Hey guys! Happy Friday! I’m psyched today because I found the perfect solution for TWO of my current COVID-19 practice problems: 

1) Decision paralysis and 2) Practice monotony

I realized that the freedom and sheer magnitude of things I CAN practice have been preventing me from practicing!

There are so many options for what to practice that I just can’t seem to decide! None of the options are wrong, but it’s still tough to pick something and just START. So here’s a fun solution:

A free app called Spin the Wheel!  

This app is colorful, extremely customizable, and easy-to-use! You can create all kinds of wheels and even share them with friends! (I’m not sponsored by this app or anything, I just think it’s awesome!) You guys know I’ll be taking full advantage of all the colors!

First, I’ll go over how to create and customize your wheel, and then we’ll dive into how to use it to improve your personal music practice AND your private lesson teaching! It only took me about 2 minutes to create my wheel!

Part 1: How to set up your wheel!

Step 1: Download the app and click “Add New” to create your wheel!

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spin-the-wheel-random-picker/id1467343690

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spinthewheeldecider&hl=en_US

The homepage of your app will have some wheels preloaded for you, like a “Yes or No” wheel and a “What to Eat?” wheel. 

Today we’ll be creating a new wheel, so click “Add New” to get started. (I’m using an iPhone, so this might look slightly different on an Android!)

Step 2: Choose your color scheme or click “New Wheel/Empty”

I chose the “Colorful Rainbow Bright” wheel because it is cheerful and made me smile! You can also choose to create a new wheel from scratch, but for now, let’s edit a pre-made template because it will have all of the same options as creating a new wheel.

Step 3: Name your wheel and customize the choice options

I want to create a wheel to help me decide what to practice, so I named my wheel “What to Practice!” 

The “Colorful Rainbow Bright” template I chose came pre-loaded with 8 blank options. To modify your option text, click the little edit pencil in the Options section. 

It’ll bring up a little window where you can change the text color, the wheel slice background color, and even add your own image! My first option is “Long Tones,” so I’ll type that into “Option Text” and add a <3 emoji (because I love long tones!).

Step 4: Finalize wheel options

You’re almost done! On the bottom left, there are few more options you can customize. You can change the text size, decide how many times each option repeats itself on the wheel, and how long the wheel’s spin will be! 

Text Size: Making the text size smaller can help longer options fit better.

Option Repeat: If you have lots of options, set the option repeat to 1 so everything is clearly visible on the wheel. For my 8 practice options, I left the option repeat at the default 2.

Spin Time: If you want to build some suspense in your private lessons, try setting the spin time to “Looooong!” If you want to make a choice quickly in your practice, try the “instant” setting! I’ve left mine at the default “medium,” which still only lasts for a second or two.

Finished customizing your options? Click the preview button to make sure you like it!

Step 5: It’s time to spin!

Here’s my final wheel. It’s time for me to practice some harmonics!

Step 6: Share your wheel (optional)

This app also has some fun social features! You can share your wheel with your students by clicking the share button. If you want to upload your wheel to the Wheel Store, it costs 75 coins (the in-game currency), but you can share for free via text, email, facebook, and any of your favorite social apps! 

It will share a direct link to your wheel where your students can spin it in their browser without needing to download the app! This is perfect for keeping them engaged during online lessons!

Part 2: How to use your wheel in practice and lessons!

Here are 7 nifty ideas about how we can use this app to solve practice problems, lesson monotony, and lack of engagement! (Get it? Lucky Number 7? )

Personal practice:

1. Dump all of your practice ideas into the app and let it decide for you! (the picture in Step 5 shows what I’m deciding between this weekend!)

2. List the different parts of your practice (scales, articulation, harmonics, repertoire, etc) and let the wheel decide the order you’ll practice them!

3. Want to mix up which page of your daily exercise book you’ll start with? Put in some page numbers and spin to decide the page you practice!

4. Do you need to practice your technique? List some of your neglected etude books and let the wheel pick your fate!

Social:

5. Create a practice challenge with your friends or studio! You can have one person spin the app and that’s the number of etudes/scales you’ll practice today.

