How Having Someone Can Make All the Difference: In our journey through life, we often find that having someone by our side can make a significant impact on our experiences and outcomes. Whether it's a workout partner refusing to let us skip a day, a study buddy helping us grasp complex concepts, or … Read More

If you have a website and it’s not on page one of Google, here are three things you can do right now to improve your ranking and get more more students. If you’re not familiar with search engine optimization (SEO), let me get you up to speed first. SEO is the process of maximizing the number of visi… Read More

As we make our way through the coronavirus pandemic, we are starting to see areas that are lifting stay at home restrictions and you may be planning to reopen your music studio soon. In order to keep everyone safe and make them feel comfortable, you will have to have certain precautions in place. We… Read More

Stay-at-home orders are hitting music teachers hard. Many students are putting lessons on hold, maybe because of their own financial strain, or because they aren’t tech-savvy and are having a hard time with remote lessons. It is still possible to sign up new students during this time (I am seeing it… Read More

Online private lessons are one thing, but online group lessons and rehearsals are a monster of their own. Whether you’re teaching a group, rehearsing an ensemble piece, or trying to get everyone to play along to the same backing track - many of our first questions began with “How?” How do I make sur… Read More

Music is a vital part of life for many people, and always has been. It’s a part of our history, constantly changing - so much so that it’s easy to identify a time period based on its music. And for as long as music has been passed down, there has been music education, our way of keeping musical trad… Read More

The holiday season is upon us, bringing with it one of the hardest tasks: gift-giving. If you're like me, you agonize for weeks over whether a gift you give will be useful and enjoyable (and don't get me started on shopping for dads). Musicians seem easy to shop for, but when it comes down to it, us… Read More

Last week, we introduced Carol Dweck's concept of Fixed vs. Growth mindsets and how to encourage a growth mindset in students. But it’s not just the students who need to watch out for this - you, the teacher, can practice this too. You might be thinking in a fixed mindset and not even know it! As a … Read More

People react differently to obstacles and failures, and that fact is especially apparent when you teach. Some students may react negatively to challenges, attributing their failure to themselves or feeling like they’re incapable of understanding a concept. Others may react positively to a challenge,… Read More

Do you close your studio for the summer but want students to keep practicing over break? Let Better Practice’s smart engine help you and your students stay productive - whether it’s a month or three, students will stay up to date and not lose any skill that they worked on previously. How does it wor… Read More

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

Is Better Practice for percussion students? We’ve gone over the ways band (and pep band, orchestra, etc.), guitar, and piano students use Better Practice, but what about drum students? Drum practice is different from practicing other instruments like guitar or piano. Instead of memorizing scales, fi… Read More

Here's a concise diagram to show you exactly what you should and shouldn't be doing when you practice: 1. Goals Practice smart! It doesn’t matter if you’re practicing 40 hours a week if you’re doing it aimlessly. Create measurable checkpoints that let you know if you’re moving in the right directio… Read More

Teachers play an important role in the lives of their students. Many young people are shaped by their instructors from a very young age and you can see the effects of that shaping quite clearly. In terms of music, teachers are responsible for teaching their students how to play their instrument and … Read More

We music teachers already know the value of being a great sight reader. It leads to many open musical doors. In the trenches, however, we see students who have note reading issues as they struggle with the following: frustration, embarrassment, demotivation, and even desire to quit. As you probably … Read More