March 15, 2025: Saturday Remix
Teachers and Staff: Happy Saturday!
Teaching Strategies: Chunking the Learning and Practice
Another important thing we can do as teachers in music lessons to help students learn and develop musical skills is to chunk the learning and practice.
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 chunking the learning and practice.
Chunking means breaking the objectives into small pieces. Some may appreciate the adage: Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time.
The bites have to be appropriately bite-sized.
The objectives to be chunked can be process-oriented (focusing on the steps, sequencing, or instructions), goal-oriented (focusing on the end result), or even time-oriented (focusing on time spent on something). There are probably other orientations as well.
Steps-Oriented Example
There is a lot of overlap between chunking and our previous discussion about sequencing. The steps need to be small enough to be easily learned and effectively mastered. Yet we can also further chunk the steps. For example, let’s say you want to teach a piano piece, and your steps are first to analyze the music, then learn RH, then learn LH, then play hands together. This is a reasonable sequence. Yet each step may be too big to do all at once. There is much to analyze, and the piece is lengthy for this student. So we can chunk (and potentially spread out over multiple lessons, as needed):
Consider the key signature separately and spend time with the scale.
Consider the time signature separately and spend time practicing the beat and various rhythms over the beat.
Consider the style of music and listen to samples of that music and related music, perhaps even contrasting styles.
Consider the music’s history and cultural positioning and learn some things about that (sometimes this can also fall under context).
Consider whether to play the whole piece RH, and then the whole piece LH, and then the whole piece HT. Or, perhaps more chunking would be beneficial. Maybe just one system at a time, one phrase at a time, one measure at a time, sometimes even one chord or note at a time.
Perhaps the student would benefit from learning the piece hands together from the beginning. It can then be chunked in some of the other ways.
Perhaps the student would benefit from sight reading the whole piece from beginning to end. Then perhaps the chunking could be that after the first pass, we are going to work on improving the notes, and then we are going to work on improving the rhythms, and then we are going to work on improving the dynamics and articulations, etc.
The goal is to determine where chunking would be useful, to make learning easier, more doable, more enjoyable and rewarding, and more substantive (deeper), so that it really sticks and has more meaning.
Goal-Oriented Example
Let’s say the goal is to teach the music alphabet to a toddler who does not yet know the language alphabet or anything about reading or writing. Let’s imagine you have this assignment and you have never done it before. A good way to find an effective solution and teaching strategy is to consider chunking. For example, let’s learn one letter at a time. Each letter is one chunk. So, for each letter A-G:
Using a picture book with large letters, analyze A with the student.
Have the student color in an outlined A on large paper.
Have the student paint an A on a canvas, and frame it.
Practice with the student until they are able to draw an A in the air with their finger.
Discuss the sequential position of the letter A (it’s the first letter) compared to the other letters. (If the student does not know how to count, this is an absence of prior knowledge that needs to be considered. You also may need to teach the student how to count.)
Practice saying “A” with the student until fluent.
Use puzzle pieces or other manipulatives to practice identifying the letter A.
Sing a song involving the letter A.
So you’re not teaching the whole music alphabet, you are teaching one letter at a time.
Repeat for each letter. Then, invent ways to string the letters together. Consider whether there is value in teaching the lower case letters at this time, or if it is not yet necessary.
Time-Oriented Example
Let’s say you are working with an advanced student who is working toward memorizing a full 50-minute recital consisting of challenging music. The student sets aside two hours per day for practice, and has several months to prepare. The practice so far has been less effective, at least in part because it is unplanned. The student often ends up playing the music they know already more, and the music they need to learn or memorize less. So you decide to help them chunk both the music and their time.
You might first segregate the music into three categories. 1) Learned and memorized; 2) Learned but not yet memorized; 3) Unlearned. Then, you might assign a fixed duration for practicing each component, allocating much more time to the unlearned and unmemorized music, and much less or even no time to the learned and memorized music. You might end up with a useful practice session timeline consisting of 15 to 25 chunks of music being practiced in 5 to 15 minute chunks of time.
Please Be Gentle
Please be gentle with things. Some things seem to become unnecessarily broken, damaged, bent, or squished. Please instruct your students to be gentle with things, and to take care of things they are entrusted with. Use your fingers and not other objects, and use your hands, and not your feet.
Theme Recital Thank You
Thank you teachers who helped prepare your students for our March 14 theme recital. We saw so many wonderful performances, and it was a very successful recital! Special thank you to Miss Suzanne and Mr. Denny for all your help in planning, preparing, and managing the recital, stage, and equipment!
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 emails (soon) 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).
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Q. Do we have Band-aids and/or First Aid kits at the school?
A. Yes. There should be Band-aids in each restroom (inside a cabinet) and a First Aid kit at the reception desk in 107. Please strive to keep supplies in the space where you found them (we recently seem to have lost the box of Band-aids in 108). Let us know if you do not find what you are looking for, and we will strive to get it for you.
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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.
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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