I’ve never done group lessons before, but I’d really like to try one. When you do a group lesson, what do you do about students’ individual assignments/songs they’ve learned the week before? And what do you assign them for the next week? Or do you think of group lessons totally differently than individual lessons? In my studio, […]
Teaching
How to Motivate Your Kids to Practice Their Instrument
Jason Bernstein, of the Piano Lessons World website, has a helpful post on How to Motivate Your Kids to Practice Their Instrument. He shares 6 specific ideas that are great for parents looking for practical tips on how to help their child be successful. In particular, I really appreciate #2 – Participate in Performance Opportunities. […]
Mixed Messages
In last Friday’s post, I mentioned that we played a game at our group class called Mixed Messages. Students had to translate Italian music terms and then write the definitions to complete English sentences. All the students were split into two teams and whichever team finished all their sentences first won a Free Travel Pass. […]
Monday Mailbag – Composer Biographies for Students
I have a student that is a very avid reader (girl, 7th grade, homeschooled). Her mother asked me to compile a list of good biographies or books of composers/music. She thought that this would help her practicing since she might be more interested in the composer or subject matter. One of my all-time favorite collection […]
Travel Tour #3 – Including Out-of-State Students via Skype!
Last night was our third Travel Tour of the year, going along with our theme: An Italian Intrigue. For the first time ever we included a couple of my out-of-state students via Skype. It worked wonderfully! Here’s a brief video recap from the occasion: Activities for the group class included: Mixed Messages – students had […]
On Overcoming Difficulties
A daily calendar that I have in my studio had this wonderful quote by John R. Mott yesterday, “Difficulties are not without their advantages. They are not to unnerve us. They are not to be regarded simply as subjects for discussion nor as grounds for skepticism and pessimism. They are not to cause inaction, but […]