Private Lessons:

6. Let the wheel decide some numbers! Like how many times your student will practice this week OR how many times they’ll repeat that measure in a row with no mistakes! (Check out Step 6 above for how you can share your wheel with your students so they can do the spinning!)

7. Do you normally include the same order of operations in your lessons? Like warm-up/scales, etude, repertoire, sightreading? Structure is great in lessons because students feel comfortable knowing what to expect. BUT! You can keep that structure and inject some newness and excitement by letting the wheel decide the order of operations! You still cover everything, but the student will be curious to know what comes next!

 

There you have it! What do you guys think about this Spin the Wheel app? I love that you can include all of your favorite colors and emojis on your wheels! Will it help you solve any problems in your practice or lessons, or do you already use something like this? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

The post 7 Ways to Beat Boredom in your Music Practice and Teaching with a Wheel App appeared first on Stephanie Hoeckley | Flute Lessons + Music Gamification for Dynamic Performance.

Hi there! If you’re new to music gamification, welcome to the high-performance game squad!!

You’re probably here because you want to learn about how to use gamification to level up your music practice or private lesson teaching. (Or maybe you’re totally bewildered by a weird word called “gamification” and you’re curious to learn more.)

Look no further, because you’re exactly where you need to be! If music gamification is new to you, I hope it’s made a grand entrance into your life at the perfect time, just like it did for me!

I’m excited to share with you 3 quick and easy ways you can use gamification to start off the new school year with musical enthusiasm and motivation!

Hang on a sec, what is gamification?

Gamification is when we apply game elements to real-world or productive activities. It’s basically a way to make activities more enjoyable, productive, and, dare I say, even irresistible! There are all kinds of game elements, but a few popular examples are interactivity, levels, points, avatars, and in-game currencies. Other game elements can include the format or type of game, such as card games or board games. Because there are so many different kinds of games, there are also endless possibilities of how we can combine game elements and music with gamification!

One of my favorite examples of music gamification is in my shop: I turned my best practice techniques into a card game called the Practice Hack Stack! Handing a musician a list of practice techniques as a wall of text is intimidating and ineffective, so I put each practice technique on a card and turned it into a game instead. All you have to do is draw a card from the stack to navigate obstacles in your practice! Along the way, you’ll learn which practice hacks are most effective for different kinds of scenarios. Check it out here if you’d like to see gamification in action!

There’s an interactive element to games that helps make music a more fun and positive experience for everyone involved. I try to tap into that whenever I can because it’s a foolproof way to light up musicians of all ages! You can’t beat putting a smile on someone’s face as they’re learning and growing. With gamification, the fun is contagious (even for adults)!

Why should I use gamification in music?

Gamification and music go together like nutella and a spoon. Or like tacos and guacamole. Both are great independently, but when we put them together, they enhance one another! I’ll explain briefly why that is, but I’ll save the intricate game mechanics for a future post! (Sign up here to hear about new blog posts!)

First, I’d like you to think for a moment about a game you’ve enjoyed playing.

Perhaps you were engaged in playing a board game like Pandemic (teehee) or Scrabble, or a card game like Poker or Spades? Maybe you got sucked into phone app games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds? You might have logged on to a computer game like World of Warcraft or The Sims, or maybe you played a video game like Animal Crossing or DOOM.

How did you feel as you played this game? You were probably smiling a lot, were in the zone, and time flew by. Do you remember feeling motivated to succeed in the game by winning, helping your team, gaining experience points, leveling up, or strategizing?

Now think objectively about the kind of actions you took in the game. Were the tasks repetitive? Time-consuming? Did they require a lot of thought, planning, and concentration? 

Now, normally when we’d describe a task as repetitive, time-consuming, and requiring concentration, we’d call it tedious and run the other direction!! We would probably dread starting the task or maybe avoid doing it at all.

Placing card after card on the table one at a time? Sounds boring and pointless. Staring at a computer screen and clicking for 2 hours straight? Nah, I’ll pass. Knowingly taking risks that might lead to mistakes or failure? ABORT!!

