Intro: Discusses what the overall goals should be for music lessons
Part 1: Explains the principles of how piano should be taught to achieve those overall goals
Part 2: Draws upon those principles to list the specific skills that need to be emphasized from the start
Part 3 (this post): A compilation of additional insights to make their learning effective and fun
Part 4: Shows how it's all implemented by detailing my lesson structure
I believe that, for music teaching to be successful at achieving the goal of fluency in the language of music that leads to lifelong use, there are two pre-eminent goals. The first is to teach effectively. That's what the prior posts have primarily focused on. The second is to make it fun. You, as a music teacher, can do a lot of other things wrong, and those things ultimately won't matter as long as you are teaching effectively and making it fun. All of the points listed below are things I think are important at accomplishing one or both of those goals. I add new ones to the bottom of the list as I figure them out, and I review the list occasionally to make sure I am doing my best to implement them.
Accountability for practicing is crazy super important. Every piano student should have a daily practice log that allows them to check off whether they've done a full practice session that day. And I make it a point to look at it first thing every lesson. I don't have them write how long they practiced because I don't want them to be thinking about the length of time they're practicing; instead, I want them to be focusing on getting a quality focused practice session in 6 days a week, which could take 15 minutes some days and 45 minutes other days. The other part of accountability is making them perform during every lesson. They need to know that they will be required to play for me the songs they worked on that week, so I have them play them every lesson.
Sidenote: I avoid bribes because those have been proven through quality research to take something they're intrinsically motivated to do (or we hope will eventually be intrinsically motivated!) and turn it into an extrinsically motivated thing, causing them to lose the intrinsic enjoyment of the thing. We don't want them to choose to practice only because they want a treat or a prize--we want them to choose to practice because they have a desire to continue progressing and experiencing playing beautiful music.
No mnemonics for memorizing notes. Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (and the others) should burn. A mnemonic adds an extra mental step to identifying the note. First they see the note, then they go through the mnenomic, then they finally identify its name. Instead, they need to be able to know right when they see the note exactly which note it is without any extra mental steps that will slow down their sight reading. People may think that those mnemonics gradually get dropped with time, but they often don't. I know from personal experience, and from medical training, that they become a mental habit. Sure, going through that extra step gets really fast over time, but it's still slower than just sight recognition without any need to mentally go through a mnemonic. So, instead, use randomly ordered flash cards. While sitting at the piano, they should be able to see the flashcard, immediately name it, and then find the note and play it without looking at the keyboard. It will take them longer to learn them, but it's one of the best time investments a young pianist can make. And if flashcards just aren't working, Treble Cat and Bass Cat can, if done right, be pretty helpful iPad apps for them to do in addition to the flash cards.
They should look forward to their lesson every week and come out of it excited to learn the next week's material and excited about music in general. The most important way to accomplish this is you, as the teacher, being full of excitement and energy about piano and music in general. And every time they play something for you and turn to see what you thought, make sure you are smiling and have something super positive to say about it. This has made the biggest difference in whether my kids cry during lessons or laugh and have fun. So remember to laugh and joke with them during the lesson and just enjoy the time you're spending together. Of course, they'll dread their lesson if they didn't practice hard that week, but hopefully the accountability pieces will help with that.
The combination of being encouraging/understanding and concomitantly having high expectations is a tricky one. I want them to know that I expect their best effort, that nothing else is acceptable. So if they don't practice that week or if their practice sessions were ineffective and the didn't end up learning what I think they could have, I don't tell them it's ok, and I make sure I'm clear that I expect better from them. There have been tears. That doesn't mean we can't still have fun during the lesson, but it's ok for them to feel that shame, sadness, and regret that always come in life after we don't do our best at something. I have them perform near the beginning of the lesson to get it all out there and they can go through that (if necessary) early on, and then hopefully by the end of the lesson they'll be having fun and leave feeling excited about the piano again. A big part of that is reassuring them that I know they can practice every day and work hard, and emphasizing the reasons they're learning piano in the first place and also the improvement I've seen in them recently.
