In the jungle that is music education, there lives a beast.
A terrifying dragon that lurks behind every chair, instrument and music stand, it is the Distraction Dragon. This beast is the greatest and most common enemy of all teachers.
We tremble upon sensing the slightest...
Years ago I began to notice a problem with some of my students: Some of them would only retain the last one or two songs we were working on in the music lessons.
No matter how many times I tried to explain that it was important to retain a "repertoire" of pieces they could...
What is the most important factor in a student? Many people would say it's talent, or effort, or persistence, or luck or some combination of these.
Behind all of this is something that is more important - the proper mindset. Recent research (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007)...
When teaching to read traditional music notation, We highly recommend separating the elements. Pitch can be taught separately from rhythm. By teaching rhythm using stick notation, our students can focus on a single element without overwhelm.
1. Try Using Stick Notation
Stick notation...