Just read this anecdote and couldn’t help but smile…

There was this man who, many years ago, worked for a large business. That was his lifetime employment, but he wasn’t happy there. He wanted to go into business for himself. He saved his money and finally had enough that he could quit and start his own business.

About two years later, I was on vacation and was going through the town where his business was located. I stopped by for a visit. “Hey, John, I heard that the first year is the hardest for a new business.”

“Yeah, the first year was pretty rough, but we’re doing pretty good now. In fact, I’m getting to where I only have to work half a day.”

“Wow, that’s pretty nice. Maybe I should think about going into business for myself.”

“Yeah, and the nicest part of it is that it doesn’t matter which 12 hours you work.”

You know you’re in the right profession when, instead of people retiring from it, people are retiring and getting into it.

This thought just came to me again as I read an e-mail from another teacher who has been teaching piano for 43 years. In the course of the e-mail she said, “I am not quite ready to retire as I have great students who don’t want me to quit.”

Last year, a friend of mine in the financial industry asked me if I would be interested in using her services to get a retirement account set up. It sounded like a great idea, but then I realized that I’d never heard of a piano teacher retiring. As far as I knew, piano teachers just taught right up until the day they died. Now, I have known a number of piano teachers who retired from other jobs and started a studio, but retiring from piano teaching…unheard of!

Not to worry, I still got my retirement account set up…just in case I need it someday. Hey, then I’ll have even more money to fund all of my [very essential] studio expenses!

[Below is the text of a short article I wrote for the May issue of our local Music Teachers Association (MTA) newsletter. I just received it in my inbox from MTNA as their July Certification Moment. If you are not a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music (NCTM), I definitely encourage you to pursue becoming one!]

The call came after I’d already arrived in Austin for the 2006 MTNA Conference. The timing couldn’t have been better! Years of hard work had paid off - I was officially a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music! Or, as my sister’s message declared, I was now qualified to put initials after my name. And you better believe I didn’t waste any time adding those long anticipated initials (NCTM) to my official studio information and correspondence!

My journey toward certification began several years ago under the mentorship of Sylvia Coats. With no college credits to my name, I was determined, nonetheless, to do whatever it took to become an NCTM. The benefits to myself would be numerous, and the overflow to my students even greater, as I embarked on my course and devoted myself to the goal set before me and clearly outlined by MTNA. The process itself has helped me grow immensely as a musician and as a teacher.

The longest part of the process was meeting the performance requirements. In the course of my private study with Dr. Coats, she helped me prepare for numerous “mini-recitals” as I completed the requirements specified in the MTNA repertoire list.

Once my performance requirements were met, I was ready to send in my application, along with three letters of reference.

The next step was taking proficiency exams in Music History/Literature, Music Theory and Piano Pedagogy. Utilizing the study guide provided by MTNA, I prepared for and passed these exams last fall.

The final step was to either submit a portfolio or take the final exam. I opted to go the portfolio route, as it also gave me a chance to document my experiences, evaluate my teaching practices and revise some of my studio materials.

I finished compiling my portfolio in early March and sent it off to MTNA with a sigh of relief and a prayer that it would be accepted!

Before the expected eight weeks had elapsed, my letter of acceptance arrived in the mail, along with a beautiful certificate declaring me a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music.

Of course the initials after my name don’t automatically make me a better teacher, but I have no doubt that I am a better teacher today because of the process I went through to get those initials after my name! I am so grateful to the Lord for enabling me to reach this milestone and to the many teachers who have invested in me and encouraged me along the way.

For more information about the MTNA Professional Certification Program, visit the website at www.mtnacertification.org/home.htm

Since I’ll be taking off of teaching next week to attend the MTNA Conference, I planned to stick to my regular teaching schedule this week, even though it was spring break for most of my students. I had consented to giving a few lessons Monday morning for several students that would be going out of town. Sunday night, a group of six of my students who are good friends came up with the idea of me giving them a special group class Monday morning instead. It sounded like a fun alternative to me, so I agreed. They all showed up Monday morning at 10:00 and for an hour and a half we all had a blast!

We started out with a fast-paced game of Affirm-a-Term. On each card is a music-related word of some sort. The student whose turn it is has to describe the word so that the other students can guess what it is. I gave each student a one minute time limit to go through as many cards as they could. We went around the circle two times and each student kept track of how many cards they had gone through during their turn. They had a ton of fun with this and I’m sure they would have played it the whole time if I had let them.

