Simpedia

Ian B., Pennsylvania

Hey teachers — I want to open up a conversation about something we’ve all been taught in our training, and something I’ve been saying to parents for years:

“Have your child practice at the same time every day.”

It’s clean, simple advice. And I understand why Neil teaches it — consistency matters. But after spending some time with the current research on habit formation AND the neuroscience of music and brain development, I think we can do better. Not throw the baby out with the bath water — but sharpen the advice so it actually sticks in the real world.
Here’s what I’ve found, and what I’ve started telling my families instead…

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THE PROBLEM WITH “SAME TIME EVERY DAY”

In theory, it sounds great. 4:00 PM every day. Done.
But here’s what actually happens in most households: the schedule shifts. Sports seasons change. School pickup moves. A dentist appointment lands right at 4:00. And suddenly the “rule” is broken, the habit never forms, and the parent feels like they failed.
The research backs this up. A 2021 randomized controlled trial by Keller et al., published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compared two groups: one that anchored a new habit to a specific clock time, and another that anchored it to an existing daily routine (like “right after snack” or “as soon as we get home”). The result? Both approaches were equally effective for building automaticity — but routine-based cues are far more resilient to the chaos of real life, because they flex with the schedule instead of breaking against it.
It took a median of about 59 days for habits to reach peak automaticity. That means the cue needs to survive almost two months of daily life. A clock time often can’t. A routine anchor — like “right after we walk in the door” — usually can.
📖 Keller, J., Kwasnicka, D., Klaiber, P., Sichert, L., Lally, P., & Fleig, L. (2021). Habit formation following routine-based versus time-based cue planning: A randomized controlled trial. British Journal of Health Psychology, 26(3), 807–824.
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WHY PIANO SHOULD COME BEFORE HOMEWORK — NOT AFTER

This is where it gets really good!— and where I think we as SM teachers have a massive opportunity to reframe things for parents.

Most families default to: homework first, then piano if there’s time.

It makes sense on the surface — school feels urgent. The problem is that homework is a VARIABLE-duration task. It grows unpredictably over the years. Piano practice, especially early on, is FIXED — 15 to 25 minutes. When you put the variable task first, it squeezes out the fixed one almost every time.

So this is where the neuroscience comes in.

Dr. Anita Collins, one of the world’s leading researchers on music and brain development (University of Canberra, founder of Bigger Better Brains), has spent years translating neuromusical research for educators and parents. Her work — and the body of research she draws from — tells us something powerful:

Playing a musical instrument is one of the most demanding cognitive activities the brain can undertake. It simultaneously engages the motor, visual, and auditory cortices — what Collins famously describes as “fireworks going off” across the entire brain. No other activity studied, including other arts and sports, produces this same level of simultaneous, cross-hemispheric activation.

Practically speaking, music primes the brain for everything that comes after it.
When a child sits down and practices piano BEFORE homework, they’re not just getting their practice in — they’re warming up their working memory, strengthening executive function, and activating the neural pathways that will make homework easier and more focused.
Collins’ 2014 paper, “Music Education and the Brain: What Does It Take to Make a Change?” (published in Update: Applications of Research in Music Education), reviews decades of neuroscience and identifies specific cognitive benefits of music learning: improvements in memory, language acquisition, executive function, and brain plasticity. These aren’t side effects. They’re direct outcomes of the kind of multi-sensory processing that happens when a child plays an instrument.
Her book The Music Advantage (2021, Penguin Random House) goes further, showing that music learning enhances the corpus callosum — the bridge between the brain’s left and right hemispheres — making it larger and more connected in musicians. This thicker bridge means faster and more efficient communication between the analytical and creative sides of the brain. It also documents how musicians’ brains are roughly 30% denser and more interconnected than those of non-musicians, a finding she’s discussed extensively in her TED-Ed talk (“How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain,” now viewed over 14 million times) and her podcast appearances.
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SO WHAT DO I TELL PARENTS NOW?

Two things:
1️⃣ Anchor practice to a daily trigger — not a clock time. “Right when we get home.” “Right after snack.” “Before we sit down for homework.” The specific time on the clock doesn’t matter. The consistency of the cue does.
2️⃣ Put piano before homework, not after. Piano is the fixed-duration anchor (15–20 minutes). Homework is the variable. And thanks to the neuroscience, we now know that practicing first doesn’t take away from homework — it POWERS IT UP. The brain that just lit up like fireworks at the piano is now primed and ready to focus on math, reading, and everything else.
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WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US AS SM TEACHERS

I’m not saying Neil’s advice is wrong in spirit. The intention — daily consistency — is spot on. But the mechanism matters. And the research gives us a sharper, more resilient, and frankly more exciting way to frame it for parents.
Imagine telling a parent: “Have your child practice piano first — before homework — because neuroscience shows it literally warms up their brain for everything else they need to do that evening.”
That’s not just a practice tip. That’s a reason to protect the practice window. That’s a reason the Life Coach role matters. And it’s a conversation parents WANT to have.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Has anyone else been experimenting with this kind of reframing? What’s working for your families?
SOURCES & CITATIONS

• Keller, J. et al. (2021). Habit formation following routine-based versus time-based cue planning: A randomized controlled trial. British Journal of Health Psychology, 26(3), 807–824.
• Collins, A. (2014). Music Education and the Brain: What Does It Take to Make a Change? Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 33(1).
• Collins, A. (2021). The Music Advantage: How Music Helps Your Child Develop, Learn, and Thrive. Penguin Random House.
• Collins, A. (2014). “How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain.” TED-Ed. Link
• Schlaug, G., Jäncke, L., Huang, Y., Staiger, J. F., & Steinmetz, H. (1995). Increased corpus callosum size in musicians. Neuropsychologia, 33(😎, 1047–1055.