As music educators and parents of
musical students we probably all have in our repertoire of questions, “Have you
practiced yet today?” or “How many hours did you practice this week?” They are the questions we often feel we
have to ask but also dread because of the answers, emotions and facial
expressions they tend to evoke – I think you know what I’m talking about.
Just for fun, what if we followed
the words “practiced” and “practice” with “video games”?
“Have you practiced your video
games yet today?”
“How many hours did you practice
video games this week?”
I have a feeling we’d get quite a
different reaction, wouldn’t we?
There is no question that a high
percentage of the population, regardless of age, love playing video games. For some it is even an addiction. Personally, I understand why. Ever since I was young playing games
has been a way for me to relax. As
a parent of a young child, it has been a way for me to spend time with my
daughter, and as a teacher in a university, it assisted me in teaching students
the importance of pulse and rhythm.
(Check out Symphonica
if you want to experience a great music game app!) I love video games and often
have to check myself to make sure that I’m not spending too much time playing
around on my iPad instead of on the piano.
With that said, I want to say right
here and right now that I am also addicted to practicing music. Unlike video games, however, the appeal
definitely did not start until I was much older, when I finally started
figuring out how to make practicing interesting, full of accomplished goals,
and musical high scores. As a
practice coach, someone who steps into musicians’ practice rooms with them and
helps them tweak what they’re doing physically and mentally, I’ve become more
and more curious about finding ways to carry what we do when we’re gaming into
our practice sessions with the hope that there’s a way to make practicing just
as addictive and desirable as spending time in front of a screen. In this article I want to explore what
it is that makes video games the activity of choice for so many and to see if
we, as music educators, can learn a thing or two from gaming that can help us make
practicing a little less torturous in the minds of our students.
Video games are designed to get us
hooked. I know there’s a number
out there for how much money is spent by the gaming industry on research but
I’d rather just keep it simple and say, “A LOT!” It seems they’ve whittled down the list of ways to get
gamers coming back to the following must-haves. Let’s take a look at some of them and evaluate how well
practicing music provides these same hooks to keep kids going back to the
practice room.
Getting
the High Score
I don’t know if there is a video
game out there that doesn’t have a way of scoring throughout the game. It doesn’t matter if the player is
trying to beat his own score or someone else’s, that number at the top of the
screen, or wherever it happens to be displayed, is always very obvious and well
in the player’s line of sight. For
most people it is the pursuit of improving his or her own score or beating
someone else’s that keeps them coming back for more. And when the player achieves that goal? Watch out! The level of excitement and pride is usually palpable and the
reward tends to be intrinsic rather than extrinsic, unless you happen to be at
the arcades that hand out tickets that can be exchanged for
less-than-high-quality-junk.
Getting
students to practice for intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards is immensely
beneficial and sets them up beautifully for a lifetime of learning – it also
happens to be cheaper and easier for the teacher! Before students can start sensing these internally
motivated rewards, however, we need to teach them how to discover what their
current high score is and to be able to know where they are at any given time
in that pursuit. There are apps
and programs out there right now that actually are doing this. The student can play through the piece
of music and the program tells them how many notes were correct and which ones
were missed. Personally I’m not
crazy about this approach because it runs the risk of teaching the students
that absolute perfection is the goal – I’m not so sure that should be a goal in
music-making, largely because I think it’s virtually unattainable. And think about this – at least as far
as I know, most games don’t seem to have one
highest score. It always
appears that there is no end to the potential for improvement. Perhaps even video games there is no
perfection.
What I do like about the programs,
however, is that they are giving instant, specific feedback to the students and
that is something they themselves tend to have a difficult time doing. I think it would be ideal if we can
find a way to get students to be self-evaluating their practice in an objective
way, free from the negativity and self-defeating attitude that tends to seep
into one’s feedback, so that students can give themselves their own scores
throughout their practice and can keep pushing themselves to getting their new
highest score before quitting for the day.
Exploration
and Discovery of the Unknown
There are many games out there that
are all about exploration and discovery.
Some, when you open them for the first time, tell you absolutely nothing
about what you’re supposed to be doing or even what the final goal is. It’s up to you to just start observing
and trying things until a storyline and a purpose begins to emerge. It is the norm with this type of game
to find oneself in the same place for an extended period of time, doing
practically nothing but thinking.
