Tired of iPhone auto-correcting ‘Gmaj’ into ‘Gmail’? Wish you could easily type accidentals and chord symbols? Like, how awesome would it be if you could just summon “ø” instead of typing out “half diminished” every time? It would be super awesome. And, good news - it’s super easy to implement. I’ve… 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

Maybe you’re a teacher that wants to make your students’ practice more fun and engaging by providing them with backing tracks. Or maybe you’re a student that wants to quickly make a track to play along with. This article will go show you quick ways to make backing tracks for any song you hear. You w… 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

A lot of the time, teachers become disorganized. And when we're disorganized, we may do things like forget who’s learning what or what we even taught at the last lesson with this student (what was his name again?). If this has happened to you, there's no shame in raising your hand because we have an… 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

What does 200 consecutive days of practice look like? We wanted to take time this week to celebrate a Better Practice student, Meryl, who reached a 204-day practice streak! That is no small feat - anyone who practices an instrument should know. Meryl found a way to practice everyday, no matter wher… Read More

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 forgot to mention a key point - right as they walk out the door, assignment notebook and all. I’ll email the parents about it when the day is done, I note (my next s… 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

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 are recording a video for your students, having students record their practice, or you do Skype lessons and need various angles of your piano to show your stud… Read More

Next in line in our Recitals series, we explore your most frequently asked questions about recitals. How do you organize your recital program? Usually, this is done by level. It shows progression - and plus, no one wants to go after someone who’s better than them! One of our teachers mentioned that … 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

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