When part of a game, though, we actually ENJOY doing these kinds of tasks. And afterward, we feel cheerful and fulfilled instead of depleted and irritated. Wild, right??

What causes this transformation?

1) Our mindset

2) Games activate the core drives that are part of our human nature.

To start playing a game, you have to opt-in and be willing to play. By opting in, you also have ownership over your experience and your decisions. You have the choice and you choose to play!

As you play the game, your core drives are activated and it motivates you to think, take action, and work hard. The games we really enjoy often activate multiple core drives at the same time!

Games also clearly tell you when you’ve won or lost by giving you specific feedback with things like your score, points, a percentage rating, or raking on a scoreboard. This specific feedback tells you your strengths and weaknesses, which creates a feedback loop! Even if you lose, you still feel cheerful because the feedback from the game helps you understand where you went wrong. Most of the time, we’re geared up and ready to try again with a new angle or strategy!

Let’s transition this into a music scenario. 

Thinking a bit pessimistically, music is an inherently repetitive and tiresome activity. We have to practice our instruments frequently and play the same sections of music over and over to be able to perform at a high level. It takes a lot of concentration and brainpower to play well, listen critically, and brainstorm for actionable solutions to our mistakes.

Is this sounding familiar? Just like in games, we complete repetitive tasks to develop musical skills and gain experience. In music, we can also know if we’ve “won or lost” by listening critically for mistakes or areas we can grow in the same kind of feedback loop.

With gamification, the repetitive tasks in musicians’ practice don’t need to be boring or dull. Identifying and addressing mistakes and weaknesses doesn’t have to be debilitating or soul-crushing. When we take the challenging aspects of music and combine them with game elements, everyone wins and we create music in a happier, more joyful way!

As a musician or music educator, you can gamify different elements of your practice and lessons and it will activate the same core drives and feelings of joy that you experience when playing games!

Musicians thrive as confident, capable players when we switch from thinking, “music is hard and I need to avoid mistakes at all costs or else I’ll feel stupid” to “I enjoy practicing because I know mistakes are necessary and they help me learn and grow.” Gamification bridges that chasm because we’re much more willing to try new things.

Let’s dive into these 3 simple ways you can use gamification in your music practice and lessons! I’ve picked 3 gamified music activities that I enjoy using at the beginning of the new school year, but I can guarantee that they’re fun and effective at any time of year!

Music Gamification Ideas

1. Gamify introspection and goal-setting for the new year.

You and your students can create your own musical avatars or bitmojis and add them to your own Musical Hero Profile where you include:

• 3 strengths you have that help you succeed in music (can be music skills or personality traits)
• 3 areas you would like to improve (that you can create steps towards): Bad guys to battle
• 3 long-term goals for the year: Quests!

Here’s are a few of my students’ Hero Profiles! They customized their avatars and I used their interests to pick the backgrounds.

2. Use fun themes to create excitement and variety

I really enjoy monthly themes, and creating them is one of my favorite parts about starting a new school year! As the months go by, themes help me feel like the new month is a fresh and exciting start. My students look forward to upcoming events and themes when I give them teaser descriptions in advance! Despite being fun, they’re also useful and you can use them to your advantage as a musician, educator, or student. I create monthly themes and events in my studio that address relevant topics!

To start, think about the music opportunities you have coming up this year. You can create practice or learning themes to help prepare for performances and auditions! Have a month without a performance? The theme could be FUNdamentals where you go back to the basics and make them as fun, engaging, and refreshing! Do you have your first audition coming up in 2 months? You can read and learn about managing performance anxiety with a James Bond theme because he’s cool under pressure! Pick some of your favorite James Bond quotes to motivate you and maybe wear a fancy outfit as you’re reading. It makes anything nerve-wracking easier to tackle!

You can also use holidays to create events and themes. One of my favorite holidays is Halloween!! I love dressing up and being theatrical, so an event I’ve created in the past is called “Scales Spooktacular” where my students dress up in their costume and record the scale that scares them the most! (Another option is to play your scales “scary fast” for faster technique!)