Teaching them how to practice effectively is huge. Getting a full practice session in every day is only half the battle--they also need to know how to spend that time effectively. The for-with-by principle applies. First you have to do something FOR them, then WITH them, then eventually they can do it BY themselves. Sitting down with them and giving direct instructions on how to do each part of their practice session is how it starts. Then, after they've learned those things, you scale back how much you direct and let them do some of it on their own but with your frequent directions. And, eventually (after a month or so, probably), they can do it by themselves. But your work isn't finished there! You need to "audit" their practice sessions occasionally (every couple months, or sooner if you notice they're not learning much from lesson to lesson). I will just sit there and not say anything. Of course they act differently when I'm sitting there, but it's still an enlightening endeavor. I will try to look like I'm not actually focusing much on what they're doing by pretending to read on my phone or something, and I'll also furtively take notes on my phone about things I noticed that they should do better and how much time they wasted on different things. The most common time waster is what Adam Smith called "sauntering." It's the moments in between switching tasks where we get distracted instead of just moving right to the next task. After the practicing audit, I will talk to them about what I saw and what they did well and can do differently. And, optimally, I will sit with them the next couple practice sessions and not say anything except to gently remind them of those things if they're doing them wrong again. This skill of knowing how to practice effectively may determine their trajectory of improvement as much as any other thing you teach them.
The find-the-note game. To hone their note-finding skills, I occasionally play a game with them where I point to a single note or chord in a song and they have to first immediately name the notes. Then, without looking at the keyboard, they put their hand on the keyboard and find the right notes and play them. It's practicing both note identification and location awareness.
If they're just getting tired of moving through the piano books week after week, give them a break! This can be in the form of an actual week or two off occasionally, but usually it should be in the form of switching up what they're learning. I have started planning regular change-of-pace weeks in to my lesson schedule to prevent wearing them down like that. What can you have them do? Take a look at which skills are under-emphasized (or not taught at all) in your method books, and have them focus on those things. See the intro to this series for a reminder of the different skills: listening comprehension, speaking (in the four different ways), reading, and writing. The method books I use do a great job covering most skills, but they don't integrate any specific listening comprehension activities or playing by ear activities, so that's what I have my kids do. Another option is to help them choose a couple recital pieces to start memorizing over the next few weeks. Remember, these recital pieces should be ones that they absolutely love! All these breaks from the usual routine will help them be refreshed and more excited about coming back to their regular lesson books, and they will help round out their musical training.
They need experience performing regularly, even informally. Opportunities can include accompanying the family when you sing the opening song during a family home evening, performing a song for friends, and also doing an occasional mini-recital with a few other kids plus friends/neighbours. Performing regularly helps the students be motivated to work hard looking forward to that goal, it increases their performance confidence, and the students remember that the ability to play the piano is a useful skill in our culture. All of these serve to help them remember why they're working so hard learning the piano.
Don't get stuck trying to over-explain things and expect them to understand it perfectly the first time. They'll see it again and will understand better each time they come across it.
Have an end goal in mind, and remind them of it occasionally. The end goal, as I've said many times by now, is for them to achieve basic fluency in the language of music. But how do you know when they've gotten there? You have to look through the method books you're using and figure out at what point you think they will have achieved that. If they are designed well, your kids will be learning the theory and technique along with the songs each week, so its a fairly simple matter of checking the difficulty of songs they're required to read. If they are reading intermediate/advanced songs, that's probably enough. Another hint you can use is simply to look at how many total levels your method books have. The writers of method books tend to stop writing more levels after they've imparted all the knowledge necessary for basic fluency in music, whether they were thinking about it that way or not. For example, the method books we use have only four levels, but by the end of the fourth level, my kids will be playing pretty challenging songs. So, the well-defined end point for my kids is to finish level four, after which they will be allowed to either continue their piano training (starting to focus on the specific kind of playing they enjoy most) or to start learning another instrument. They all look forward to this time! And it turns piano lessons from an impossibly long journey without any clear destination into a clearly defined achievable challenge.
