Monday, December 19, 2011

Looking Back

With a few months of teaching experience under my belt, I think it’s time to do a little reflecting on my experiences so far. Not only have I been teaching piano lessons, I am also in charge of the musical education of a group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students with wide ranging musical backgrounds. Teaching them has forced me to think about not only what I teach my students, but also HOW I teach them. As I learned from my undergraduate education classes, the instructional methods matter just as much as the lesson content. In my individual piano lessons, I can rely on method books to provide a reliable order for presenting material to beginning students. (I find myself appreciating more and more the piano teachers who design these method books.) However, even here, I end up making adjustments, and I am just working with one student at a time. When teaching in the classroom I also have a curriculum to work with, but it does not allow for differences in content knowledge and ability. So, what have I learned so far? Here are a few words of wisdom from the ever-growing knowledge base of Emma Veers, piano teacher:

Less is more, both in the classroom and in the piano studio. It is better to address one main point from a variety of angles than to try to address several points in one lesson. I still struggle with this when trying to work on a piece of music with a piano student, I want to fix all of the problems I see at once, but I often end up overwhelming the student. Not a good thing!
Too slow is better than too fast. While neither is great, it is better for a student to be confident and bored than totally lost. It is good to give students plenty of opportunity to practice a new concept, especially the idea of reading music. This works for individuals and group classes.
When working with a group class, introduce concepts in engaging ways. This way the students who already know the concepts will still enjoy the class, and they might even learn something new.
I am the teacher, and as such, I need to have confidence in my knowledge and my teaching abilities. If a student comes up to me and says, “I saw a boy playing piano on TV and he didn’t hold his hands the way you want me too,” this should NOT cause me to doubt my own methods. (True story, by the way.)

Slowly but surely, I am learning from my mistakes and gaining confidence in my abilities as a teacher. Just today I had a student come to her lesson full of enthusiasm because my practice technique of breaking the piece into small, two-measure pieces actually worked! It’s times like these that make me realize just how much I enjoy teaching . Stay tuned for more thoughts from this enthusiastic teacher over the next several months!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Not What, WHO

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” As all college graduates should know, networking is the key to success in today’s job market. This is especially true for piano teachers trying to build a studio, because parents usually want someone they can trust teaching their children.   Although I don’t have many students yet, here are a few ways I have begun making contacts in the Denver area.

In college, I became a student member of Music Teacher’s National Association (MTNA). When I graduated and moved to Denver, I transferred my membership from a collegiate membership to an active membership in the Denver area. Little did I realize how beneficial this would be! A few weeks later, the president of the local MTNA chapter called me and welcomed me to the group. I attended the first meeting of the year, where I met several fellow music teachers. Many of them have offered to pass along my name as their own personal piano studios fill up.

In addition to networking with fellow music teachers, it makes sense to go where the students are….school! I have left my name and contact information with several of the local school music teachers.

Finally, my biggest connections have come through my church. Never underestimate the power of volunteering when making connections. At the beginning of the school year, I began volunteering my services as the music teacher to the 4th-8th grade students at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran School. Two weeks later….ta-da! I was asked to take on five new piano students from the school.

The key to successful networking is to never give up; always be on the lookout for new contacts, especially in the world of music teaching. If you have any more networking suggestions for me; please let me know!

Guest Blogger, Emma Veers

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Musings of a Beginner

Our guest blogger is Emma Veers.  She graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, WI, in May with a Bachelor of Science degree in Educational Studies and minors in piano pedagogy and mathematics. Following graduation, she moved to Golden, CO, with plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Piano Pedagogy. In the meantime, Emma has taken on the challenge of setting up a piano studio from scratch in an area where she has few connections. Readers in the greater Denver area, feel free to help her out!


Although I’ve taken piano lessons continuously for the past fifteen years, I never realized the amount of work my teachers put into my lessons until I attempted to take on the noble teaching profession myself. Even my piano pedagogy classes in college did not fully prepare me for setting up my own studio and taking on paying students. Here are a few examples where experience proved to be the best guide.

In my first piano pedagogy class, my professor required that we put together a potential “studio policy.” However, writing down rules that I thought I might want to include in my future policy differed greatly from actually putting a policy into practice. Before putting a policy into practice, the teacher needs to have a means of enforcing this policy. (Teaching reminds me of parenting in this respect; don’t make promises or threats if you have no means of following through!) For example, when it comes to paying for lessons, I state in my policy that payment is due at the beginning of the month for the entire month. However, if a parent says “oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to bring my checkbook this week, can I pay you next week?” I have to trust that this parent will pay me eventually unless I have a solution in place, such as a late payment fee.

 Then there is the task of selecting method books to use. Unfortunately, this decision is complicated by the fact that many, many method books exist, each with slight differences that tend to trip up the unsuspecting rookie teacher. I learned this the hard way when I tried Hal Leonard’s new series “American Popular Piano” last year with a beginning eighth grade student. As I glanced through the series, I thought its hands on approach and use of popular sounding music would be perfect for motivating my student. Unfortunately, this series would have been easier to use as a supplementary series than a standalone series, and this made my lesson planning difficult. Oops!

Speaking of lesson planning, do experienced teachers actually write “lesson plans” for each of their students before each lesson? When I took piano lessons, it always seemed that my teachers would just open up to the next page in my lesson book and teach from that. However, now I need to write notes to myself before I teach each lesson, or I find myself blanking on what to say next.


These are just a few of the “surprises” I have encountered so far in my first year of teaching. Stay tuned for more as the year unfolds :)