Evolving Music Education

The first step to your student being able to evaluate and correct themselves is self-awareness.  What are some tools to help cultivate self-awareness in your students?

- You could record them and play the recording back to them.  This will exercise their critical listening.

- You could use a mirror.  This will exercise real-time self awareness.

- You could videotape them.  This will cultivate visual and aural critical evaluation.

Aside from these simple tools, there are a whole variety of techniques you could try.  Your goal is to help them “see” themselves.

- For example, you can put your student in the role of a teacher.  Trade spots with them.  Play their song one note at a time, getting some notes wrong on purpose.  Ask them to say “correct” or “incorrect” after each note.  If it’s incorrect they need to correct you.  Here’s the self-awareness part.  Switch back with them but explain they are to now teach themselves, just like they taught you.

Have any of your own ideas to helping students become more self-aware?

Ever sit back and question “how many ways are there to learn a song”?  Well, I did, and there’s 4, and they play a big role in my approach to music education.

The 4 Paths

1. By reading the music.

2. By ear.

3. By observation/imitation.

4. By “temporary” note-reading alternatives such as color coding or by numbers.

That’s it!  4 basic paths to the same end result.  Anything else is a hybrid (ie partially by ear and observation).

To clarify first – when I say “piece of music” I mean a note for note piece or arrangement, NOT just a melody or some chords.  And I do not mean any form of improvisation or composition.

Let’s examine each method in a bit more depth.

1. Reading music -  Looking at the sheet music, and with little or no help, teaching oneself the music.  This is the most institutionalized path to learning music, and for good reason.  It is by far the fastest.  It may be quicker in the short term to shortcut this with your students but in the long-run it is the best way.

2. By ear – Listening and playing.  No music, no one helping.  For most, this method does not work on its own.  But you can teach your students how to use their ear as a tool to help guide them.

3. By observation/imitation – This is most associated with cultural or environmental learning.  This happens a lot with Gospel musicians or often times Latin American music, Indian music or in other cultures where music is more integrated with daily life.  No music.  Nothing written down.  It can be used in a structured format, such a private lesson, but often it is used un-intentionally.

4. Note reading alternatives – These methods often employ temporary methods to get children to “read” music – often with emphasis on recognizable and familiar things – colors, shapes, numbers, etc.  Many of these approaches use these methods for periods of months or years before moving on to “real” note-reading.  I feel it is much better, if you are to use these methods, to do so very temporarily – for only weeks, days or literally minutes.  These methods run the danger of giving an illusion of progress or learning, because the student has played something correct on the outside but still does not know how to read music.

The mistake most teachers make is their students are really learning by imitating/observation but the teacher thinks they are note-reading!

For example.  Your student turns the page to a new song in their book.  They do not know where to put their hands.  So what do you do?  Probably just show them, or quickly coach them in a superficial way to get on with it to the main event (playing the song).  You’ve unwittingly shown them, and they’ve copied.  It would be far more effective to stop and get to the root cause of their inability to look at the book and know the hand position.  Going too specifically into this here is beyond the scope of this post.  (See next post.) But it illustrates how we (I’m guilty too!) all sometimes teach by imitation rather than deeply diagnosing and helping.  The problem with this is, we did not choose with intention that at that moment it would be better to use the demonstration method.  We did it unconsciously and by default.

How about this one.  You think a student has been reading the notes (reading the music) and it turns out they’ve been reading the finger numbers (note reading alternatives)?!

Be conscious of which method you are using to teach and which method your student is using to learn.  Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each method and apply them with intention – not by default.  Be sure you’re students learning method matches with your intended teaching method!

I do use method books to serve as a great unified, predictable, step by step approach to learning and progress.  But their role must be kept in place.

Do not let the books run the lessons.  They are there to provide structure, material and context.  Structure is something that most children need in order to feel comfortable.  Method books provide a great base, and if you find a series you like, you do not have to reinvent the wheel to help a child progress through musical concepts.

I personally favor the Faber Piano Adventures series.

But – be careful to not let the books somehow gauge the delusion of results or learning.  The real progress and the real learning comes when everything is brought to life in the lesson room – and you’re instructing and reacting to the needs of each individual student.

Method books are “great slaves but terrible masters”.

Parents always ask – “How long should my child practice”.  I always answer with – “That’s the wrong question!”

They should be asking “What does it mean to practice music?”

Whether in kindergarten or retired the answer’s the same.  Practicing music means that you have, first the desire and second you integrate this desire as a habit into your life.

Practice is a habit.  It is personal.  But we look for finite answers – “practice 5 days a week for 30 minutes a day” because this is measurable.  So the word “practice” gets used as a verb.  “Go practice!”  It’s not a verb.  It’s a state of being.  “I am a practicing musician”.

As a parent, it would be far better to follow these steps.

1.  First, recognize that your child has an innate interest in music and it is an activity that is special and personal to them.

2. Help set up the best environment for them to play music.  Be sure their instrument is easily accessible.  Be sure this area in your house is clean, quiet, private and comfortable for them.  Be sure they have all the necessary resources nearby – books, pencils, a CD player.  Also, if you have a keyboard allow them to use headphones for privacy.

3. Do not tell them to practice!  There are dozens and dozens of more effective and indirect means to inspire the practice of music in a child.  Work with their teacher to explore these.  Try different books, songs, play along CDs, using headphone for private practice, music games, different placements of their practice area in your home.  You can even try a different teacher – and you can always go back to their old teacher.

Hello!  I have been teaching music for 10 years and yet I always return to one fundamental belief.

The way you think about teaching music supersedes any amount of experience, methodical approach or technique.  If your thinking about music instruction is flawed, your material and techniques will be flawed.

What do you believe success is as a private music instructor?

To me, success is when you sense the internal process going on within the child is what guided them to do something correctly. When you get the sincere sense they could teach someone else.  When you feel as if the reason why they did something correct is based upon their own validation.  The student knows its correct and can give you a demonstration of it incorrect on purpose.  They can tell the difference!  A successful lesson is when you’ve transformed their paradigm back into that of a teacher teaching themselves. And they do not rely on you to tell them “correct” or “try it again”.

If you get this, every other teaching strategy or technique or method is just a tool that can fit into this way of looking at instruction.

Yet, many instructors fall into the “imitation” trap.

Sure, your student can imitate back what you have decided is correct or incorrect.  But you have no idea why they got it right.  And the student has no idea why you seem so proud of them!

It’s “student guessing, teacher correcting” over and over until the student happens to get it.