How to get students to practise between lessons

Mikey Hurdle, 26 October 2026

I'm an adult piano student, not a teacher, so I'll say that first. I came back to piano just before I turned 40, and I tracked every session in a spreadsheet because that's how my head works. My teacher, Ellie, saw it and said her other students could use something like it. Mewstro grew out of that. What follows is what I've learned about the week between lessons, as a student and from building Mewstro alongside her studio.

The short answer to the question in the title is that you can't make anyone practise. What you can do is make the next practice easier to start, easier to get right, and easier to talk about when they come back.

Say exactly what to practise, and for how long

“Practise the Clementi” is a big, shapeless job, and big shapeless jobs get put off. “Bars 12 to 24, hands separately, ten minutes a day” is something a student can start at 7pm on a Tuesday without thinking. The smaller and clearer the first step, the more often it gets taken.

It also helps to write it down where they'll see it during the week. A notebook works. So does a text. What doesn't work is remembering what was said at the end of a lesson while being hurried out of the door.

Ask them to decide what they're working on before they play

This is the change that made the biggest difference to my own practice. Before I sit down, I say what I'm going to work on and for how long. Ten seconds, no more. “Left hand in the development, 15 minutes.”

Without it, I'd drift to the bits I could already play, because they feel nice. With it, the session has a point, and I notice when I've wandered off. Students do the same thing. It's the reason Mewstro asks for an intention before the timer starts, but you can ask for one on paper just as well.

Show them how to practise in the lesson

A lot of students don't know what practising is. They know what playing is. If they've never seen slow practice, or looping two bars, or playing one hand while singing the other, they'll play the piece top to bottom and stop at the same mistake every time.

Spending five minutes of the lesson letting them practise while you watch, then pointing out what to do differently, sets up the whole week. It's the bit of the lesson that does its work after they've gone home.

Short and often beats long and once

Fifteen minutes on five days does more than an hour the night before the lesson, and most teachers already know it. The useful thing is to say so out loud, and to praise turning up rather than total time. A student who manages ten minutes on a busy school night has done the hard part.

If you use any kind of streak or chart, make sure missing a day doesn't feel like failing. A streak that resets to zero after one bad week teaches a student to give up on the week. In Mewstro, rest days don't break a streak and the cat just naps. I built it that way on purpose.

Ask how it went, not how long it was

Minutes are easy to count and they tell you very little. A student can do 20 minutes of playing through, or 20 minutes of fixing the hardest four bars, and the minutes look the same.

What helps more is a line from the student after each session: what they worked on, whether it went how they wanted, and what's next. It turns “did you practise?” at the start of the lesson into “I saw the run in bar 30 was still tripping you up, shall we start there?” That's a better lesson for both of you.

See the week before they walk in

The pattern of a week tells you things a student won't. The one who practised every day for a month and then stopped. The one who only ever practises the evening before. The one who does lots of scales and never touches the exam piece they're nervous about. You can only spot those if you can see the week.

That's what the teacher side of Mewstro is for. Students time their practice in the app, say what they meant to work on and how it went, and you see it on a dashboard before the lesson, with an email on Monday mornings saying who practised and who went quiet. Here it is in a minute:

Keep it small to start

If you try any of this, try one thing with a few students for a month. Specific tasks are the easiest place to start. An intention before each session is the one I'd try second.

And if you'd like to see the week without asking for it, Mewstro's teacher guide explains how a studio is set up, and the trial below lets you try it with real students. It's a small product, made by one person, and one studio has used it since the spring. I'd rather tell you that now than have you find out later.