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music Tag

03 Oct

Tools for Independent Learning

by admin
in Performance, Program Development, teacher resourses, Teaching
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social-learning

“Give a person a fish, and he/she will eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and he/she will be satisfied for a lifetime.”

In my last blog, Igniting the Spark, I wrote about my goals for the year – empowering students to take responsibility for their own learning. Since then, I have experienced an amazing paradigm shift and as a result, am truly enjoying my teaching. I have always enjoyed teaching, but am easily frustrated when students arrive at lessons unprepared or “check out” in the lesson! The shift this year has been a conscious effort to give students the tools for independent learning, talking less and demonstrating more, and holding them accountable for each week’s assignments. I am feeling much more relaxed and students are working a lot harder, with less stress on my part. I have focused on three main areas:

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09 Aug

Affordable Marketing in Your Community

by cconrad
in Marketing
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marketingWith families returning home from summer vacations and gearing up-for-back-to-school, it’s important that your studio’s name and information is out in the community so that you have new students enrolling this fall. Even if you don’t have a huge advertising budget, there are creative ways to become a community presence that will cost you little to nothing.

Here’s a few affordable — and even free — ideas from my experience and observations of other successful studios in my community:

  • Sample Classes – I teach group piano classes, so during the first week of August, I set up shop at the community room of my local library and offer sample classes. I have my studio policy and registration forms to send home with families and provide a special discount offer for families who enroll within a week of attending a sample class. A friend of mine who teaches Music Together classes does her sample classes at the local Children’s Museum, who advertise them for her free of charge, since they enjoy having a musical activity to offer museum visitors.
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01 Aug

I Have G.A.S.

by csmusic
in Performance
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By Saleh Sabat My name is Saleh. I’m an Electric guitar player, and I have G.A.S. I’ve had it since I was 13 years old, and it seems to be getting worse as I age. Ok ok, now that the giggling is over, let’s talk about what G.A.S. stands for. G.A.S. is an acronym for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Almost every famous electric guitar player has had some...

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10 Jul

Joy in the Journey

by admin
in Uncategorized
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By Meridith Johnson Recently a friend of mine who also teaches piano lessons shared a story with me about a new student she began teaching for the summer.  After her first lesson with the small wide-eyed five-year old boy, the parent immediately began to question her, “How is his musical talent?  Does he have good rhythm?  Can he understand how to read music?  I just don’t...

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10 Jul

Evaluating Yourself as a Teacher

by cconrad
in Performance, Policies and Procedures, Program Development
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bloggityLast month I wrote about how I use my completely non-professional equipment (as in iPhone) to record my students playing and allow them to hear mistakes, or record myself playing a passage they struggle with so they have a sample for home practice. I recently decided to use recording technology to record a few lessons and evaluate my teaching abilities.

I recorded myself teaching when I was introducing a new piece to a student, and then recorded the middle stage of the piece, where it was coming along nicely but we were working out a lot of rhythm kinks and adding layers and such. Besides being an awkward viewing experience (does anyone really enjoy seeing themselves on camera?), it was actually beneficial. I was able to pick up on little things I did well in the lesson and watch how it “clicked” with the student, and I was able to see the moments where I was losing the student’s interest. I learned from watching myself during the first recording that I have a tendency to talk and explain how I want something to sound. Certainly explaining and talking is a part of lessons, but seeing myself in action caused me to realize that I need to keep the student playing or listening to keep him engaged. I now have added awareness of this tendency and work hard to let the majority of lessons be about the student’s playing and putting into action the things we talk about.

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