How Can We Foster Creativity in Young Musicians?

Last month I attended the Portland Creative Conference: a one day conference of creatives from all different fields, that supports the arts in Oregon. Speakers included an art director, a footwear designer, an author, musicians from the group “Portugal.The Man.”, the studio head for the company that produces Halo, and a television writer from the TV show “Scandal.”

It was a wide ranging group but there were common themes that came out between all of these speakers.

One of the main ones was this: creativity comes from the intersection of two disciplines.

Art plus motion

Fashion intersecting with a love for basketball

Art plus gaming

Part of the reason I make time to attend events like this is that I know how much hearing ideas from people outside my field fuels my own creativity and gives me ideas for writing and teaching.

After the event I started thinking:

How do we take this idea and use it, as parents and teachers, who work with children learning music?

How can the other interests our students have tie in, to help them make more artistic choices?

To become expressive players?

Developing Discipline AND Artistry

Music is a creative art and a discipline. Sometimes we get ultra-focused on the discipline. Practice becomes a series of commands for the student to carry out. Flaws are pointed out and (hopefully) practice reduces them and they disappear. We are precise. We ask for controlled movements and use of muscles. We learn to repeat things more than we want to, in order to improve. This is the discipline involved. And it does take discipline to practice every day To…

20 Ways to Support Your Teen in Music

For some ideas to help teens who are struggling to practice because of too much homework – you can read my article: Teens, Practice & Too Much Homework

It can be hard to know how to support our teens once they are old enough to practice on their own. They may seem like they don’t need us, as their parents, to be involved anymore. What I found, after parenting two teens, is that they actually need our support more than ever. It just may look different than how we supported them when they were younger.

It’s easy to focus on areas where our teens need to improve, and where they still need to grow and mature. It’s harder, but even more important to notice the areas where they are doing amazing things and point them out to our children over and over. Your teen may not always remember exactly what you said, but they will remember the feeling of being supported. Every single kid needs that in their lives, and not just for music.

Here are 10 Positive Things to Say to Support Your Teen

I’m proud of you.
I love hearing you play.
I can see how hard you’re working.
Growing up is hard.
You’re still learning – it will get easier.
I’m so impressed you are making time to keep playing.
Your dedication inspires me.
How can I help?
It takes a lot guts to get up there and play.
I can see you improving.

Communicating in the Middle School Years

The middle school years can have their challenges. This article is first in a series about teaching & parenting music students during the teen years.

Middle school is both a wonderful age and a challenging age.

In my parent talks, I always start talking about this age group by saying:

Never before has your child needed more positivity and encouragement, and never before has it been so hard challenging to do so.

This isn’t true for every child, all the time. But in general, this is the age where students start to strive more for independence. They also start to become more concerned with what their peers think (rather than their parents).

This is a normal part of their development. Rather than be offended at these changes, we can work with where they are developmentally.

For further reading I recommend reading this article about how to motivate middle school students http://www.teachhub.com/how-motivate-students-tips-middle-schoolers

Here are a few things I think really help when communicating with our middle school children and students:

1.Keep it positive

If parents and their children are arguing about practice at home at this age, I encourage parents to let me know right away. I think it is wise to let the teacher be the one who delivers constructive feedback. As a parent, I encourage you to stick to positive and supportive comments. Your relationship with your child is more important than a perfect practice session.

8 Truths about Learning An Instrument That All Parents Should Know

Learning an instrument is such a rewarding activity. But, it takes lots of work too. Here are eight truths I think all parents should know about learning an instrument.

1. It’s Not Always Going to Be Fun

It’s fun to learn new music. It’s fun to play in a group. It’s fun to perform and get applause from an audience. It’s not necessarily fun to practice every day. Its hard work( with fun as a reward as skills grow).

Fun should be the outcome of doing the work, if we expect the work to be fun we are more likely to give up.

2. Learning to Practice is a Distinct Skill from Learning to Play An Instrument

Learning to practice is it’s own skill. It can look really different from one student to another depending on their age, unique learning style, and level of playing.

If your child likes their instrument and doesn’t really like to practice – you are in good company! It doesn’t mean they don’t want to play their instrument. Practice is a discipline that students learn little by little, by trial and error, and with feedback from their teacher. It’s a skill to be developed over time for sure.

Why Slow Progress is Not a Sign To Give Up

You probably signed your child up for lessons excited about what they would learn.

You pictured them playing their instrument with a big smile and steady progress.

You may have observed lessons or group classes and seen children playing music with ease and expected to see your child do the same.

So why is progress going so slow?

Why does it feel like you’re having the same lesson over and over again many weeks in a row.

Why does it seem like you’re practicing, but nothing is happening?

Here’s the thing . . .

The #1 Gift You Can Give Your Child

Parenting is an all consuming job. If you're reading this then I'm willing to bet you're a parent who takes that job seriously and tries to be the best parent you can be. Being a Suzuki parent can be especially intense sometimes, because we're asked to interact with our children so closely, to understand them well (when sometimes they do things no one can understand), and to help them play complicated instruments well. Unless you also homeschool, this may the…

Success Breeds Success

“Success Breeds Success” is a well know Suzuki concept that many people have heard before. On the surface it makes logical sense, but what does it look like in practice? It’s easy to nod our heads, say: “yes that is so true” and totally forget about it when we are teaching our students or practicing with our children. I see this concept in action in the most obvious of ways when I teach Suzuki Early Childhood classes (SECE). New students…

Attitude is Everything

I’ve finished most of the parent teacher conferences in my studio for the year (If you want to read more about my process you can read more HERE & HERE). The most common issue I heard (besides learning to practice well as students start to become more independent in practice – a theme that kept coming up for the middle school students) was that in a number of families the parents felt like it was a daily battle to get practice started.

Let’s be honest – it is not very motivating to keep taking your child to music lessons if you know it means daily squabbles with your kids over the practice. Many working parents have just a few quality time hours a day with their kids and spending part of that time fighting about something is not a fun idea.

This is why parent teacher conferences are so important – I don’t know what practice is like for families at home without these honest conversations and sometimes these situations can be turned around quite easily, as long as parents are willing to put in a little effort to change the tone for practice.

In each of the cases where this issue was brought up we decided that the number one priority for this student and family was not moving forward on the instrument – it was developing a positive attitude about practice.

What Every Parent Should Know About The Power of Words

As a parent working closely with our children, it's easy to point out mistakes and what is wrong. It's easy to see when things aren't going the way we think they should. When we know our children are capable of more, it's easy to talk about what is hard or get frustrated. But how do we turn things like this around and build on what is going well in order to make progress towards our goals - especially when it…