clarinet I did the first years for pep band reqs… Certainly not the same level as some places- we had first period band and our marching practice was morning class side streets. I worked hard but bringing a heavy instrument to and from on the bus plus the walk meant weekends typically. So many factors.
If she’s first chair as a freshman, it sounds like she has more talent and/or drive than they typical band student. That may or may not mean that continued lessons are worthwhile. But it seems reasonable to give it a shot (IF she is willing to practice, with just gentle reminders not mandates).
DS actually was a rare bird who was able to do exceedingly well on sax without private lessons. But he had a knack for music and also benefited from 11 years of piano lessons. He kept practicing and enjoying piano, so we let him keep taking lessons (but I was rather happy when he was able to start driving himself.) I think his ms band teacher let him count sax and piano time. Most of his hs sax “practice” was at school during band class.
Note - As time went on, DS became more and more interested in arranging/composing for group ensembles. That meant lots of screentime with music software, but it seemed a better use of time than video games.
Happy update: Thanks to all of you I did chill a bit on the instrument practice, but let her know I did expect at least a couple of decent practices per week outside of school if she were to continue the private lessons (which she wanted.) She also has another unrelated instrument (per her choice) that she plays a couple of times per week. Today she was presented the freshman outstanding band instrumentalist award…so she must be doing something right 
Congrats to her! What an honor! It sounds like she is talented.
DS never practices at home. We gave up trying to push it in middle school. He has played cello since 4th grade and has it every day at school now. It would be nice if he was motivated to practice but I’m really just happy he continues to play and enjoy it.
Congrats to her! What an honor! It sounds like she is talented.
DS (jr) never practices at home. We gave up trying to push it in middle school. He has played cello since 4th grade and has it every day at school now. It would be nice if he was motivated to practice but I’m really just happy he continues to play and enjoy it.
We struggled with this for awhile and tried several different ways to encourage our D13 to practice. As others have said it’s really self motivation that translates to practice time. In the end we decided she would pay for her private lessons and we would pay her to practice and we relied on her to fill out the appropriate practice form and we wouldn’t badger her about it. It was her money. A couple of hours a week translated into paying for her lessons. We would put her practice funds into her account and she would pay for her lessons out of it. She could get ahead over months that she didn’t have lessons or skip sometime when she had finals etc. it was all up to her. It worked sort of. She paid out more than we put in. What we really did was put the money we would have paid into her 529 account so she really had it all along.
She just graduated from college a couple of days ago and continued to play her instrument (viola) during college and even got a $1200 music scholarship one semester (she was an engineering major). We went to what might be her last orchestra performance a few weeks ago. I think that was as emotional for me as her graduation.
I found with my D her intensity of practicing really picked up in high school. She played both piano and cello. Having peers in HS orchestra and also being in a youth symphony also helped. Her whole social circle became other serious musicians. As academics became more intense junior and senior year she used her lunch time at school to practice with other students. In 10th grade she discontinued private piano lessons to focus solely on cello with our blessing. Prior to HS practicing was spotty…an hour or less a day. A few times when she wasn’t getting enough time in we asked her to contribute $ towards lessons…that seemed to solve the problem and practicing picked back up. Neither my husband and I pushed her much outside of that…we wanted to just make sure we were spending our money wisely. Letting her lead with the motivation for the most part really helped her develop as a person and as a musician. Summer prior to leaving for college she is practicing two hours or more a day. Although she decided not to go the conservatory route she is planning to double major in music. She received many scholarships for music. In the end it was academics that gave her the biggest scholarship but we as parents feel she learned time management and discipline from her exposure to and the pursuit of music which translated to academics. That is priceless…worth every penny spent of lessons.
She sounds kind of like me…I did well academically, I was in band, and I was also played 3 varsity sport a year. I had been in band since 4th grade and am the kind of person who will continue with an activity as long as I am enjoying it (or not hating it). I enjoyed the camraderie of marching band. I didn’t practice outside of band because we had band either every day or 3 days/week (science labs the other days) so that was as much as I needed to do well enough. I did not continue with music in college. However, the musical skills I have is useful now that I have joined the Bell Choir at church.
Is your child getting A’s in band? Then as a parent I would say that is all I would really worry about. Some teachers “test” students on passages. If that is the case, she should be prepared.
"I enjoyed the camraderie of marching band. "
My youngest son plays a weird instrument in the symphony/band. He actually voluntarily practices 4-6 times a week outside class just because he enjoys playing. I don’t think he’ll ever be at the level where it will help him with college admissions or a career, but I am thrilled he’s doing this because the group of kids in the county symphony group are so awesome. They’re the proverbial “good eggs”. Nice, polite, studious, sweet kids who gossip about which piece of music they want to play next. They’re the type of kids most of us want our kids to be friends and hang out with. I couldn’t be happier he has something like this he loves and gets to do it with such a great peer group.
exactly…the students my D spent her time with…all musicians were a great group of kids.