100 day (or 2 year) practice challenge update

What started out as a 100 day practice challenge has been going on for two years now.  The kids have practiced every day for 2 years.  To me, its an awe inspiring accomplishment.  To them, its just what they do.

 We've relaxed a bit.  You don't practice when your sick, that just encourages martyrdom.  If the violins don't fit in the car with the skis for a ski trip, they get left at home.  Reasonable exceptions like that.  

That said, the practice challenge died a long time ago.  It stopped being a challenge and became a way of life.  They just practice every day.  

Does that make it easy? Nope.  

Does it translate to other instruments, math or Spanish?  Nope. 

 Are all the practices cheerful and fun?  Hell no. 

What?  They aren't cheerful and fun?  Isn't it supposed to be easy by now?  

The standard Suzuki advice to any challenge is that you need to "build the relationship first."  Yup, build that relationship and it will all be easy-peasy.  As if building a relationship is like building a stone wall that once built will last forever and will over time be covered by pretty flowers.  As if once that relationship is built, the kid will never stomp off furious about the bizarre rhythms in Two Grenadiers, and the other one won't be in tears over the slurs in the Vivaldi Concerto that just don't make sense even though they did 6 months ago, and I won't ever get tired.

The wall may be built and covered with pretty flowers, but there are definitely  thorns and they stick us every day.  We'll keep on going, because the flowers are worth it. 

Day 351 and the Prize

My last post ended with a cliffhanger.  Will Mom come through with a reward for Huck for practicing every day for 350 days or will he be disappointed?  I couldn't leave you hanging.  I was a little worried myself.  Although we had given the kids trinkets for minor milestones and gifts at 100 days, we had nothing for 350 days.  Should I call Dad at work and ask him to purchase a Lego set on the way home?  I couldn't because we had been invited by some new friends for dinner and he would be late already.  So there wouldn't be a reward.  Huck would just have to be satisfied with his accomplishment.
Or would he?

What is an appropriate reward anyway?  What would be worthy of his effort? 

Reward-less, unless you count the lovely pineapple dessert that the kids had made, we went to have dinner with our new friends, David and Christine.  Their house was full of instruments, recording equipment, and a real record player.  The kids were amazed.  What could be better?  

Well, they found out after dinner.  We got out our instruments and started playing Reuben's Train, Huck's favorite song.  At the first solo break David jumped up and pushed the record button on the big old reel-to-reel recording system that took up an entire wall of the room.  Huck belted out the words into the microphone, thrilled to watch the needle go up and down on the display.  Gus stomped and cranked out solo after solo.  Christine laid down some awesome rhythm on drums and David played guitar and piano simultaneously.  Eric and I kept strumming on the chords.  We sang through the lyrics and played instrumental verse after instrumental verse.  Then we did it all over again.  When we ran out of steam, David rewound the reel-to-reel, adjusted the mix, and played it back for us.  There was a actual recording of Huck singing Huck's favorite song, backed by a real band and his family.  What reward could be better than that?


When Huck went to bed last night he said, "Tomorrow I want to paint my face and play music all day."  What could be better than that?

Day 350 Practice Challenge! Exclusive interviews!

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.
Paul Simon

 
Today is day 350 of our practice challenge.  The challenge was to practice every day for 100 days.  Then we extended for another 100 days, then another.  At first we celebrated every milestone, 10 days, 25 days...  Now we don't really pay much attention except on the big numbers, like 350.

In honor of our 350th consequetive day of practice, this blog provides an exclusive interview with Gus (8) and Huck (6), the boys who have practiced every day for the last 350 days!

What kind of music do you like to play?
Gus -  Bluegrass, classical, fiddle, Celtic, Old-Time.
Huck - Suzuki and fiddle


What is your favorite song?
Gus - My favorite classical song is Pachelbel's Canon.  I don't really have a favorite fiddle tune.  I like them all.  My favorite family band song is Mountain Roads.
Huck - I don't really know

What is the hardest song you ever learned?
Gus - Orange Blossom Special was pretty hard.  It took a long time to learn. I was walking around the house playing little parts of it until I got it.
Huck - Minuet 2

What do you want to learn?
Gus - More songs.


Huck - I want to finish Minuet 3.

What is your favorite part of playing music?
Gus - Jamming and playing with my family and friends.
Huck - Playing alone.