I pulled a fun-looking piano trio of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” from my files Sunday night and assigned two students to each part. We started out by all counting out loud together and them tapping the assigned parts while I directed. After a couple times through, they worked in pairs on their assigned part. (Thankfully, since we’re getting ready for the Clavinova Festival right now, I have a Clavinova in my studio that we could use!)

Once the parts seemed to be coming together pretty well for all of them, we split into the trio at each piano and worked on playing the whole piece through. They did an amazing job! It worked really well to have two people playing each part (one at each piano), because if one of them messed up, the other one was doing fine and the other could pick back up with them. They learned to listen better to the other players in the ensemble, they were able to bring out the melody when it was in their part (this trio was perfect because each part had the melody at some point), and they were all willingly counting out loud in order to stay together!

The countdown is nearing its end - the MTNA Conference will begin in only a couple of days! I opted not to participate in either of the special Saturday sessions this year, but I plan to attend the opening keynote address by Van Cliburn on Saturday evening. I copied the Daily Schedule from the MTNA Conference page and have been scrutinizing the 30 pages on my computer screen, trying to determine which sessions I want to attend. I’m glad that there are so many fabulous options, but it sure does make for some difficult decisions!

Here are some of the sessions that look especially interesting to me:

1. TCW Resources: How to Make Music Lessons the Highlight of Your Students’ Week
Come see innovative games and materials to liven up and organize your studio. Compete for prizes in this energetic workshop! You’ll be amazed at the fun you and your students are missing!

2. Recharge Your Studio: Fresh Ideas to Jump-Start Group Teaching
This session will present new ideas in a variety of group teaching formats including games, performance practice, music appreciation and music theory. Video clips and live demonstrations will be used to illustrate each segment.

3. FJH Music Company: Balancing Your Students’ Repertoire Portfolio for Success in the Studio
Helen Marlais and Kevin Olson will present the tools and the materials for selecting repertoire. The session will introduce Marlais’s new series The Festival Collection. Olson and Marlais will also present their new Sight Reading & Rhythm Every Day series.

4. What Students are Doing When You are Not Looking: Evaluation of Effectiveness in Student Practice
This session will explore what students do in their personal practice session. It will focus on how effectively students use the practice tools they’re given and how teachers might help students make better decisions.

5. A Conceptual Approach to Memorizing and Improvising
Transform a student’s memory by an engaging process that utilizes improvisation at each of four memorization steps. Patterns and analysis come alive! View student demos and try out the process that develops aural, analytic and motor memories.

6. Who’s in Charge Here: The Left Brain, the Right Brain and Making Music
Different aspects of musical skill reside in each brain hemisphere. Each of us has a dominant hemisphere. What does this mean for the study of music? How do we integrate the two hemispheres to become better musicians?

7. Podcasting: A New Way to Put Lessons, Performances and Lectures into the Ears of a Worldwide, Mobile Audience
Podcasting offers educators and students opportunities to be heard by their peers and by audiences around the world. Learn how to host your own podcast and give your students and their performances global exposure.

There are plenty more great looking sessions, so I know I won’t be able to attend everything that looks appealing…but I plan to post notes from each of the sessions I attend, so check back throughout the conference for more details and little nuggets of teaching wisdom!

Also, if any of you are attending the conference and would be interested in writing a review of the sessions you attend to be included here on Music Matters Blog, just send me an e-mail and let me know. I’m sure those who are unable to attend would enjoy reading some of the highlights from the conference.

One of the frustrations Independent Music Teachers often deal with is requests from parents that seem unreasonable and outside of what is allowed in our studio policy. The importance of communicating openly and clearly with parents became clear to me in a recent situation I encountered.

A student showed up at my studio for her lessons even though I had scheduled that week off, as I was out of town. (There was a phone message waiting for me when I got back home alerting me to this.) In addition, the student was going to be unable to attend another lesson that month, thus reducing the number of lessons she would receive that month to two. Her Grandma (the one who pays for and brings her to lessons) called me and expressed concern that her granddaughter would only be receiving two lessons that month and that she was paying more for lessons now since I raised my rate the first of the year. I acknowledged her concern, but also tried to let her know my perspective on the situation. Later that day I decided to send her an e-mail explaining things more clearly. This is what I wrote,

Because you expressed some concern over the cost of lessons, I wanted to let you know that once you spread out the cost over the spring semester (18 scheduled lessons), it averages out to just under [$$] per lesson. This doesn’t factor in the additional group classes that are also offered and included in the regular monthly payment. This is actually at the low end of what most of the teachers in the local associations charge for lessons and I try very hard to make sure that I offer all of my students a good value for their money. I put in quite a bit of time outside of the lessons planning and preparing for lessons and organizing different events so that students gain the most benefit possible from their music lessons. I am so pleased with how [student] is doing in piano and I’m so grateful for your willingness to invest so much in seeing that she takes piano lessons.

