February 8, 2025: Saturday Remix
Teachers and Staff: Happy Saturday!
Teaching Music Lessons (Part 2)
Continued from last week, here are some ideas for guest student and guest teacher lessons, when you need to teach multiple instruments or an instrument you do not play. More ideas will be presented next week in Teaching Music Lessons, Part 3, and over time in the Teacher Resources folder.
Sample Musicianship-Focused Lesson Plan
(For use when teaching a lesson that is not your primary instrument.)
The Instrument
Have the student show you around their instrument, talk about what they love about it, share some experiences, and teach you something about it.
Scales
Have the student play the scales they are currently working on. Work with them on accuracy, rhythmic steadiness, dynamics, breath, and possibly intonation. Play scales with them on your instrument; possibly harmonize with them. Use backing tracks. Experiment with slow playing, and possibly fast playing. Assist with memory.
Repertoire (Listen)
Have the student play through all their current repertoire. Listen first, as an audience in a recital. Consider working on performance practice, including entry, bowing, exit, etc.
Repertoire (Work)
Have the student play/practice each piece again, and this time find some general things to work on that do not require specific instrument knowledge. Music notation, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, phrasing, intonation, breath, memory, etc. (Do not be too concerned with technique or posture, and things that their primary teacher is better to work with them on, unless it seems very important, and then use gentle suggestions and experiments.) Play duets and/or harmonize with them if possible.
Worksheets and Multimedia
Use a combination of reading together, watching & listening, teaching, discussing, practicing, drilling, and completing worksheets on music-related topics, including music theory & notation, intervals, rhythm, counting and subdividing, time signatures, key signatures, scales, modes, chord progressions, cadences, building chords, chord types, transposing music, composing & arranging music, setting text & lyrics to music, solfege, scale degrees, symbols of all kinds, vocabulary, languages, IPA (singers), music history, important composers and performers, music cultures, world/international music, music careers, music listening & analysis, music applications (such as film, video, cartoons, ambiance, life events, church, sports, propaganda, marketing and advertising), and music technology, from music production and recording to notation/engraving software.
Ear Training
Use various activities to develop the ear.
Beginner - high(er) and low(er) pitches, half steps and whole steps, octaves and unison, major and minor thirds, triads, and scales, rhythms in 2 versus 3, dynamics and articulations.
More Advanced - add additional intervals, triads and scales, cadences and chord progressions, more complex rhythms, transcribing music, and improvising.
Sight Singing
Use various activities to develop sight singing, determining the right level of music notation and musical complexity. Sing on solfege, numbers (scale degrees), and letter names.
If you strive to teach deeply some aspect of each of the above topics, you will quickly discover you have ample material for a strong, solid, meaningful music lesson and musical learning experience for virtually any music student, even when you do not play their specific instrument.
We Do Not Ask Students If They Practiced
We do not ask students if they practiced. Ever. This is a studio Golden Rule. Please repeat this rule until it becomes your mantra, too. “We do not ask students if they practiced.”
You may have longstanding beliefs about practice. Teaching at our studio may require some teachers to set aside some of those beliefs while teaching students at our music school. Our Golden Rule comes from much experience, research, and thought about healthy music learning and positive student-teacher relationships.
Asking students if they practiced is a kind of passive-aggressive belittling. It accomplishes nothing positive, but can cause much that is negative. It can seed unhappiness and resentment over long periods of time. Even if the student did practice (yay!), it's still judgmental. Being judgmental is fundamentally in opposition to our studio/school philosophy and culture.
So... We do not ask students if they practiced!
Notes:
If a teacher cannot tell whether a student practiced, the teacher should develop their skill in this regard.
If a teacher needs a student to practice in order to make progress, the teacher should develop better teaching skills in this regard. If a student is not making progress, it is not because they're not practicing, it's because the teacher is not properly teaching or using effective teaching strategies and methods. Placing the burden onto the student is simply attempting to shift away responsibility. Essentially making the student teach themselves. Student blame is not an effective teaching strategy.
Please follow the Golden Rule and make this mantra a part of your firm belief system and teaching philosophy:
We do not ask students if they practiced!
Studio Theme for the Season and Next Theme Recital: Songs of the Irish and Springtime
Thank you teachers who have begun incorporating our season’s theme into your music lessons with students! Students are asking about it and parents are signing them up for our recital! Be sure to participate!
Remember, one option is to assign them a new piece. Another option is to talk about how the theme relates or is expressed by some of the music they are already familiar with or learning.
I have posted some simplified arrangements of additional themed songs and pieces of various levels as well in our shared Teacher Resources Google drive. Please send me requests as well, and I will do what I can to help!
Students are encouraged to play two or more songs or pieces from memory. They do not all have to follow the theme. If one does, that is sufficient. All music for themed recitals should be played from memory (no music sheets or books, if at all possible).
This is a studio-wide theme for this period of time. All teachers should encourage their students to participate in the theme, regardless whether they will play in the culminating performance.
(St.) Valentine’s Day
Friday, Feb. 14, 2025
Lessons are OFF for this day! It is an off-day if you teach on Fridays! Enjoy the day and evening! (p.s. You should see studio-wide off-days and events on your teacher calendar.)
Thank you, everyone, for all that you do!
Have a magical Saturday, a musical weekend, and a safe and healthy coming week.
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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