How did you get started on your practice challenge?
Gus - One of my friends had started a practice challenge and invited us to do it with them.  I thought it was a pretty cool idea so my family and I decided to give it a try.


How did the practice challenge change the way you practiced and played music?
Gus - Practicing for 100 days really increased my skills.  Before I did the practice challenge I often missed days and the rest of my family missed even more days.
Huck - Before I did the practice challenge, sometimes we skipped days, but Mommy got the idea of a practice challenge.

If it was a 100 day practice challenge, how did you end up at 350 days?
Gus - After we hit 100 days we decided to add another hundred.
Huck - I just decided that I should keep going.

Why?
Gus - Because we had gotten used to practicing every day.  So once we hit 200, we kept going.
Huck - Because it was fun not skipping days and it was fun keeping score of how many days we'd practiced without stopping.

What about days when you are sick or just don't feel like practicing?
Gus - Whats amazing how I've managed to do it even when I'm sick and I don't ever really feel like not practicing.  Something is always driving me to hit a bigger number in the practice challenge, like 400, 700.
Huck - I don't care that I don't feel good.  I just practice.


What kinds of things can you do now that you couldn't do 350 days ago?
Gus - Play the 2nd song in Suzuki Book 4, play banjo, play guitar.  Also my family and I can play songs together.  I've learned a lot of new fiddle tunes, probably by at least 30 songs.
Huck - I couldn't play Minuet 1.  I couldn't play Old Joe Clark.  I could only play 2 songs with family band.  But now I play many more than two.

Banjo?
Gus - Its fun.  I just got a new capo for it yesterday so that we can play in a key other than G. 

Can you offer any advice to someone who wants to get better at an instrument?
Gus - Practice every day and go to Bluegrass festivals.  Take lessons from a master.  
Huck - Yes, its your decision if you want practice a lot or not.  That's why we did the practice challenge and not skip any days because that gets you a whole lot of practice.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Gus - a musician and an inventor
Huck - a musician and I want to design rockets too and design playgrounds like Daddy.

Is there going to a prize at the end of the challenge?
Gus - Maybe when we get to 400 we're going to go for lots of bike rides.
Huck -  Yes, I think we should have a prize today.  350 is a really big goal!  You should do it and not tell me.

Any suggestions? 



 

Day 321 of our 100 Day Practice Challenge - Overcoming the Travel Hurdle

Yep, the title is right.   We started our 100 day practice challenge 321 days ago.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a 100 day challenge, I'll explain.  The idea is to practice your instrument for 100 consequetive days.  Almost a year ago, we decided, as a family, to commit ourselves to practicing every day.  This wasn't a huge change for the kids.  They take Suzuki violin and practiced just about every day anyway.  At least I thought they did.  But once we started the challenge I realized that on the busy or difficult days we had often skipped practice.  It was a huge change for Eric and me.  We had been playing guitar and mandolin, respectively, for about half a year, and were averaging about 3 practices a week, usually after the kids were in bed.

So we decided to practice every day for 100 days.  We each picked an exception.  Eric said that it wouldn't count to miss a day if you had to travel and couldn't bring your instrument.  I said that you didn't have to practice if you were sick.  We set a three song minimum.  A day counted if you played three songs, any songs.  We each chose a "prize" for the end of 100 days, and then agreed on a shared prize of a big bike trip together.  

We celebrated lots of little milestones.  We bought a pizza on day 10, baked a cake on day 25, went to an amusement park on day 50, and a movie on day 100.  We still haven't managed a multi-day bike trip, but by the time we got to 100 days we had all realized that the true prize was the music.  We saw huge progress in our playing, but even better, practice had become easy and automatic.

It think it worked because we were all doing it together.  At the beginning of each day, I figured out where practice would fit, and then I made it fit.  At the end of the day we would ask each other if we had all practiced.  We were accountable and all working toward the same goal.

So when we got to 100 days, we kept going, and going, and going.  We celebrate the milestones less and don't notice the challenges much at all.

We've had a ski weekend planned for Huck's birthday for months and I gave the kids the option to use their "travel exception."  They were horrified!  They've made it this far and weren't going to miss a couple days for a ski trip. 

So we packed their violins.  Unfortunately, the guitar and mandolin simply didn't fit, so Mom and Dad used the exception.

Not only did the boys play their 3 song minimum each day, they got to give their Grandparents' a full concert!

Thank goodness for little instruments!

Now we just need to figure out how to pack the instruments for our week-long bike trip this summer.