I hope this adequately addresses some of the concerns you mentioned. Please feel free to let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Thanks!

A short while later, I received this very nice reply,

Natalie, thanks for explaining to me. I guess I was just thinking of a monthly rate, instead of the overall lessons. I really do appreciate the way you work with [student] and feel she is making much more progress this year. I will let you know about this week’s lesson, as soon as I talk with my daughter. You are a wonderful piano teacher! [signed]

It is SO important to communicate to our students and their families what we expect and to address their concerns in an honest and kind manner. It’s so much more effective than taking these misconceptions personally and getting frustrated and irritated over a [often perceived] lack of respect. We’re all coming from different perspectives and different frames of reference in regard to music lessons. Try to get right to the heart of the issue, address it, then move on and continue being the best teacher you can be!

Here are a few excerpts from this site where students communicate their thoughts about teachers and lessons:

What this student wants from a teacher:
“…be organized, consistent, give specific feedback that a student can work on, be prepared in the sense that if you are about to assign a new piece you are familiar with the technical challenges and have a plan of action ahead of time that the student can work on.”

A complaint this student has about some teachers:
“Teachers who never actually mention a lot of the students’ mistakes. For example, intonation…gone to the wind. In scales, my old teacher would really grill me on my notes, but my current one? Heh. I might as well have been playing open strings for all that he notices. Which I suppose leads to another point, teachers who don’t care. I could not practice at all, and he won’t speak a word-not that I don’t practice. I can bomb an audition, screw up a piece, and all I get is silence. Teachers who seem to think that everything is A-Okay not only annoy me, but I’m beginning to believe that he hates me.”

Another complaint about some teachers:
“…teachers that push students way too fast. It’s useless to move on at such blinding speeds that essential skills become only half-developed and barely mastered.”

These are all things that I recognize, at least sub-consciously, but it’s hard to not fall into such traps in teaching. I’m still looking for that perfect balance of being encouraging and fun while maintaining high standards and expecting each student to strive to reach their full potential.

What a whirlwind life has been since the middle of last month! I know you all can relate! As you’ve no doubt observed, I took off a number of weeks from this blog due to the many other responsibilities that required my attention.

Now that the new year has begun, I hope to post more regularly with helpful information and resources for independent music teachers.

I had the privilege of attending a Music Conference at The WILDS in North Carolina last week. I highly recommend it for any church musician. The registration fee for the entire conference, including lodging and meals, was only $130 and throughout the course of the week I received at least that much in free music from many of the major publishers of sacred music. The dates for the conference next year are January 1-5, 2007. If you are looking for a refreshing and inspiring way to start off your new year next year, you should definitely consider attending this conference!

Every music teacher needs a white board. My students love writing messages on my white board. Here’s one that showed up today:

“I want stay in your lessons till a’m 35 years old”

This particular white board is one I picked up at a local teacher supply store. It’s magnetic, 24×36″ and has a grid with 1″ squares on it. An on-line search turned up a Magic Wall Reversible Magnetic Poster. It’s not quite as big (18×24″), but looks the same otherwise.

What an incredibly handy studio “prop” this has been - for uses other than just writing messages! It’s a step away from the piano and is perfect for having students write out clefs, scales, key signatures and more. I’ve also used it for rhythmic dictation. I play a rhythm at the piano and the student arranges the magnetic notes on the board to accurately reflect the rhythm I played.

And of course, it’s just fun! Kids love white boards and magnets…and so do I!

Here’s a funny little quip I ran across recently that made me think in terms of how I teach my students.

“There is no such thing as an attention span. People have infinite attention as long as you are entertaining them!”

I know several students might say I’m too entertaining on occasion… But, in general, I have to wonder - if a student is bored, is it a reflection of my teaching style? One of my goals this year is for each student to leave their lesson feeling excited and empowered for the coming week of practice. This is much easier said than done! My logic, however, is that a frustrated, nagging criticism of lack of practice or progress is not very motivating, whereas, genuine praise and encouragement will inspire the student to do better and to meet the expectations set forth. Of course, those students who are practicing and progressing are easy to praise and encourage, but what about those who are slacking off?

How to balance the two aspects of demanding more effort while maintaining an encouraging attitude? I wish I knew! How do you let a student know if you don’t think they’re accomplishing what they should be without crushing their spirit and their desire to learn?