Surprising Takeaways From The 100 Star Practice Challenge

At the beginning of 2024, I had an idea to motivate my students back into practicing. Most of my students would be a bit rusty on their violins, due to the holiday break. So, I decided to challenge my entire studio to a New Year 2024 “100 star Practice Challenge”.

I helped each of my students select one of their recently learned pieces to practice 100 times. They were to keep track of their progress at home using a star chart. I told them they could take as long as they needed to finish their 100 stars. But, once they completed the challenge, I’d tape the chart to the wall for all the other students to see. My hope was that this would inspire kids to get their charts on the wall to impress their studio-mates. Not a competition, necessarily- let’s call it a “community building” exercise to kick off 2024.

I decided to join in the practice challenge, too!

It took me about a week of passing out star charts to my students before it occurred to me that I could also participate in this challenge. Why not join in with the kids and see how my pacing compared to theirs? I thought it might be fun for the kids to see me working towards the same goal as them. What I didn’t realize was how much I would learn about my own practicing process.
This seemingly rudimentary practice challenge would unexpectedly help me answer some of the following questions for myself. How long does it take to memorize a piece? After how many practice repetitions do you start to feel like you can confidently express your own musical ideas?

I selected the Corrente from J.S. Bach’s Partita II for solo violin. I’d learned this piece during my undergrad, but had not touched it for about a decade. I would basically have to relearn it. I also wanted to learn it on baroque violin this time, as opposed to “modern violin”. And, being under 3 minutes with repeats, it didn’t seem too daunting to do 100 times.

Practice Challenge rules and pacing

First, I set some ground rules for myself. I could only earn a star if I played through the whole piece with repeats. Between getting my stars, I would spend some time correcting and practicing any tricky parts. The correcting and small-section practicing wouldn’t count towards a star. During some star run-throughs, I’d record myself and listen back.

At first, my run-throughs were clunky and slow. There were a lot of old fingerings in my part that no longer made sense to me. It took about the first 15-20 takes to settle on fingerings that I liked. I had to spend time between run-throughs trying to make the tricky chords ring and working on intonation. The run-throughs that I recorded during these first stars were illuminating. I was surprised when I heard strange phrasing, poor intonation, or unintended accents. Admittedly, it is cringy as it is to listen back to one’s own practice recordings. But it’s much better to discover and correct these things early in the learning process.

It was during the first row of stars that I started compiling a playlist of different renditions of this piece. Listening to the different ways that this piece has been played helped me decide how I wanted to style my own interpretation. During stars 20-30, I felt like I had gained more fluency in this piece. My run-through recordings became less painful to listen back to. I could hear my musical ideas taking shape. I had gained more technical fluency to express the musical ideas that I wanted to communicate.

How long did it take to memorize this piece of music?

It was at star number 32 that I was able to play the entire movement from memory. Once I had it memorized, each run through seemed to go by a bit quicker. Some of the technical aspects felt easier, too. I think memorizing a piece seems to free up part of your brain. With memorization, I could focus more on how my body was executing the piece.

I had other concerts during this month that required practice time, too. So, my 100 starts took me longer to complete than I expected, as I got sidetracked with learning other music. I finished on February 11th, about one month after I started. But I found that tracking my progress was motivating. Each star that I colored represented a step closer to playing with more stamina and ease.

I won’t say that 100 stars was enough to make the piece “performance-ready”, though. In order to memorialize the progress that I made, I recorded a video the day after finishing the challenge. While I believe that I made efficient progress throughout the challenge, I do not think that I became totally performance-ready. The video performance feels stiff, like I’m still getting to know it. I am looking forward to re-recording this piece after I spend some more time with it. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for the accelerated progress that I made thanks to the star chart.

How did the student’s do with the 100 star practice challenge?

It is now two months after announcing the challenge, and about eight of my students have finished their star charts. The students that are still working on theirs are motivated by seeing their peers’ charts accumulate on the wall. “Who else has finished their star chart?” some of them ask each week as they arrive at their lessons. One 9 year old boy likes to update my on his progress. This Sunday he told me, “I have about 80 stars now, so I think I’ll be finished by next week.”

It was interesting to observe my students’ various approaches to their star chart progress. The differences in how students approached the challenge revealed much about their personalities. Some students took to the challenge eagerly. The first student, a competitive 6 year old boy, finished in only two weeks. I had to ask him, “Did you actually try to improve as you practiced? Or did you just try to do this challenge as fast as you could?”. He giggled and didn’t give a clear answer, and I have my suspicions as to what that means.

This practice challenge is great for adults, too

I also introduced this challenge to my adult students who take online lessons. Even with the remote lessons, doing a challenge like this provides motivation, structure, and interest to their personal practice progress. It provides an anchor for their daily practice goals, which helps measure their progress on a specific piece. Adult students seemed to enjoy updating me on their star number at each weekly lesson, just as the children do. However, adults understand much better that this is a way of improving one’s own progress rather than competing with others.

I’m already looking forward to the next practice challenge

I found this 100 star practice challenge to be a great community-building activity within my studio. I’m already planning for the next one. Perhaps over the summer, I’ll propose a “review-piece” practice challenge. Hopefully, this will provide students with some structure while they are out of school.

Have you ever done a practice challenge like this? I encourage you to try it and let me know what kind of results you notice!

If you’re interested in participating in these types of studio-wide challenges, I offer online lessons for teens and adults. Send me a message here, or learn more about lessons here.