Any endeavor that takes years of hard work to become proficient is susceptible to frustration and discouragement. Remember: more than anything, they need a teacher who can cheer them on, recognize their accomplishments and growth, and just make it as fun as possible during that long long process. Feeling like they're learning and doing well will be more motivating than almost anything else, and much of that comes from the teacher.
If they love a song and it has piano sheet music, splurge to get the official version so they can learn to play that song just like the real thing. Motivation is way higher when it's a song they really want to be able to play. They're more likely to get into that "flow" state of being and really experience the song. And moments like that are the best reward for learning the piano, so they need to experience it as much as possible. Really every time they are required to spend time learning a song by rote, it should be one they absolutely love.
Teach them that the person who composed any given song had a feeling or emotion or idea that they wanted to convey. That is expressed in their notes and notations, and it's amazing to get to hear that by playing the song beautifully as they envisioned it.
Prophylax against the frustration of making mistakes. If a child is a perfectionist or is just generally intolerant of mistakes, you can prevent many tears by reassuring beforehand that, each time they play a song, the purpose is not to do it mistake-free, but rather to get better at reading music (practicing all the skills they are being taught). So making a million mistakes is totally okay as long as they are doing their best at implementing the skills you're teaching them. Tell them to choose beforehand to have a good attitude and have fun doing their best and not to worry about making mistakes.
Teach them one skill at a time. Music reading is challenging because it requires you to integrate many skills all at once. Our brains don't have the bandwidth to focus on many things at once, which is frustrating. But if you help them first become proficient at each individual skill they'll be using in the song they are about to read, that will make things much easier. For example, rhythm is easy to separate out. If the song uses dotted eight notes paired with sixteenth notes, they need to do some counting and clapping practice with other songs that use those same rhythms. The same can be done with articulations, dynamics, chord progressions, bass patterns, and pretty much everything that makes up a song!
Try some variations on sight reading to improve accuracy and quickness. I haven't verified this works, but I've heard some talk of having students occasionally sight read a really simple song super fast to get used to lots of notes coming at you in rapid succession. Alternatively, they can get practice in accuracy by sight reading a difficult song incredibly slow (without any mistakes).
Remind them of the goal of all this reading practice. If you have a child who loves to read books, talk with them about how, when they're engrossed in a great book, they're not thinking about the skill of reading itself--they're just experiencing the story. Music reading can (should) become the same for them. They will one day be able to read difficult pieces effortlessly enough that they are just experiencing the amazing song rather than struggling through (and focusing on) very effortful process of music reading.
Pop quizzes to help develop location awareness. Occasionally I'll ask them to stop what they're playing and not move their hands from the keyboard. Then I'll ask what notes specific fingers are on. I think this will help them realize that location awareness can be a continual thing so that they will start to automatically be tracking all the time where their hands are on the keyboard.
Tell them why you're doing what you're doing. I believe that when the student understands why the teacher is asking them to do something, it not only helps them understand there's a purpose to it so they're more motivated to follow the instructions, but also it helps them stay anchored to the overall purpose of the music lessons and how you're getting them there. This turns them into an active thinker and participant in the process of teaching them rather than allowing them to be a mindless follower of instructions. They will probably come up with lots of ideas that make the process of gaining fluency in the language of music more effective and fun for them.
