Spotlight: Meryl's 200-Day Practice Streak
What does 200 consecutive days of practice look like? We wanted to take time this week to celebrate a Better Practice student, Meryl, who r… Read More
Practice Strategy: Tackling Difficult Sections with the "2 Up 2 Down" Game
There’s one golden rule of practice I tell all of my students: fast is slow, and slow is fast. Meaning - fast practice is slow progress and … Read More
Dump the Notebook: Stop Limiting Your Students' Progress
I often have those “Aha!” moments (or “Duh!” moments) where I think of the perfect assignment for a student to work on, or I realize I forgo… Read More
Motivating Music Students Part 7: Making lessons (and practice!) a social activity
Here comes the 7th and final installment of our Motivating Music Students Series. We’ll be discussing social motivation: what it is, how to … Read More
Being Critical To Yourself: Why Should You Be?
In order to be successful at anything, one must be able to distinguish between good efforts, great efforts, and the not-so-great efforts. Th… Read More
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. Intr… Read More
6 Things You Didn't Know YouTube Could Do For Musicians
YouTube in Music Education As teachers, we all know the struggle of having a lot of ground to cover and only being given 30 minutes to an ho… Read More
Motivating Music Students Part 5: Motivation by Fear
When I say “motivation by fear”, what comes to mind? Stalin’s Reign of Terror? Your mom bringing out the belt? Both valid answers, but not q… Read More
Getting the Right Angle: How to Record Video for Piano Players
As we move further into the age of rich media, recording audio and video is quickly becoming core to the music learning process. Whether you… Read More
Parents: You may be asking your child the wrong question
In my last post to parents, I discussed the role of the parent and your importance in your child’s music education. Here, I will go a little… Read More
Music Recital FAQ
Next in line in our Recitals series, we explore your most frequently asked questions about recitals. How do you organize your recital progra… Read More
Are You Using The Most Effective Learning Technique?
One of the most effective and natural ways kids learn is through modeling. We’ll explore how we can incorporate modeling into teaching music… Read More
Understanding Your Role As A Music Parent
This is a guest post by Ben: parent to two young music students and someone who works closely with music teachers (but is not one himself). … Read More
Show Me The Way: Using Indicators and Milestones to Guide Students Through a Tough Piece
Sometimes when I was younger, I would get a piece to learn that was so long or so difficult that I just didn’t know where to start. I would … Read More
Motivating Music Students Part 4: Students That Say No
Do you have students who, when you say “Practice these exercises this week”, say in return, “No”? Who say, “I don’t like those songs. I want… Read More