3. Create a progress map (so you know you’re actually getting somewhere!)

This is REALLY helpful for organizing your time when you have months to prepare for something. There’s nothing worse than working on the same piece for months and having no idea if it’s improving or how much you have left to polish. All of a sudden, the performance date is 3 weeks away and you’re thinking, “Why did I not take this more seriously 3 months ago when I had time??”

This one takes a little bit of planning, but it will pay off in heaps of confidence and performance treasure, matey!!

To start, pick a deadline for a goal you have or an audition/performance date. Work backward and create different performance milestones that help you achieve peak performance well in advance of your deadline! You can keep track of where you are in the thick of it all AND see the end of the tunnel.

You can make a map out of anything.

• A rainbow, where each color is a different performance milestone and you document your progress as you go
• A Candy Land board (it’s perfect, it’s already got different realms for you to conquer!)
• An actual map with pictures of places you’d like to visit someday

Here’s an example so you can see what a progress map is in its most basic form. The sky’s the limit!

Have Fun!

Games are an incredibly positive and motivational way to teach music. With so much time spent addressing weaknesses and mistakes in practice and lessons, musicians can become defensive, hypersensitive, or overcritical. With games, we approach music from a healthier mindset. We’re more willing to try new things! We’re open to making mistakes and failing, because with games, we learn, we fail, we try again, and it’s all literally fun and games. But in reality, games build resilience and help musicians of all ages develop a growth mindset, two incredibly helpful skills to have in music AND in life.

I hope this post fired up your imagination and these 3 gamification ideas kick off your new year with a smile! If you’d ever like to talk about how YOU can improve your musical journey with gamification, I’d love to talk to you! Head on over to the Contact page to say hello, or check out that spiffy Practice Hack Stack Game if you want to level up your practice skills!

Have fun and game on,

About the Author | Dr. Stephanie Hoeckley, Flutist, Educator, & Gamification Guru

Hi! It’s nice to meet you! Thanks for stopping by my blog! My name is Dr. Stephanie Hoeckley, and I’m a professional flutist and music educator in Phoenix, AZ. I’m a firm believer in making all activities as fun and enjoyable as possible, especially with music games and gamification! I use gamification to help musicians and educators like you hack your motivation, organize your time, and level up your performance skills so you can create the musical reality of your dreams! And I help music educators activate this same superpower for their students, too. 

Join the Sunshine Squad

If you enjoyed this post, you are welcome to join my Facebook group, the Sunshine Squad: A Joyful Community for Classical Musicians! This community is for classical musicians and music educators that want to beam joy into their performing and teaching careers with creativity, games, and a healthy mindset!

www.facebook.com/groups/sunshinesquadmusic

Digital Downloads

The post 3 Unique Music Gamification Ideas to Kick-Start the New School Year with Style appeared first on Stephanie Hoeckley | Flute Lessons + Music Gamification for Dynamic Performance.

Summer is here! You made it through your spring studio recital, you minimized the panic, squeezed in all of the extra lessons, and things couldn’t be better! But you know what is looming ahead of you.

“Summer is coming.”

Students start canceling lessons. They forget to show up for their lesson because they didn’t realize it was Wednesday. Some of your most dedicated students suddenly start practicing less consistently.

For private music lesson teachers, summer can mean a lot of things for students’ practice. For motivated students that don’t have enough free time during the school year, summer can mean inspired practice and progress! Score! For other students that lack time management skills or have a hard time remembering to practice, it can mean weeks without picking up their instrument.

It can be frustrating and heartbreaking to experience the negative effects of summer break, especially when practice and progress is usually at an all-time high for the end-of-year recital! Everyone was working so hard and felt that rush of pride after the recital. What happened?

The reality is, everyone experiences a mindset shift when summer arrives. Rigid schedules and habits quickly change when the structure of the school year is replaced with unlimited free time.

