🎙️ Week 5 – Listening: The Most Forgotten Ingredient
I want to talk about a part of practice that’s often completely forgotten — listening.
This can be the biggest difference between musical households and non-musical ones. When people say, “Oh, I came from a musical family,” what they usually mean is that music was played and listened to at home. Those two things go hand-in-hand.
If you didn’t grow up in that kind of family — that’s totally fine. You just have to be intentional about bringing music into your home.
So think of this as “hard water” and “soft water.”
Soft water homes already have music flowing — people play it, talk about it, maybe even sing or perform together.
Hard water homes? Music might be there, but it’s in the background — kind of like white noise.
In the Practice Pie, water is what holds everything together. And that’s what listening does — it keeps practice “sticky.”
And by “listening,” I don’t just mean Mozart and Bach. I mean everything. Pop, jazz, film music — whatever gets you talking and paying attention. The goal is variety and attentiveness.
Ask your student, or even yourself: “What do you notice about this piece? How is it different from what we usually hear?” You don’t have to know the answers — just model curiosity.
And here’s a fun bonus — what we can call Future Water.
That’s when you and your student listen to pieces they might play someday. Maybe something just a few months ahead, or a piece that’s years away. It helps them imagine their future as a musician and keeps them motivated to stick with it.
So this week’s challenge – make your home a little softer by bringing music into the foreground. Don’t just let it play. Listen to it, talk about it, and see what happens.
As a reminder, this video is a summary from a great resource giving parents tips and tricks on how to make practice work with your students called “Practice Pie.” Links to the full video, the book, and the entire series are in the description. See you next week! 🎶
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