2. Practicing Music Makes You Happy!!! Here’s How!

Let the Music Make You Feel Good…With Dopamine!

Yes, dopamine, the feel good chemical released in your brain when you experience pleasure. The effect of music on your brain can release as much dopamine as drugs, food, and certain activities. That’s part of the reason music exists all over the world; we all get high when we experience music (playing, listening, dancing).  Here’s a link to a great article that discusses this phenomenon in great detail.

What does this all mean in terms of practicing music? If you incorporate your favorite musical activities in your practicing sessions, those activities will remind you and your child why you love music. It will give you the high you both need to want to practice more music. Similar to other dopamine triggering activities, the high you get from one song will eventually wear off, but luckily you can listen to a new piece of music and experience that feel good feeling all over again.  Keep in mind, though, your child may want to do the same activity for a long period of time (longer than you may want to), and that’s okay, they are the only ones who know what they like, and as long as they still like it, keep doing it!  They also may grow tired of an activity quickly, so keep an open mind, try something different if you need to. Work together to figure out what activity they enjoy the most, and if it’s not in the homework, add it to the homework.  They may want to revisit a song from an old book, or they may want to hear a song from the radio or TV. The activity could be anything, listening, singing, playing, dancing, watching the DVD, etc.  It just depends on what your child enjoys the most.

I highly recommend beginning and ending your practicing sessions with favorite activities. That way you’ll begin and end feeling great, and you will both look forward to doing it again. They can be a creative activities, or something silly, activities that have no wrong or right ways of doing it, and they are free to do it many different ways. Some suggestions – sing a favorite song, play a start and stop game (where you dance, then stop and freeze, make that activity more interesting – change the song each time you stop which requires them to listen and figure out how to make their moves match the music), have them play or sing a song they know really well but do it in a different way (for example – how would an elephant sound playing/singing this song, how can you make it sound more exciting?), or make up your own story to music, make up a new dance to a song, play a song super fast or slow, etc.  The spontaneity of these activities makes the music feel fresh again.  The main idea is that the feeling the music gives you makes you feel so good that you remember why you started music classes in the first place.

Be sure to also include your own favorite music activity as well.  Sometimes you, the parent, need some motivation, too.  It’s easy to get too focused on the things your child can or cannot play or sing and lose sight of the purpose of it all: to enjoy music together, and express feelings and emotions through music.    Take the time to share with your child the music that moves you.  It could be from your childhood, or a recent song you’ve heard on the radio, or your favorite song from the curriculum. When they see you enjoying music that will help motivate them to continue practicing.  These activities can be done at anytime, of course, but if you can incorporate them during practice, then that will help both you and your child enjoy practicing, and keep the music in your heart, where it belongs.

Bottom line – Feel great while practicing music by beginning and ending with favorite music activities.