|
Music lessons to be learned:
recommendations for music teachers
I’m not sure how unusual it is, but I had eight different piano teachers from age eight through graduate school. I learned quite a bit from each of them, even the woman I refused to go back to after only three lessons.
After many years of accompanying my children to their music lessons (violin, cello and flute), and after eight teachers between the two of them, I’ve learned even more about what makes a good teacher—from a parent’s perspective.
Today, parents want value for their money. Of course the first way to get value out of music lessons is to be sure children practice. But even if they do, an unenthusiastic, inefficient teacher is a waste of money and time.
Enthusiasm is important because the child should have someone teaching them who has a love for music and for their instrument. Children don’t always have a musical parent as a role model in this respect. Kids will have a much better attitude about practicing if they like their teacher, and this means the teacher needs to connect with the child. Because kids’ personalities differ so much, teachers will relate well to some students but not to others. When parents ask me about music teachers, I always say that finding one their child really likes is very important.
With regard to efficiency, I have the following suggestions for music teachers.
- Have a supply of books on hand you frequently use. If you purchase five copies, it eliminates five trips to the store that parents have to make. Many music stores give teachers a discount, which means teachers can earn a little bit with each book they sell to parents. Parents will really appreciate not having to go to the music store.
- Teach children how to practice. Unless they’re musicians, most parents don’t really know what a child should actually do when practicing. It’s important that the lesson on how to practice be reinforced every 2-3 months.
- Have parents sit in on lessons. My own parents were never invited to be in the room during lessons. This is changing, I think; all of my children’s teachers have asked that parents be involved or in attendance at lessons.
- Many teachers have created a 9-week schedule for lessons—8 weekly lessons and one make-up lesson week. Parents get a written schedule and pay for 8 lessons. They get to make up one that’s missed. This makes a lot of sense to me. A written list of lessons can quickly go up on the family calendar. Plus, the teacher gets 2 months of payment up front.
- Discuss your teaching philosophy with students and parents so they know why you do what you do, and why you want the student to practice a certain way.
- This one is crucial: write down assignments and have students write down when they practice. Busy students and parents can quickly forget what you want them to do. And many teachers forget what they’ve told the students to work on, because they have so many students.
- Insist that students play it right more times than wrong. Suppose a student has spent the entire week playing f natural instead of f sharp. Correcting it in the lesson, playing it once, and moving on means the child has played the passage wrong many more times than they’ve played it right. If you have them go over the passage four times in the lesson, you’re reinforcing how they should practice at home.
- Make efficient use of lesson time. Five minutes wasted out of 30 is a lot—almost 20% of the time.
- Tape record the music so the student can listen to it. (Suzuki taught us this.) Often, the parents don’t know that the child is playing it correctly. A tape, even one made in the studio on a small tape player, can give the student valuable information about how the music should sound
Back to top
|
|
|
