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Group class Keeps you in good shape - like dribbling and passing drills in basketball - these are the fundamentals and once you know how to do them you keep them a part of each practice - they are the foundation of other skills you will work on. sample practice chart

How Collaborating Helps us Thrive

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Sometimes private music teaching can be lonely. Unless a teacher is part of music school there are often many hours spent working alone, planning alone, and running events alone and it can be a bit isolating.

I taught in a music school for 10 years and then about 6 years ago left to start my own studio. There are many things I love about running my own program, but I do miss the people.

When I spend too much time teaching in isolation I find my creativity goes down. I find myself getting burnt out more easily.

I recently read Jeff Goins new book Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age (which officially comes out today – get your copy here!). As an aside I think that it should be called “Real Artists Don’t Have to Starve” but once I put aside arguing with the title in my head, it was a fantastic book about thriving while doing creative work, and I highly recommend it.

 

Collaborating

A few chapters of the book that stood out to me as a musician, writer and teacher but my favorite one was on the importance of collaboration.

Mostly because I have seen first-hand what a difference this makes.

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Why Every Studio Needs Parent Teacher Conferences

For the past three years I have been doing parent teacher conferences in my studio. I had thought about doing this for years but kept putting it off. Partly I was a little nervous about the process. I also didn't know where to start. I wondered if the parents in my studio and find it valuable. Then a few years ago I heard Alice Joy Lewis give a talk to teachers up in Ellensburg, Washington. During the talk she emphasized…

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Why Short-Term Commitments to Music Don’t Work

why-short-term-comittments-to-music-dont-workI get many calls for prospective violin & viola students from parents requesting more information. I always explain my program and direct them to my website for more information.

A phrase I hear some parents use when they describe why they want to start lessons is: my child seems interested in music (or the violin) and we want to try it out to see if they will like it.

As a parent I completely understand that this is the approach we take for many things we sign our children up for. We often sign them up for many different types of activities in order to expose them to a wide variety of things and to see what they enjoy.

A word of caution though.

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Easy Ideas for Making Practice Convenient

Suzuki Practice & Convenience

When my daughters were young and it was time to practice, for some un-explainable reason the hardest part was getting the instrument out of the case. It really took about 2 minutes but some days it would seem like such a daunting task! We learned that keeping the instrument out of the case (and also out of reach so it stayed safe) made it more convenient to get started right away.

There are many little things like this that we can do to make it easier to get practice and listening done.

It’s human nature to do what is convenient and avoid what is inconvenient and it’s a great idea to look at our practice routines and to see if there is any way to make them more convenient so we’re more likely to follow through.

“People often ask me, “What surprised you most about habits?” One thing that continually astonished me is the degree to which we’re influenced by sheer convenience. The amount of effort, time, or decision making required by an action has a huge influence on habit formation. To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not.”

~ Gretchen Rubin Better than Before

This is 2nd in a series about Gretchen Rubin’s book Better than Before, a fantastic book about making and break habits. It gives great insights, on habit formation, that can be used when studying & teaching music as well as forming any other type of habit.

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Why do we Review?

To make hard skills easy

To have music ready to play with others

For mastery

To build confidence

 To build technique

 

In our culture we tend to value novelty and consider anything new to be exciting. Especially as adults, many of us love variety and newness.

In the Suzuki method we emphasize mastery and review.  Sometimes, that can create a tension between this desire for newness and what you are being asked to do in practice with your child. However, it is this repetition that helps young players build skills on their instrument and connections in the brain.

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Life Lens

Life Lens: Seeing Your Children in Color [Author Interview]

I have never been a one size fits all teacher – I’m always trying to figure out what makes each student light up, learn more easily and be more receptive to my teaching.
In my experience, the Suzuki Triangle works best when everyone makes an effort to understand and respect each other’s point of view. Because this is an important part of my teaching, I was very excited to hear about Michele Monahan Horner ‘s new Book Life Lens: Seeing Your Children in Color.
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Practice Spot Cards & Repetition

I’m always thrilled when a parent asks me for advice about how to practice better at home! I try to make it clear in parent education that this is something I like to help with & that parents need not struggle through alone. It’s always great when someone takes me up on the offer to problem solve together. Often I have ideas that I’ve come up with, that I’ve heard from wonderful colleagues or we try out new ideas together.IMG_2802

 

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Comparisons

comparisons

It’s so easy to make comparisons between our children and other students in the studio, at workshops, and institutes.

We see other children that can seem like they have endless concentration, know all their pieces easily, or don’t struggle in any way.

What we may not know is that the book 3 student we see easily playing everything in front of us, may have spent the first two years of lessons rolling around on the floor and having all sorts of attention issues. In fact, it took endless patience and a lot of work from both the teacher and parent to keep things going at all.

Or that Book 4 student you see who is always polite and well prepared for recitals . . . what we cannot see is that for a few years the student and his mother fought in practice . . . everyday.

They were miserable and wondered if they should quit because the whole thing was so stressful. (This is a true story – one that has a great ending because when this came out the parent and teacher were able to talk about how to practice differently and the parent put in a huge amount of work changing the dynamic during practice . . . things are so much better now!)

The truth is that we can often compare OUR worst moments with the best moments of other students and feel discouraged.

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Recitals

My studio has it's fall recitals this weekend. For the first time I am breaking my one long (very long last spring) recital into two shorter recitals. The downside is that not everyone will be able to hear each other play but the upside is more students are inviting people to come watch and there are no worries about picking a short enough piece we can fit everyone in. I am excited to see how it works and how the…

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Basic Expectations for Success: Mid Book One

I currently have a whole crew of young violin students in the middle of Book One.  I can see that I need to better communicate what will help these students succeed as they move ahead to the more complicated pieces coming up. Below are some of my thoughts about what I want parents (home coaches) to know about how to keep the momentum going & what's ahead.  There is wonderful music coming that will not feel wonderful to learn without…

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