An outsider might question the appeal of such a game yet obviously they
strike a chord in many people, myself included, because when you finally do
figure out what you’re supposed to be doing you know that you’ve figure it out
not necessarily by pure luck, but through using your brain. When that happens to me it’s enough to
make me feel temporarily brilliant.
Who couldn’t use a little ego boost now and then?
Two
of the biggest problems I see with practicing these days are frustration and
boredom. When people think of
practicing, they tend to only think of repeating things over and over and over
and over again. Throw in the
metronome and then play it over and over and over and over again until it’s
“perfect.” Is it any wonder the
student would rather play video games than practice? What if we help our students see that learning music can
also be full of discovery? I spend
a lot of time teaching musicians how to read patterns in the music rather than
reading note by note so that they can start to make connections between
different pieces, styles, and composers and so they can become more literate in
reading music, just as they read books word by word, phrase by phrase rather
than letter by letter. This also
enables them to simplify the music for themselves so that tricky passages
become easier to understand and to solve.
It can reduce the need for repetitions and can give the students
something to put their mind to when they do have to do them. It’s about inspiring students to always
be using their brains rather than simply shutting them off and waiting for progress
to happen on its own. As we all
know, successful performances rarely happen randomly. But when it happens as the result of a student’s
problem-solving skills, creativity, and discovery, he or she will realize what
they are fully capable of and that is usually enough to keep them coming back
for more: more practice, more guidance from their teacher, and more performing!
Role-playing
Video games often put the players
into someone else’s shoes; often times it’s someone completely unlike who they themselves
are. Whether it’s a sweet little
magical boy in LostWinds, a hero in a
role-playing game, or a detective in a mystery, those moments in front of the
screen offer the gamer the opportunity to slip out of his own shell and to try
on something new. As with the last
hook discussed, it allows the player to tap into his creative side and to
express emotions and characters that he or she may not feel comfortable
expressing on a day-to-day basis.
Music
offers the same role-playing activity if we choose to tap into that side of
expression. I love to ask students
of any age and ability what character or characters they are trying to portray
through the way they are playing the music. More often than not they look at me like I am completely
crazy. If we can encourage
young musicians to feel comfortable trying on different characters while they
play, just as they do in video games, I think we’d find that it’s easier for
them to get personally involved in what they are doing. They will once again be using their
brains, but in concert with their emotions and their untapped expression. Just think of the high-scores
that can come from that!
Feeling
needed by others
I have yet to try online
role-playing games like World of
Warcraft because of how powerful these games can be. In many cases players become so
involved they can end up neglecting work and family, choosing instead to focus
on their virtual community. That
concerns me. But I think it’s
important to figure out what the hook is in these games that make them so
powerful. I think it all comes
down to gamers feeling like others need them.
Even though there are far more
negative effects this hook has on gamers, I think educators can and already do
use the “all for one and one for all” mentality when it comes to playing in a
band or other ensemble. How often
have we said to students, “Come on!
You are letting the group down.
Tonight you have to practice that hard part or else the concert is going
to be a disaster!” I’m not
personally a big fan of this exact approach, but I do think it can be good for
students to realize that they are part of a team when they are working
musically with others, whether it’s a small or a large ensemble. For students playing an instrument that
doesn’t typically have a role in a team experience, I encourage teachers to
find or make opportunities for them no matter how hard that might be. For duos, trios…anything that takes
them out of their little world and helps them to realize that they have
something to offer others musically too.
Call me crazy, but I truly believe
that as music educators, we are in the position to help young people discover
within themselves the power of their mind and their ability to create magic
through the medium of the arts. We
live in a time where their intelligence tends to be measured by tests that ask
them to fill in bubbles on a page.
We live in a time where young people don’t know how to answer open-ended
questions because they are so accustomed to having to give the only right answer. It’s no wonder to me that they often
don’t know what to do with themselves in the practice room. They fear making a mistake, which of
course is inevitable. They get
bored playing note after note after note without understanding how those notes
can actually create a story. And
they are more often than not isolated and not understanding how this practice
time can benefit them. But how do
those same children feel when plopped in front of a video game? Do they fear making a mistake? Do they
bottle their feelings up? Do they
require physical rewards to keep playing?
No, they don’t. Because
gaming helps them connect with their talents, their creativity, and their
persistence. It makes them feel
good! Wouldn’t it benefit us to
try using those same hooks?
(As an interesting side note, I
regularly took breaks while writing this article and guess what I did? Yep, play a game on my iPad. )
Game on!!
