Motivating Students
A Few Truths Parents Must Understand When Their Child Begins Playing a Musical Instrument
It’s the beginning of another school year, and hundreds of thousands of school children around the country have chosen which instrument they want to play and have...
How Students Learn Self-Efficacy Through Instrumental Music Instruction
As a parent, one of the best things that I can hope for is that my children have the wherewithal to make their way through life armed with a wide variety of...
How Parents Can “Reboot” Their Child’s Interest in Playing a Musical Instrument After Taking Summer Off
Most parents and students start the summer with the best intentions as far as instrumental music practice is concerned. Some families choose to rent their...
Building a Bridge of Success to Secondary Music Programs Using the Orff Schulwerk Approach
Imagine a world where students in beginning 6th grade don’t have to spend months being taught how to follow a conductor, read staff notation, or perform with good...
Why the First 2 Months of Being a Music Parent are the Most Important
I often observe that many parents hold some age-old assumption that musical talent is God-given or inherited, but let’s be clear: everyone possesses musical talent...
Developing a Practice Routine: Do You Want to Be Good or An Expert?
As we saw in Part 2, deliberate practice means nothing more than to practice with purpose and a specific direction. This term and area of research was pioneered by...
Developing A Practice Routine: Focused Learning and Deliberate Practice
If you missed part 1 of this series, “Do Practice Time Lengths Matter?” here it is!In part 1 of this series, we discussed why long, open-ended practice sessions —...
Developing A Practice Routine: Do Practice Time Lengths Matter?
For musicians, practice is a must. Learning music is a skill and, like any skill, it needs to be developed properly. However, practice doesn’t need to be difficult...
Moving Away From Perfectionism In Music Education
If you teach older students in your private studio, you might have noticed the same thing that I have: these students often want to be perfect. While I first noticed...