In this mornings piano lesson with Jack, he was having trouble with the left hand piano notes B, A and G. I asked, “name that note?”, and he replied “erm … is it G?”. When I said to try again, he guessed, “ok … it must be A!”. Smiling at the enthusiasm he put into…
Emily collapsed theatrically onto the piano stool and we both giggled! “Tiring day?”, I enquired and nodding her head she proceeded to tell me all about her maths test and that PE had been “awful” as the teacher made them run around the field “ten times!”. Making sympathetic noises, I realised the lesson would be…
Put your detective skills to the test in this grade 5 music theory game and stop Reg from robbing the museum! Wouldn’t it be great if you could revise for your grade 5 theory exam but make it fun at the same time? Heist is an online card game which helps you practice questions relating…
There are so many ways to play with dice in a music lesson! Just recently I have been using Google Dice which is a really handy tool, but I always have a real dice next to the piano to add some extra fun to learning. Here are some of the ways I use them: I’d…
Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand Carl Orff Have you ever had students who learn about something one week, but at the following lesson it’s as though they had never encountered it before? At last weeks lesson you taught Ben about tones and semitones, for example, and he seemed…
Alien Eric spends his days floating around the Tempo Galaxy, collecting spaceships and boasting how many he has. His latest pride and joy is the ‘Crescendo 5000’, the fastest ship in the galaxy! Alien Eric might have an amazing collection of spaceships, but he is also great for helping with note reading. His game is…
Spoon-feeding, in the long run, teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon E.M.Forster If you think about it, contact time with students is very small. An average lesson is often between 30 minutes to an hour a week, leaving lots of time in between for students to work on their own. As a…
Perfectionism kills art. I find that if I criticise myself, it spoils the fun. You can get paralysed by analysis – it takes all the playfulness away Geri Halliwell Do you teach any perfectionists? A few years ago I inherited a piano student who was at the more extreme end of the scale. With one…
I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories. Nat King Cole What a fantastic quote! Once upon a time, I was preparing a student for her exam! Everything was in place. All the notes and rhythms were correct but there was something missing. So…
If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn Estrada Years ago it was normal for teachers to stand in front of a class of silent students and present what was to be learnt that day. Everyone was taught exactly the same thing in exactly the same…
I teach a lot of young students and we often use music games to reinforce what they are learning (as you may have gathered from my website!). I’ve noticed recently that you can actually tell a lot about a student’s learning style just by playing a game. Recently, for example, I was helping someone with time…
In an ideal world every student that walks through the music room door would be enthusiastic to learn, ready to fully listen, and engage 100% with the lesson. Sometimes though, they arrive after a full day of school or work and might be tired out or have had a bad day. Even though you try…
