There are people who practice a lot and don’t improve much, while others seem to practice half as much progress quickly. What’s their secret? How are they different? What are you? Well, ruling out the exception of superhuman music prodigies, the latter are the ones who how to practice effectively. W… Read More

Everyone says, “Go to school to learn.” But that doesn't really encompass the true purpose of school. The mindset should be, “Go to school to master.” For this article’s sake, we’re thinking of learning as just the absorbing of facts. Anyone can learn by going to lecture and sitting, or reading arti… 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

The best students know how to teach themselves. They're motivated, love what they're doing, and take the initiative to explore what interests them and to really understand what they’ve already learned. This concept of learning and exploring on one’s own has never been easier with the rise of technol… 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

Generation Z. Whether we love them or hate them, they are our students today and the leaders of tomorrow. They were born into a fast-paced, technology-dependent world that’s rapidly changing before our eyes. So why are teachers still teaching the same way as 20, even 10 years ago? Part of this may s… Read More

In order to be successful at anything, one must be able to distinguish between good efforts, great efforts, and the not-so-great efforts. This means you have to be able to critique yourself - and as a musician, this critique should happen every time you practice. Good practice isn’t just about going… 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

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

Have you been wanting to start group lessons but need some pointers on where to start? Or are you making a big move and want to reinvent your studio format? Megan from Pianissimo: A Very Piano Blog has graciously shared her insights into how she made the move (literally) from private lessons to grou… 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

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