Here are some summer issues you might experience as a private music lesson instructor:

1. Canceled lessons because of family plans or travel – Sometimes our students’ amazing travel plans can mean weeks without practicing! This makes it difficult to maintain lesson momentum and often means treading carefully when students come back feeling upset and vulnerable because of their rusty chops.
2. Low motivation and decreased practice – Many of our hardworking students get burned out from school and want to relax over the summer. They absolutely should take the time to recover! However, if their practice stops completely once summer arrives, there are so many fun things to do that practice can completely fall off their radar!
3. Sometimes even pausing or quitting lessons, never to return – If practice struggles go on long enough, parents and students will recognize that summer lessons aren’t working out. They will eventually pause lessons and might never come back. Or worse, they might text you some version of “Thanks for the lessons! We aren’t going to continue over the summer, but will consider restarting in the fall.” Unfortunately, we teachers know what that can mean…

Can you see why summer lessons can be so challenging? As teachers, parents hold us responsible when students aren’t improving, but in reality, we only see them for one hour each week. The other 6 days are up to the student (and the parents)! With decreased income, less structure, and an upward battle convincing students to practice, we’ve got a large burden of responsibility for the summer.

Make the Most of Summer Music Lessons

However, it is absolutely possible for private lesson teachers to minimize these issues and turn the summer into a wonderful time of year! Here’s what studio teachers can look forward to during the summer, when private lessons and practice remain a focus:

• More free time for students to practice
• Time available to address fundamentals
• More relaxed lessons without looming recitals or performances
• Group classes on supplemental music topics

So, how can we turn summertime blues into summertime joy and productivity? How can we motivate our students to practice without relying on parents to nag or sending constant reminders? How can we make music practice fun and memorable?

A game called Practice Tag!

How to Play Practice Tag

This game is simple and effective! Here’s how it works:

1. Each student is paired up with another student in the studio, who become practice partners. Students help encourage and motivate their partners to practice regularly. (You can pair students based on their age, level, disposition, the frequency of their practice, or a shared goal. If anyone is mismatched, consider pairing up a mentor and a mentee!)
2. Determine how long the game will last and have each student pick a reasonable goal they would like to achieve by the end of the Practice Tag event. This gives their practice a higher purpose and establishes a clear reason to participate in the game! A big struggle students have with music is that they do not set goals, so they can’t gauge if they’re improving. Definitely don’t skip this step!
3. Let each pair decide which student will first be “it.” Once this student practices, they “tag” their practice partner by sending a text message or email! Obviously, this game works best for music students that have easy and consistent access to email or a cell phone. I recommend they cc you or include you in a group text so you can facilitate practice, if needed. You can also bcc parents, too.
4. Tagging their practice partner as “it” can be as simple as sending, “I practiced etude #6 today!” More fun and motivating examples include sending a selfie with their instrument, sharing a practice victory, or even sending a clip of themselves playing (this gets students to become comfortable recording themselves and listening back. Wonderfully sneaky, if you ask me!) If the students have a shared goal, definitely encourage them to share progress updates or tips for success they’ve discovered!
5. When you end the game, enthusiastically celebrate the accomplishments of those that reached their goal! Maybe they earn a prize or a new piece of music. Maybe the game could include a contest to see which pair has the highest number of “tags.” You get to decide based on what you think is best for your studio!

(For those that did not reach their goal, consider extending the game a little longer if they enjoyed it, but needed more time. Or, use it as an opportunity to help them recognize how much they improved during the game and talk about setting achievable goals!)

Sounds easy enough, right?

You can absolutely stop here, and this game is fun and helpful enough on its own.

Students pass-the-practice back and forth and get to know each other along the way! It’s easy-to-play, connects students, builds studio community, and prompts students to practice frequently over the summer.

But as we all know, games without a challenge also lack a level of persuasion to play. This is how we’re going to appeal to older music students like high school students, college students, and adults!

Boost the Fun by Increasing the Challenge

At their core, games consist of unnecessary obstacles. If the game is too easy, there is no challenge and nothing to overcome. We generally don’t bother playing these games, or the excitement fizzles out quickly. With well-designed games, we happily accept the obstacles of the game because we want to opt-in and play!

By adding one or two more rules, we boost the challenge factor of this game to get your students hooked on practicing!

So here’s the fun part, and it’s devious!

