The advance of technology has gotten a bit of a bad rap lately with the killer robot movies and technology-is-going-to-take-your-jobs mentality. I’m not saying those aren’t legitimate fears (it’s already becoming all too real) - but there are ways to leverage what’s available and appealing to the yo… Read More

My music students aren’t motivated. How can I get them to be? Well, instead of looking to build their motivation, why don’t we look at it in terms of energy? Motivation is really linked to how much energy and momentum the student is feeling. If a student just aced a song and they’re really proud of … Read More

“When you assume that people know what’s expected of them, you are creating an ineffective form of bowling. You put the pins up but when the bowler goes to roll the ball, he notices there is a sheet across the pins. So when he rolls the ball, and it slips under the sheet, he hears a crack but doesn’… Read More

An Interview with Lyndel Kennedy of InnerMusician Many teachers are interested in teaching improv and want to find ways to incorporate it into their curriculum but feel they don't know enough about the topic to teach it. So - we sought an expert in the topic: Lyndel Kennedy, creator of InnerMusicia… Read More

Tell me if this looks familiar: Teacher assigns a piece. Sends student home to practice. Student plays song over and over with one vague goal in mind: to improve. Student goes to lesson. Hasn’t improved much. Is reassigned the piece. Now, there are typically 6 days between lessons. 6 VALUABLE days t… Read More

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 hour a week to do so. A lot of times, I’d feel my really motivated students were being held back only by this limit of how much information I could throw at them … Read More

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 quite the type of fear I’ll be talking about. As a continuation on our Motivating Music Students series, we’ll be discussing good fear and the motivation that ar… Read More

One of the most effective and natural ways kids learn is through modeling. We’ll explore how we can incorporate modeling into teaching music - not just as a teaching tool for playing, but also to motivate and build great habits. This is a very general (but effective!) method that can be applied in m… Read More

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 get overwhelmed just looking at it. So day after day, I’d put it off - until, before I knew it, a week passed and I hadn’t touched the piece. I’d sulk into my d… Read More

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 to do this one instead”? Or students who were given one assignment and come back the next week having practiced a completely different song of their preference… Read More

Do you find yourself repeating the same thing lesson after lesson, or find that students working on similar material could benefit from observing each others’ lessons? Dr. Robert Pace wrote a great piece on his website about his journey from teaching strictly individual lessons to realizing the need… Read More

A Bobo doll is a large, inflatable doll that is weighted on the bottom so it always stands upright. It doesn't have any hands or fingers, can't play any music, let alone make a sound, other than a the thud of people striking it. However, The Bobo doll has taught learning experts a lot about learning… Read More

For those of you who are starting a new school year, we wanted to share 3 great tips to help you gain some momentum that will help carry you and your studio through the school term. 1. Develop A Practice Habit Want your students to practice every day? Studies show that it takes 21+ days to form a h… Read More

In Part 1 of our multipart series on Motivation, we discussed how to identify motivation types in each of your students. In this post, we'll dive deeper into the use of incentives and rewards or extrinsic motivation. In the world of music education, extrinsic motivation has always been a touchy subj… Read More