Motivating Music Students Part 6: Developing intrinsic motivation

This is the 6th installment in our motivating music students series. Here, we'll talk about intrinsic motivation and how to nurture it.

Intrinsically motivated students are genuinely interested in what they’re learning. I’d say this is one of the ‘best’ types of motivation as it builds on truly good and enjoyable internal motivators and helps one feel as if they are growing. Ideally, you would like to get all of your students to become intrinsically motivated. However, I won’t say this is one of the quickest motivators (see motivation by fear or extrinsic motivation for that) and may take some time to develop (yes, it can be developed).

This is one of the hardest types of motivation to encourage as it’s supposed to be self-encouraged. Think about the plot of the 2010 film Inception: long story short (no spoilers here), it’s about a guy who needs to travel into someone’s dreams to sneakily plant a small seed of an idea. He plants this seed expecting it to eventually grow into an idea that this person believes was entirely his own. Dream-hacking aside, this is basically what we have to do to get students to get motivated from the inside. Get to know their natural desires and motivators and plant the seed of inspiration right in the middle of it. Don’t force it or try too hard to steer them, just nurture their interests and let it grow naturally! Sound difficult? It doesn’t have to be - here’s a step-by-step guide on nurturing your students’ intrinsic motivation.

1. Find out what interests your students.

Ask why they enjoy doing the things they enjoy doing - things like reading, sports, drawing, etc. Every student is different. Some enjoy learning things because it’s useful, others because it’s challenging or fun! This part takes more effort on your part as a teacher to understand what makes your students light up and what doesn’t, but it will help you also to strengthen your relationship with your students. Your teaching track should then align with your students’ genuine interests for them to be intrinsically motivated.

2. Give more control.

People feel motivated when they’re in control. Let them decide some of what or how they learn (if you have a bit of wiggle room in your curriculum), which ensures they like it and places more responsibility in their own hands for their own learning. Instead of blindly following assignments for who-knows-what reason, they now know why they want to learn what they are learning. With a music practice app like Better Practice, students can create their own assignments and have a wealth of tools to aid in their learning. When they are empowered, they will figure out what works best for themselves.

3. Pep talk.

If the above isn’t enough, or there are some lesson items you just must do, give them reasons why. Tell them why the song is important to you, or what makes it so cool. Cool backstories can bring songs into a new light. Or, tell them why that chord progression is so genius! Excitement is contagious - if you’re passionate about something and you can relay why, it may rub off on them and they’ll learn something in the process.

4. Show them improvement.

There are a lot of ways to provide proof of improvement other than moving forward in a lesson book. Students have to hear it and see it to really understand, “Wow, I improved that much in that period of time?” which translates to “I can do this!” One way is to record them - yes, they might hate hearing themselves at first, but if you play back a recording from months earlier, the student will hear the improvement and be motivated to keep it up. An app like Better Practice can store their recordings right on the assignment so it’s all organized and easy to find. Better Practice can also visibly track improvement with graphs of real data on how the student has improved and how hard he/she has worked in the past. They can also easily see their entire history of past repertoire - so they can see how much they did and how far they’ve come.

You don't need to perform inception to get students motivated from the inside. Better Practice makes the entire practice experience more engaging, fun, and in-control - so you can keep nurturing their motivation when they're at home!