Spotlight: Violet and Hazel both have practice streaks of over 1558 and 1685 days (as of April 23rd) - that’s over 4 years of practicing every day! Can you imagine practicing every single day for a year? (Yes, like that New Year’s resolution that you abandoned in the 2nd week of January.) Really pi… Read More

Vacation time - it can be a time of relaxation, recharging, and, for a lot of music teachers...reduced income. Many students take breaks from lessons during summer/holidays and sometimes we don’t know if they’re ever going to come back at all! Taking a break (for both teacher and student) is healthy… Read More

Chunking is, in my opinion, one of the best strategies to learn pieces. Not all parts of a new piece are the same difficulty and so those parts need more work than others for you to play it all at the same fluency. Chunking consists of identifying the more difficult parts of a piece (the chunks) and… Read More

Think back to your very first musical encounter. What made you pick up your first instrument? Whatever the answer (whether it was inspiration from seeing a performance, a school requirement, or a demanding mother) - I think we all had that flash of hope in us that someday (soon), we’d be playing our… Read More

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 slow practice is fast progress. But what do I mean by ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ practice? Students love rushing... There was a certain habit I saw a lot of my students h… 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

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). We hope to provide a unique perspective that hasn't been provided before, and that it can help all of you music parents out there! When parents are actively in… Read More