Students cannot practice certain material until they are “it!”

I call this Mischief Mode. *cackles*

For example, the student who is NOT “it” can practice scales, technique, and etudes, but they can’t practice their repertoire until their partner tags them back!

(Obviously, a certain amount of trust and honesty needs to be part of the game, but I’ve found that if students want to play and voluntarily opt-in, they’re going to follow the rules! Especially when other students are involved. And if they do practice something they “shouldn’t,” they’re still practicing and engaging with their partner. It’s still a win!)

If a student’s tag partner isn’t practicing, you can ask them to send a friendly reminder. “Hey, friend! Can you practice for 5 minutes so I can practice my solo?” BOOM! Positive practice reminder.

“Hey! Yeah, sorry, I forgot to practice today… I’m having a hard time wanting to practice my B major scale. ”

 “Oh my gosh, me too. It’s so hard! But you can do it! If you practice it for 5 minutes today, it’ll be easier tomorrow! We’re in this together!”

Practice reminders, positive encouragement, and social connectedness are packaged into one delightfully simple game.

Practice Tag is an effective way to motivate students to reach their music practice goals without having “The Talk” about how important practice is. If a student is still having trouble practicing at some point in the game, they’ve got you and their partner to support them in a fun and lighthearted way!

Tailor Practice Tag to Fit Your Studio + Your Students

With a simple game premise like Practice Tag, there are all kinds of quick and easy ways to tailor this to your studio! It works really well as a simple game of tag, but if you’d like to add that extra level of challenge and motivation, try Mischief Mode! Here are a few options that I recommend.

Mischief Mode

Option 1: Consider specifying which kind of message they must send to “tag” their practice partner (or give them a few choices)! This is the best option for younger students (middle school) and students that are shy or less motivated.

For example: If they love taking selfies, adjust the rules so they can only tag their partner with a practice selfie with their instrument or music! If you’d like them to be recording themselves more, ask them to send a short practice video that is 5-10 seconds long. You know your students’ likes and dislikes, so you can tailor the rules to fit each pair.

For students that are shy, don’t know each other, or are hesitant about sharing recordings of themselves playing, start off with something that both are already really comfortable with. Then, as the game continues and they become more comfortable with the game and their partner, consider increasing the difficulty by changing which kind of message they send to “tag” their partner!

Now, Option 2 is a bit more challenging. It’s also my favorite part because it uses a bit of scarcity in a positive way to hack students’ motivation. Option 2 is best for high school students, college students, and adults! Give them the option to opt-in to this extra challenge.

Option 2: Establish which material the students cannot practice until they are “it.” Make it juicy! You can do this in one of two ways:

Option 2a. Restrict something they really want to practice, such as their repertoire! They can only practice scales, exercises, long tones, etudes, etc. until they are “it” again. Again, simple and effective. This method works well for students that are eager to follow the rules.

OR, use a bit of reverse psychology.

Option 2b. Restrict something that they do not want to practice and then require that they practice this same material to “re-tag” their partner. You can say something in a jokingly serious way like, “Under no circumstances are you allowed to practice [insert material here] until you are “it! Even if your lesson is tomorrow, you can only practice [material] when you’re ‘it’!”

This option works particularly well for students with a shared goal or practice task, and students that have a slight rebellious streak. For example, say the goal is to master the B Major scale. All of a sudden, you flip the perspective on them. Instead of saying “You have to practice this scale,” you are effectively telling students, “You are not allowed to practice this scale,” even if it’s just some of the time.

Instead of forcing them to eat their vegetables, you’re saying “You’re not allowed to eat your vegetables sometimes.” Deep down, we’re all going to naturally rebel slightly and want what we can’t have, even if it’s just a little bit.

Using Mischief Mode in this way can be enough to start bridging that chasm between students “avoid practicing ___ at all costs” and mastery.

And hey, even if the reverse psychology fails, you have this safety net to fall back on: Students will be trying to get that practice over with so they “aren’t allowed” to practice it again until they’re tagged again! It’s a nice break from practice guilt!

Either way, win-win!

