Music Teacher Cafe

The following post was originally written for and posted at http://hamiltonhaltonormtaeducationblog.blogspot.com/, a new blog for parents and students of teachers in the Hamilton-Halton region of the Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association.

With every new year comes a set of expectations and hope for what we can accomplish in the future.  As a student, or the parent of a student, you too have expectations for the new year.  Expectations motivate us.  They drive us and cause us to invest time and money into the dream of being able to perform at a high level.  This is a good thing.  As music teachers, we’re thankful for expectations.  They keep us in business.

The expectations are not fruitless.  Many of our students excel and go on to become professional musicians, church musicians, teachers and choristers.  Many more maintain their skills throughout life and play “for their own amazement.”  However, there are a few who fall off the wagon prematurely and fail to achieve the expectations they once had.  While there may be a variety of reasons for these students wandering away, more often than not, it is a failure to understand or meet the expectations of their teacher.  Below is a partial list of expectations that professional music teachers have of their students and/or parents.

Practice

There was a time when this was a given.  Music lessons meant practicing.  But with so many different activities eating up our lives (soccer, swimming, dance, drama, etc.), music lessons are sometimes lumped together with the other weekly activities as if they are just another time slot in the calendar.  Soccer practice is a time for practising soccer skills.  Swimmers improve their stroke and endurance during swimming lessons.  Students of dance progress during their dance class.  Musical progress, however, cannot take place exclusively during a 30 or 45-minute lesson.  Music lessons are a time for evaluation, correction, instruction, and planning.  The majority of the learning takes place in regular practice sessions at home.  When a student comes to the lesson ready and eager to display to the teacher what they have accomplished, the lesson is exceedingly valuable.  The teacher can help the student take the next step in perfecting their performance, or push on to new repertoire.  Lessons are not intended to be practice sessions.  If they are, progress occurs at a snail’s pace and lesson fees are often wasted.

Perform

Music is a performing art.  As teachers, we expect our students to perform.  Some teachers have studio recitals, master classes, and group lessons.  ORMTA sponsors many recitals and competitions throughout the year.  The Burlington Rotary Music Festival is held each November, providing an opportunity to showcase the efforts of students.  Though some students will experience some initial nervousness about performing, this can be overcome or controlled over time.  Don’t hide your accomplishments.  We want to hear you perform!

Follow policy

As professionals, we each have a set of guidelines that enables us to operate an efficient and fair studio.  In order to maintain an effective relationship between teacher, student and/or parents, we expect you to pay for lessons and classes on time, according to the terms of our policies.  We expect you to be familiar with and abide by our policy for missed lessons.  Please contact your teacher if you do not have a copy of their policies.  Remember that communication prevents many misunderstandings.

 Individual teachers may have other specific expectations for students.  While we will likely not discuss our differences in a public forum such as this, I have tried to represent (unofficially) what we as professional music teachers think is essential to a student’s success.  All the best as you strive to achieve your expectations in 2009!

Music Teacher's Helper posts some practical ideas for the private music teacher in the following categories.

1. Be considerate of your neighbors:
2. Be a good citizen:
3. Honor your spouse and family:
4. Respect your students with a functioning studio:
5. Protect everyone from life’s uncertainties:

What sort of problems have you encountered with the day-to-day running of  a home music studio?

I wanted to let everyone know that Music Teacher Cafe is now an official member of the 100 Music Education Bloggers organized by Dr. Pisano at MusTech.net.  There you'll find a list of many other blogs by music educators of various stripes and specialties.  I'm happy to be a part of the broader conversation.

"So . . . what did you do in music lesson today?"

"We played video games."

"Excuse me?"

"We played video games."

"In music lesson?"

"Yes."

"You mean, I'm paying good money to have you sit and play video games, when you could do that at home just as easily?  What kind of education is that?"

OK, so it might be a hard sell.  But those who desire to incorporate technology into music education have a lot more options these days.  Here's an interesting article on music "games" (we could call them "practical experiences," or "virtual field trips") that can certainly contribute and add depth to our general music classes.

I'm curious to know how we can incorporate these type of products into our lessons/classes and maintain credibility with the skeptics (as illustrated above).