Last spring I was looking for a piano book to teach my son with, but I was disappointed with so many of them. I just wanted a simple book that started with all five fingers on five keys starting with C, and taught several pieces of music in that position to start off, so he could get a clear feeling of how to use one finger per key. So many of the books seem clever and entertaining but also distracting (sort of like children’s TV!).

Finally I found the right book, and as I was paying for it, my friend who owns the store commented on how old the book was. She was right. I discovered when I looked it up that the book was published in the 1940s. Yet it had a great, simple, workable method. More…

If any of you are teaching at camps this summer, try some of these craft projects that tie into music education. I actually used some of them in my 10th Grade Music Appreciation classes, so they translate well into the classroom!

MUSIC MOBILES

Remember mobiles? Those art projects you hang from the ceiling? I made very simple ones with my students out of paper plates and magazine pictures.

SUPPLIES: paper plates, paper clips, thin string, hole puncher, magazines, glue, scissors

Divide the students into small groups to share supplies. Each group needs glue, scissors, and a stack of magazines. Each student needs a paper plate. Have a theme decided that goes with your lesson. Mine was “Musical Styles”. Each student picked a style of music to make a collage of, and then they cut out pictures to represent that style. One example is finding a picture of a motorcycle jacket for Rock and Roll, or a ballerina for Classical music. One clever student even found a picture of grass and colored it blue for, you guessed it, Bluegrass. Encourage them to find as many pictures as possible and to “write” the name of their genre with cut out letters. More…

Building resonance is an important step in warming up your student.  In the sequence of the warm up, start with resonance building exercises after breathing exercises and before phonation.  If resonance exercises are not part of the daily vocal warm up, the student with resort to using “speaking resonances”, which are not as high and forward as when singing.  This can bring about problems when starting to sing repertoire for the day.
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It’s very difficult to tell muscles what to do. Mostly we remind them of what to do–something they’ve done before. When we want muscles to learn something they haven’t done before, we have to focus on the motion and the coordination until they get it, and then the muscles can remember, and be reminded when we need that action.

Beginning students often assume they just have to understand what to do, and then tell their fingers or hands to do it. This is a recipe for frustration, as they watch their fingers refuse to obey, or as tasks become more complex and the brain simply can’t keep up commanding the hands to do everything correctly.

At some point, students learn that if they keep trying to command the fingers when and how to play every note, it’s like trying to keep in mind how to spell every word they speak. You just can’t do this without slowing the whole operation down to a snail’s pace.

Our fingers, hands, arms, have to learn their tasks much they way we learn to speak. Our brains think about what we want to say, but we certainly don’t think of all the letters that spell what we’re saying. We don’t even think about every word, but rather the phrases that we put together to say what we want at a conversational tempo. We do the same in music. As we learn the musical phrases, we say them with our instrument or voice, rather than fixate on individual notes.

As music teachers, if we keep in mind that it’s best to remind muscles what to do, rather than order them around or teach them every motion anew, we can think about customizing lessons to our students.

For example, More…

Each summer, I like to try and learn a new instrument or musical technique. It keeps me interested in music, but the main reason I started this was to put myself in my student’s place. It’s easy to forget what it feels like to be in the student’s place if you’ve been teaching for awhile. The first summer, I learned the Banjo. So hard, and boy did that humble me! I came away feeling much more compassionate for my students (especially the struggling ones!).
Last summer I decided to learn the Mandolin. Wow! That was fun! It was so much easier than the banjo, and I was able to learn an Irish style of playing. More…

We usually teach with a view towards helping a student improve from lesson to lesson, building a foundation for the longer term.  Most of our focus is on progressing from lesson to lesson.  Thinking too much about the long term can be daunting.  When students come in (especially older adults) with worries about whether they will become a good player, I point out that the only judge of whether someone is actually “good” is the listener.  If people keep coming up to you after performances and tell you they enjoyed your playing, were moved by it perhaps, or were impressed, well then you’re a pretty good player.

But it’s hard, and frustrating too, to spend all your time aiming at being “good” by some future listener’s measure.  The only reasonable goal is not to be good, but to get better.  You can always get better, from week to week, month to month, at whatever task, piece of music, or technique you’re trying to learn.  I tell this to students, but the truth is that we also get better as teachers.  That’s why we like to read the MTH blog!

In the end, though, it is good inspiration to think of the long term, and how all that progress from lesson to lesson ended up building a musician.  If you’ve taught for a while, you have some stories about students that transcend the struggle to “get better”.  I’m sure many of us would enjoy reading a story or two about your students at the end of this post, down below there…very easy to add a “comment”!

Looking back at the success stories is a look at the long term, and it’s good to remember them once in a while, as we work with students day to day.

I think of one student who was More…

One of the most common issues beginning students have when they walk into the studio is a lack of adequate vocal tract space.  People are used to speaking all day everyday, and most beginners will use this “speaking space” in their singing.  I tell my students every week that singing is heightened speaking, meaning there is more energy in breathing and more space in the mouth to amplify the sound.  Adequate vocal tract space is directly linked to the size, release and tone of the voice.
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Summertime is the perfect time to develop a weekly lesson plan to go over important singing technique fundamentals.  During the year it is easy to focus on learning and preparing repertoire for upcoming recitals and juries, and taking the time to really focus on technical concepts is not always an option.
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If you use Music Teacher’s Helper, you are a teacher, but do you also perform?  If so, how do you balance these two roles?

Your comments on this topic are very welcome below.

Two different approaches:  A friend of mine who has performed and toured for many years told me recently that she has come to realize she enjoys teaching more than performing, and now emphasizes her time with students.  As to me, I have always enjoyed working with students, and have quite a few, but I also value performing such that if there’s a conflict, I generally rearrange my lessons to accommodate the gig, regardless of financial consequences.  I feel it’s good for my skills, connections, and exposure, and if I’m not performing enough, teaching feels more like a job, rather than a chance to encourage students and share my expertise with them.

Do you find yourself leaning more towards teaching or performing?  What are the benefits and drawbacks to students of having a performing teacher?  What are the benefits and drawbacks of performing, from the perspective of a teacher?

The benefits for a student of having a performing teacher include a sense of pride that the teacher is known and respected for playing music.  Even though lessons may not be as regular when a teacher performs or even tours, most students are pleased to know More…

I have been checking out a site called bluesbackingtracks.com and asked to review the site. Many of us have students that are learning scales to play with accompaniment. This site offers the accompaniment in form of a band in many different keys and styles. By emailing the author for a demo, he quickly sends you as an email attachment a five minute demo. The purchase price for a full twenty minute track is $9.95. The quality is good. I have been trying the demo out with students improvising with the pentatonic scale, and it has worked quite well. I can spend my time helping the student as he playing to the demo.

I would like your opinion and review for this site and services also.

Below is the comment sent by the author of the site: More…