Music Teachers Blog

As a MTH Support Team Member, I see many questions and answers that would be beneficial to all of the members of the MTH Community. This is the first of many articles which will show you the questions asked by the teachers, and the answers given by the support team members. Feel free to add a comment in the comment section following the article.

Music Teacher: I’m just updating my logos in MTH. I wish that I could use my invoice logo in emails instead of the regular logo. It would fit better at the top. (more…)

Unless you are teaching a group class to play from scratch, every group you work with will consist of students who are at different levels from each other.  How do you work with a single group that has varied abilities?

Since all students at all levels have improvements to make in their playing, you can find ways to make sure that during your class everyone gets a chance to make some improvement at their own level.

Several ways to do this in a mixed-level class include: exploring musicality, giving students at different levels their own challenges, and combining a simplified with a more complex version of the same music.  Let’s explore a little about each of these. (more…)

Has a student ever had a difficult time mastering a piece?  Have you ever been at a loss as to how to organize a lesson and point students in a forward position toward successful goals accomplished in their practice times.  The following list is not exhaustive, but will hopefully be helpful to all of you as we strive to help our students develop a strong, well-rounded musical education.  This list is based only on the practice of one piece.  Theory, ear-training, sight-reading, application of duets, and much more are different subjects to be addressed at different times.  (more…)

The month I signed a lease on a very affordable office suite was a very exciting time for me. I had taught privately for many years and worked out of other lesson studios and it was finally my time to go into business for myself. I painted, hauled office furniture, set everything up just right and soon I was ready to receive the throngs of people that were ready to knock my door down.

It wasn’t quite that easy. Not by a long shot. The suite I signed a lease on was off-street and had no visible signage or street presence. As a result, I learned some very important lessons on marketing (many the hard way). I thought I’d share a few of them here in hopes that others may get a laugh or a new idea from my experiences. (more…)

We’ve all heard it, and most likely even said it ourselves in the past.. Why is it that our students feel they know a piece of music perfectly, but then crumble in the lesson? What tools can we give them to prevent this from happening and to build their confidence regardless of the situation in which they are playing? (more…)

Many of my students are traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday, which necessitated a plan for make up lessons.  This year, I decided to present a master class entitled “How to Practice” as a group make up lesson.  Here’s what I passed out to my students.  I hope you find this helpful for your own students.  Feel free to copy it if you’d like.  It’s currently geared toward percussion students, but 5 minutes of editing could make it applicable to any instrument.

Step One: Ask “Why Am I Practicing?”

Clarity is the key to effective, efficient practice.  Every time you pick up a pair of drumsticks, ask yourself “what am I trying to accomplish?”.  Be as specific as possible.  Here is a list of potential reasons to practice (not all inclusive):

To work on a specific technique

• To work on a specific piece of music
• To explore a certain style of music
• To work on speed
• To work on endurance
• To increase your independence (one limb or four)
• To improve your sight reading
• To prepare for a specific performance
• To work on showmanship
• To relax
• To have fun

It’s perfectly okay to go into a practice session with the intent to relax and have fun.  Playing your favorite songs and just messing around can be a great way to relieve stress.  Make sure, however, that you’re aware you’re practicing to have fun and not to “get better.”  (more…)

What are you thankful for?  Here in the United States, we have set aside a day to remember our blessings., dating back to the pilgrims’ giving thanks for the food and provision they had after suffering a terrible winter of death and tragedy.

My family has its traditions; turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie (my favorite is apple), and delicious homemade bread.  We sit in the living room and sing songs related to Thanksgiving, harvest, and gathering together.  For the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of playing for such an event.

Though I am terribly busy with college studies and teaching, I wanted to write here about truly being thankful for our studios and the families that come our way.

What are you thankful for today? (more…)

• Updated student and parent logins to use the https protocol, so all of the students and parents information will have a secure and encrypted connection for teachers on a paying plan.
• Credit card expiration dates can now be entered with dates up to 10 years in the future
• Updated studio website themes to say “NOTICE” instead of “WARNING” in message boxes (such as when filling out the registration form).
• Fixed typo: “Rechedule” to “Reschedule” when editing an event.
• Added some new links to the blog sidebar
• Made blog comments strip slashes whenever there’s an apostrophe
• Fixed a rare bug in the practice log when organizing students by a skill level that had an apostrophe in it.

Audacity is a software package used for digital audio editing. It works in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and other operating systems. It is also absolutely free, which is fantastic for musicians or students on ANY budget.

I originally encouraged students to download this program so they can write and record their original songs and create band demos. Several students are also considering careers in live sound and recording, so for them this is an easy, inexpensive springboard into computer based recording. Audacity has been used by my students for multi-track recording, converting cassettes to CD or MP3, and for creating small, portable recording systems for live recording.

An unintended benefit is that Audacity has also been evolving into a valuable practice and self improvement tool for the students of my studio.

There are three easy ways to use Audacity to enhance your practice time:

1) Recording practices

2) Slowing down the tempo of a song without changing pitch

3) Looping difficult sections for focused practice

(more…)

I decided to do a book review this time, because I realize that as music teachers, we are contstantly looking for interesting content to teach our students. I have been using Pro Vocal Jazz Standards for Female Singers for a few years now and I wanted to recommend it to the MTH community.

Pro Vocal Jazz Standards for Female Singers features 8 Jazz Standards including Bye Bye Blackbird (Carmen McRae) - Come Rain or Come Shine (Judy Garland) - Fever (Peggy Lee) - The Girl from Ipanema (Astrud Gilberto) - Lullaby of Birdland (Ella Fitzgerald) - My Funny Valentine (Sarah Vaughan) - Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin’ All the Time) (Lena Horne) - Tenderly (Rosemary Clooney).   The arrangements are easy to follow and are in keys that are friendly to most beginner voices. The melodies are also very impressive to those students that say they “don’t like Jazz”. I had a few of those and as soon as I used some of the songs from this book, they realized that they had been wrong all along.

The book also comes with a CD of back up tracks as well as demo tracks. This CD is very different from regular Karaoke CDs because the music is recorded by a real professional Jazz band.  The recording makes it feel like you are singing with a real band.

I haven’t tried any other Pro Vocal, but I’m interested in recommendations from the MTH community. If you have tried any other Pro Vocal books, please post and let us know if it’s worth our time and money.