Be an advocate, not an adversary. To be an advocate means to be utterly confident in their ability to achieve what you are asking them to do. Even when giving correction, an advocate radiates support and knowledge that the student can make those corrections. This allows the student to not stress about things because they know the teacher is on their side no matter how well or poorly they do each week in their lessons. They look forward to hearing from the teacher what they can do better and are confident they can do it. An adversary is one who accuses, one who tells the student what they've done wrong and treats it like the student isn't good enough and isn't trying. They (usually unintentionally) cast doubts on the ability or potential of the student to grow and improve. They are the scary bad guy who the student is stressed to perform for, and that relational context severely hampers not only their growth and self-confidence as a budding musician but also their enjoyment of music as a whole. For me, becoming an advocate music teacher has been a learning curve, and it requires deliberate thought before each lesson to remember how I should interact with them and respond to their mistakes and their successes.
Every song they perform during a lesson, they have to perform it without losing the rhythm. I have found that they start to practice differently if they know that, during a lesson, if I ask them to play a song for me, they are required to play it without losing the rhythm. If they lose the rhythm, even by a couple beats, they have to play it for me again. This doesn't have to be harsh, and I'll try and say things like, "Oh that was so close! I know you can do it this time!" I sometimes have to remind them that I am not asking them to play without mistakes. They can make all the mistakes they want and it's still good enough for me as long as it's not completely noise (Category 0, which I talk about in Part 1) and they keep the rhythm. This is to strongly emphasize the point that keeping the rhythm is more important than getting all the notes right. It builds sight reading skills by helping them prioritize in their minds right from the start that rhythm comes before notes, so if they have to drop a few notes or fudge here and there, that's ok. Chances are, people won't notice most dropped or incorrect notes, but losing the rhythm totally kills the music.
Occasionally have them mental memorize a song and play it from memory. Sometimes it's fun to have them do a pre-read routine on a new song (a short one) that they've never seen before and then take away the music and ask them to play it from memory. I usually don't warn them beforehand. This is a great test to see if they are truly understanding the music when they are analyzing the song, and it's also a great way to make sure they are doing deliberate and thorough pre-read routines.
Their weekly reward: a song. If they are learning the way I have described in my other posts, they are playing new songs almost every day, which is a lot of effort. This pushes their reading level up quickly, but it doesn't allow for much time playing songs that are easy enough that they can really put all their focus into playing musically. The occasional recital songs they learn help with that, but I think giving them the opportunity to choose their favourite song each week to spend a little extra time on is important too. This is fun for them because they enjoy hearing the song, it's a nice break from the mental effort of reading new material all the time, and it helps them regularly focus on playing extra musically. The reward for a good week of practice should not be a treat or sticker--it should be the joy of the music itself, and this weekly song can be that for them!
The five categories of a song. I love exhaustive, mutually exclusive categorizations, and it's helpful to divide a song up that way. If you think about playing a song perfectly, it involves hitting all the right notes at the right times at the right strength for the right length of time. In other words, you have to get four things right: (1) rhythm, (2) notes, (3) dynamics, and (4) articulations and phrasing. Then there's a fifth category, musicality, which is what you use that tells you how to put together all the other four into the most beautiful song you can. Explaining these five things to your students can help them analyze their playing to see why the song maybe didn't sound as good as it could have.
Practicing is different than playing. When they're practicing, they need to focus on getting through the things that they are supposed to practice. After that, they are free to play whatever they want! I am not sure how to encourage them to play in addition to practicing, but a good start is probably telling them the difference between the two and saying that you want them to play as often as they desire. Just make sure they understand that they need to practice first, which will help them enjoy the playing more because the practice session won't be looming over their head.
Model the love of music in any way you are capable. When your kids see how much you love music, they will be more motivated to learn. This could mean sharing with them an awesome song you just discovered, or it could mean you playing an instrument or singing regularly when they're around. Taking them to musical performances is another great way to accomplish this.
At recitals (concerts), don't just have them play songs they learned by rote. If learning by rote is only one way to speak with an instrument, why would you limit their concerts to just that? I think the optimal would be for them to demonstrate their ability to "speak" with their instrument in the four different ways. This means they'd play a song they learned by rote, they'd sight read a song a song you give them right then, they'd get to improvise a song (maybe as part of a duet with the other person playing a chord progression?), and they'd perform a song they figured out by ear. And, I would add a fifth one: they should get to perform a song they composed themselves! It can be extra gratifying for a piano student to hear from people that they loved a song the student created herself. Five songs might be too many depending on how many students are in this concert, but keeping all the songs really short and moving things along quickly could make it possible.
