From Being Taught to Self Motivated Practice - A Continuum Approach to Music

 

From Taught to Self-Directed: A Continuum Approach to Musical Practice

The purpose of musical teaching is not permanence.
It is passage.

Yet much of music education behaves as though the opposite were true: as though the teacher were meant to remain central, visible, directive—an ongoing authority whose presence is required for progress to continue. In such models, practice is assigned, monitored, corrected, and measured. Motivation is managed. Independence is promised later.

The Continuum Approach begins from a different assumption: that teaching exists to make itself gradually unnecessary.

Practice, in this view, is not a task handed down, but a capacity that must be grown. It is not sustained by supervision, but by understanding. A student who practises only when instructed has not failed; they have simply not yet been taught what practice actually is.

Practice and the Problem of Compliance

The word practice is often used imprecisely. It is treated as synonymous with repetition, obedience, or time spent. A student is said to “practise well” if they complete what was assigned, for the duration requested, with visible effort.

But this definition collapses the moment the teacher steps away.

Practice that depends on enforcement is not practice at all—it is rehearsal for assessment. It produces short-term compliance rather than long-term musicianship. When external pressure is removed, the activity dissolves, leaving confusion, guilt, or avoidance in its place.

This is not a failure of character or discipline. It is a failure of pedagogy.

Learning as a Continuum

Educational research has long understood learning as a continuum: from guided experience toward independent agency; from external structure toward internal motivation. Yet music education frequently interrupts this continuum by delaying autonomy, deferring choice, and confusing control with care.

Students are often told they will “understand later,” “choose later,” or “compose later,” once they have demonstrated sufficient obedience to the system. Independence is treated as a reward for endurance rather than a condition for engagement.

The result is a generation of musicians who have been taught what to play, but not how to practise without instruction—or why they might wish to.

Where Traditional Models Break Down

Many conventional approaches retain the teacher as the primary source of authority for too long. Correction precedes curiosity. Targets replace orientation. Silence and compliance are mistaken for progress.

In these environments, students may become highly trained yet strangely dependent—technically capable, but uncertain how to begin without permission. When practice stalls, it is framed as a motivational issue rather than a structural one.

But motivation cannot be commanded. It emerges only when a student recognises meaning, direction, and ownership in what they are doing.

The Continuum Position

Within the Continuum Approach, independence is not postponed. It is present from the beginning.

Students are introduced early to:

• choice within structure

• exploration before correction

• composing alongside learning

• familiarity with the full landscape of the instrument

This is not an abdication of guidance. It is a reordering of priorities.

Orientation comes before expectation. Scope comes before precision. Understanding precedes repetition. The student is not asked to obey an abstract standard, but to enter into a relationship with sound, space, and movement.

Independence is not the end goal of learning—it is the medium through which learning occurs.

Motivation as a By-Product

The Continuum does not attempt to “motivate” students through reward, pressure, or fear of falling behind. These tools may produce activity, but they rarely produce attachment.

Instead, motivation arises as a by-product of clarity and safety. When students understand their instrument, recognise their own progress, and feel a sense of ownership over sound, practice ceases to be something imposed. It becomes something chosen.

This shift is subtle but decisive. Practice moves from public to private—from performance for approval to exploration for oneself.

The Disappearing Teacher

The ethical teacher plans for their own disappearance—not through abandonment, but through careful withdrawal. Guidance becomes lighter. Authority becomes shared. Eventually, the student no longer needs to ask whether they should practise. They already know how.

This is not a loss. It is the success of the work.

The Continuum Approach does not ask when a student is ready to practise independently. It assumes they always were, and asks instead what conditions are required for that independence to emerge safely and sustainably.

Teaching, then, is not the art of control, but of release.

And practice, at last, becomes what it was always meant to be: a private act of attention, curiosity, and self-directed growth.