School is out! Summer vacation! Yay!
It’s all fun and games until we realize that our young musicians will lose their skills if we allow them to dream away their summer holidays. Some families will choose to have the music teacher come for a lesson a few times during the summer, but that still may not be enough to simply maintain skills. Here are four activities that your child can do to keep her skills during the summer.
1. Time Travel. Flip backward through the lesson book and ask her to play one piece that was learned each month during the school year. Most teachers will have the page dated. Typically, students learn about one page per week, so she will have a few pieces of music from which to chose.
2. Create a Portfolio. These are also called repertoires. You’ve probably heard all the pieces that your child has learned this school year. Ask her to go back and perfect the ones that you enjoyed hearing the most. Two to four pieces should be enough depending on their length and difficulty.
3. Improvise and Compose. Allow your child to make up her own pieces. Record them as audio or video files and share with your teacher. Allow her to make up her own arrangements for already learned pieces. Children love to be creative and change the music to reflect how they think it should go.
4. Look into the Future. Ask her to play something from future lessons, pages in the book not yet covered. She may not have the knowledge to play them perfectly, but she does have skills to figure out what she can. Circle with pencil the parts that give her trouble. Even a line or two learned on her own will make her feel accomplished.
The best option is to continue music lessons and even get in a few extra lessons. It is better to use summer downtime to get ahead than to fall behind.