How to Build Skills with Practice Tag in Mischief Mode

Because we’re teachers, we’re always looking for fun and strategic ways to help our students improve their skills. Here are a few examples of skills you can help students improve with Practice Tag in Mischief Mode:

1. Accountability – Students must send each other pictures of their practice log to “tag” their partner. This is great for those students that forget and try and fill out their practice log the night before their lesson! If their partner doesn’t hear from them, they can send a friendly reminder. It’s way less intimidating coming from a friend or peer.
2. Listening to Recordings – Ask students to send a message with the professional recording they listened to during their practice session. It can be a YouTube link or the name of the performer/piece title on Spotify, for example. This encourages students to listen to high-caliber musicians, and can also open the other student’s eyes to a new piece or performer. (Don’t forget to teach your students how to find quality performers!)
3. Friendship/Camaraderie/Community – A lighthearted and easy way to help students become friends is to send pictures! Selfies, a pictures of their pet, their practice area, their solo, etc.
4. Recording (and Listening Back) – If the rules say they have to record a snippet of their practice session, you can bet that students will listen critically to their recordings and get a few takes before sending it to their practice partner! It’s the practice equivalent of checking our hair before we post a selfie.
5. Increased Practice Time – Another option is to create the rule that students can only “tag” their partner when they reach a certain amount of practice that day!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless! You can customize this game as much or as little as you’d like. It can be adapted for music students of any age and level!

Make Practice Tag a Game Students Can Win

To prevent the game from becoming overly complicated, I recommend keeping the rules simple. If you 1) limit which kind of message they send, 2) require practice material to “tag” their partner, and 3) set different material they cannot practice until they are “it,” that’s probably going to be too much to remember! If it’s overly complicated, the game becomes more of a burden. We want a reasonable challenge, not an impossible one.

Along the same lines, you want to manage the difficulty. If you require something scary or intimidating like recording AND that scale they’ve been avoiding for the last 3 months, students will absolutely avoid both. Balance the difficulty and pair something they enjoy (like taking a selfie) with that more difficult task.

Less is more in this game! We generally don’t like to play games we know we can’t win. Include a challenge, but also make sure your students can win the game!

Benefits of Practice Tag

It’s been a lot of fun playing Practice Tag in my studio! Here’s what I’ve experienced with this game:

• Summer practice increases, because playing the game and being tagged as “it” keeps practice fresh in their mind.
• Working towards a goal can provide structure and motivation in the endless void of summer free time.
• As I mentioned before, a big struggle students have with music is that they do not set goals, so they can’t gauge if they’re improving. With Practice Tag, students learn to set goals and receive feedback on how manageable the goal was, how well they prepared to meet the goal, and if they reached the goal or not.
• Students develop a practice routine that can continue long after the game is over.
• Students get to know each other and become part of a community!
  • Bonus: Studio recitals and chamber ensembles will be much more fun for students when they perform among friends!

How to Maximize the Benefits of Practice Tag

Tap into your students’ core motivational drives by giving them control over the game, the rules, and how they play. This is especially effective for teenagers and adults!

Let Students Develop Their Own Strategy

Part of the fun of games is that we can figure out how we would like to play the game. We develop a strategy and that keeps us interested and engaged. Here are a couple ways to give your students some autonomy when designing the rules:

• Let the pair of students pick the rules from a list of your choices! If they decide what they cannot practice until they’re “it,” they’re much more likely to enjoy the challenge!

• Get two pairs together via video chat and have each pair decide the rules for the other pair. If a pair chooses tough rules, the other pair can “get them back” by also suggesting hard rules for the week! It encourages friendly rivalry and helps improve the community in your studio.

Keep the Rules Fresh and Interesting

Keep in mind that even the best-designed games will not stay interesting forever. It takes a specially-designed game to keep the players’ interest long-term. If you plan to pair up students for the year, for example, consider modifying the game so they must reach out to their practice partner once a week. Constant contact and “not being allowed to practice certain repertoire” will eventually become tedious when the newness wears off, especially with the business of the school year.