White out the unnecessary fingerings in their music books. Sometimes fingerings are written in the music to help with a tricky fingering passage, and those are fine. But many times, music has fingerings written in all over the place for no reason whatsoever. And for beginner music readers, their eyes will be drawn to those rather than the notes, so they will not actually be reading the notes so much as playing by number. This interferes with their learning, so you need to white out those unnecessary fingerings!
Help them understand the interconnectedness of all the activities they're doing. All the different activities of a complete musical curriculum (as I've described in the earlier parts, the purpose of which is to achieve fluency in music) are mutually beneficial. For example, if a student is regularly improvising, they will naturally start reading music better because they'll be seeing the chords in the music more reliably. Composing has a similar benefit. Learning to play by ear improves their improv skills and their listening comprehension. And so on.
If you are taking on the role of music teacher and parent, it's a lot of work, and that's ok. I have noticed that sometimes it feels like I am spending a big chunk of every week teaching my kids music, and that's okay. Professional teachers only teach each student for 30-60 minutes per week and then rely on the parent to do the rest of the practice supervision and such, but I'm doing both roles with multiple kids. Recognizing that helped me feel more ok about it. And it's way better than not having anything worthwhile to do with your kids! The key, though, is making sure it's a fun and uplifting experience for everyone. If it's harming your relationship with them, no amount of fluency in the language of music is worth that. But hopefully it can not only strengthen your relationships with your kids, but it will also teach them a lifelong skill and give you guys something to do together (playing music) for life!
The sight singing game. Have them try singing the melody of a song for you before they are allowed to play it. It's fun to see if they can get it all correct!
When doing technique activities, they should only play them as fast as they are able to do so perfectly. Every time they play it wrong, it ingrains the wrong movements in a little bit more, so they need to go slow enough to get it right every time.
When learning chords, make them name every note before playing it. This makes sure they understand very clearly which sharps or flats they're playing, and, by extension, which white notes they're not playing. If they can have the notes of the scale clearly understood in their head before they even play the scale, they will learn it much more thoroughly because they will understand it in their mind too (as opposed to learning the feel of it in their fingers without much understanding).
There is a difference between practicing an instrument and playing an instrument, so set up their environment to facilitate self-directed playing as well. Only when students of an instrument start spending time with that instrument in ways they want, outside of the required practice that the teacher has assigned, will they really start to own that instrument. I talk to my kids about the difference between practice and playing, and I encourage them to play any way they want (as long as they're using proper technique still!). I encourage them to figure out by ear their favourite songs, or to pull out a book and sight read some songs whenever they feel like it. Anything! The more they start playing the piano outside of their practice sessions, the better. But make sure it's not done as a means of procrastinating the daily practice session. We recently put a shelf close to the piano dedicated to holding only piano music, and we organized the music by difficulty level. The lowest shelf has super simple music books. The next shelf up has slightly more difficult music. And so on. There are 5 shelves. We put a green dot on the spine of all the shelf 1 books, a blue dot on the spine of all the shelf 2 books, etc. Then we brought them to the shelf and explained it to them. We showed which shelf each child is at, and made it clear that they can pull out any book from that shelf (or any of the lower ones) and sight read that music any time they want. The coloured stickers will help maintain the organization long term. And as they get better, it will open up the next shelf up to them for playing. I remember growing up and not really ever pulling out music books to play for fun because I didn't know which books would be good, so making it really obvious like that will hopefully help facilitate them randomly pulling out a book and playing from it much more often. There is a variety of different types of music on each shelf as well, so there will be music for any mood. And as they spend more time playing just for the joy of it, the more they will enjoy their instrument and be motivated to continue progressing.
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