April 5, 2025: Saturday Remix
Teachers and Staff: Happy Saturday!
Teaching Strategies: Satisfaction, Joy, & Short-term Rewards
Another important thing we can do as teachers in music lessons to help students learn and develop musical skills is to help students experience satisfaction, joy, and short-term rewards in their learning and development.
When students struggle to learn, or to develop a skill, there are almost always several factors at play. As part of our studio philosophy, we assert that if a student is not learning or developing skills, here are the places we should look for answers:
Are we going too fast?
Have we adequately assessed prior knowledge?
Have we properly sequenced instruction?
Have we appropriately chunked the learning and practice?
Is there a meaningful context to the learning?
Is the content or skill relevant to this student?
Is it all just tedious work, or does the learning and practice bring satisfaction, joy, and short-term rewards to this student?
Today, I’ll discuss helping students experience satisfaction, joy, and short-term rewards in their learning and development.
Often when we speak of the benefits of music education, and of learning a musical instrument or singing, we note the long-term benefits. From developing the brain and greater academic achievement, to gaining confidence and creative skills, to aiding memory and getting into a better college or university.
Long-term benefits are wonderful, and certainly worth striving for. But they are not enough for the student who is taking weekly music lessons. Whether it is a six-year-old student who is supposed to start thinking about college, or a sixty-year-old student who is supposed to be thinking about goals ten-years out, it’s both nonsensical and unfair to present only long-term benefits and not work on short-term benefits, too.
People often deride short-term benefits. We have sayings like “good things come to those who wait,” and “no pain no gain,” and we criticize people and businesses who see only the “short-term profits” and not the long-term growth.
But it’s not one or the other. It’s both. Music students (and businesses) need both short-term profits and long-term growth. We need to also focus on short-term rewards for our students.
Here is a partial list of things we can do to help students experience satisfaction, joy, and short-term rewards in their music lessons:
Reach milestones, and celebrate milestones. These should be spaced in appropriate intervals so they are both frequent and significant.
Reward achievements. Stickers, certificates, prizes, cards, trophies, and more can and should be used. These are all part of our standard studio strategies and operations. We will be launching the Musical Ladder System at the end of April, which incorporates additional certificates, wrist bands, and trophies.
Lessons should be fun/rewarding experiences in their own right. Students should enjoy and look forward to their lessons; the actual lesson itself should stand alone as something enjoyable and worth doing, even if there were no long-term benefits derived from lessons.
Learn and memorize a repertoire of music. Do not pass pieces and forget them. Add learned pieces to the student’s ongoing developing repertoire, and keep playing all music for long periods of time. Drop pieces only when the repertoire becomes too large or they’ve played one of them so much that they become tired of it. Some pieces might be played for years, or even a lifetime. Encourage that.
Assign music at the student’s current level or even slightly below sometimes. Students often experience music learning as tedious, neverending work, and often the reason is because the steady rise in difficulty never ends. It is important for students to play music - lots of it - at the level they are currently at. So that they can enjoy making music, and even take a breather now and then, while they also continue to progress and advance in difficulty. Don’t stop your student from playing Heart & Soul and Chopsticks. Encourage them.
Create strong friendly relationships and bonds with students. Students should view their teachers as guides, mentors, and coaches, and also as friends. Don’t stop them from talking; let them share, enjoy their sharing, and learn all you can about them.
Take it one step further and advocate for your students. Be a person in their life who looks out for them, and helps make things happen for them that they want to have happen. Never say anything negative about your student, to anyone. Always say positive things to your student, and always say positive things to other people, to all other people, about your student.
Studio Recital Update (Monday and Tuesday, April 14 & 15, 2025)
Please encourage your students to perform in our upcoming studio recital. Families have six options - three times each over two days.
Please look out for more emails showing students who are performing, and let me know their repertoire. Please work with them to prepare for the recital, including playing from memory to the extent possible, and performance practice (such as bowing).
Spring Break (Off-weeks)
Our music studio Spring Break is April 14 through April 25. It is a bit longer than most other off-periods during the year. Our recitals take place the first two days of the break (April 14 and 15). There are no regular lessons during this period (unless something specific has been scheduled specially with you). It is possible there may be introductory lesson opportunities during this period. Feel free to respond to opportunities if they arise.
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Q. Can we use the printers and copiers?
A. Yes! Please use them only for work-related printing and copying. Please do not use them for personal things. The large printer/copier in Suite 108 is accessible from all lesson room computers, downstairs and upstairs. It is called SHARP MX-3140N PCL6 (DFMS). There is also a smaller printer upstairs in Suite 205 next to the computer in the Ensemble Room. This printer can be accessed from any of the four lesson room computers in 205. It is called Brother MFC-7840W. It can also make copies and print double-sided, but it does not print color.
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Thank you, everyone, for all that you do!
Have a magical Saturday, a musical weekend, and a safe and healthy coming week.
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Thank you,
Dennis Frayne
"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)
www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com
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