The simplest way to keep this game fresh is by switching up the rules. You can also play this game for 2-4 weeks a few times a year. Consider strategically using it as part of the month’s theme when you want to boost student’s practice time (such as before your studio recital)!

Have Fun!

Games are an incredibly positive and motivational way to teach music. With so much time spent addressing weaknesses and mistakes in practice and lessons, musicians can become defensive, hypersensitive, or overcritical. With games, we approach music from a healthier mindset. We’re more willing to try new things! We’re open to making mistakes and failing, because with games, we learn, we fail, we try again, and it’s all literally fun and games. But in reality, games build resilience and help musicians of all ages develop a growth mindset, two incredibly helpful skills to have in music AND in life.

I hope you enjoy Practice Tag, especially in Mischief Mode! Let me know how this worked for you and your students in the comments section or head on over to the contact page!

Have fun and game on,

About the Author | Dr. Stephanie Hoeckley, Flutist, Educator, & Gamification Guru

Hi! It’s nice to meet you! Thanks for stopping by my blog! My name is Dr. Stephanie Hoeckley, and I’m a professional flutist and music educator in Phoenix, AZ. I’m a firm believer in making all activities as fun and enjoyable as possible, especially with music games and gamification! I use gamification to help musicians and educators like you hack your motivation, organize your time, and level up your performance skills so you can create the musical reality of your dreams! And I help music educators activate this same superpower for their students, too.

Join the Sunshine Squad

If you enjoyed this post, you are welcome to join my Facebook group, the Sunshine Squad: A Joyful Community for College Music Students and Music Educators! This community is for college music students and music educators that want to beam joy into their performing and teaching careers with creativity, games, and a healthy mindset!

www.facebook.com/groups/sunshinesquadmusic

The post Music Teachers, Boost Your Students’ Practice Time Between Lessons with a Game of Practice Tag appeared first on Stephanie Hoeckley | Flute Lessons + Music Gamification for Dynamic Performance.

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar to you?

I can’t do this.

This doesn’t make sense.

I’m no good at this.

I know I am guilty of these sometimes!! These sneaky thoughts can creep in anytime, and they can be hard to catch because they feel like the truth! The problem with these thoughts is that, while they feel like the truth, they’re actually a big ol’ lie. And I don’t know about you, but I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of lying to myself. I always try to keep it real and give myself the straight truth. However, as much as these thoughts might parade as “real talk,” ALL of the thoughts above are lies. They’re missing one word that turns them into the truth.

This word is small, but deeply powerful: “YET.”

When we think of each of those sentences without the word “yet,” our brains take the thoughts literally, and they fill in the invisible blank with the only logical conclusion:

I can’t do this forever.

This doesn’t make sense and it never will.

I’m no good at this and never will be.

If you don’t fill in the blank with the word “yet,” you’re closing the door on growth and progress, and you’re allowing yourself to feel lost and stuck. “Yet” opens yourself up to unlimited future potential!

Why is it that “yet” makes such a difference? The reason is simple. It allows your brain to consider that those thoughts won’t stay true forever. It does this by turning a fixed mindset into a growth mindset. Do these mindsets sound familiar to you?

Growth Mindset: Noun. The belief that your learning and intelligence can grow and improve with time and experience. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset. With a fixed mindset, skills and intelligence are fixed and remain the same over time.

Here are a few ways you can tell if you have a growth mindset:

I LOVE to learn, and deep down, I honestly believe that I can grow and improve in all aspects of my life. Sadly enough, this doesn’t make me immune from deceitful fixed-mindset thoughts. I have to keep an eye on my thoughts and identify where I need to add the word “yet.” The awesome thing is, it’s a really simple way to stay more positive while practicing or trying something new or difficult!

When you start adding the word “yet,” you can rest easy and trust that with time and effort, you WILL get to your end goal!

Try it out and let me know in the comments which devious fixed-mindset thoughts you are adding “yet” to today!

The post Are Any of These Sneaky Thoughts Limiting Your Potential? appeared first on Stephanie Hoeckley | Flute Lessons + Music Gamification for Dynamic Performance.