By Beth Turco
During your lessons with students, do you feel the pressure to pack in all the information they need to know about technique, music theory and fundamental skills at the instrument? Isn't is difficult to remember to nurture the student's love of music? And how exactly can we …
By Tamra Brunn
Brunn.Tamra@MacPhail.org
The MacPhail Music for Life™ program is expanding at MacPhail Center for Music and we currently serve over 1,000 adults age 55+ in our student body! Earlier this month we gathered together a panel of experienced Music for Life teaching artists—Jeanie Bri…
by Kristin Shoemaker
On October 10th a group of MacPhail Center for Music faculty members came together to talk about the importance of progress and its direct impact on student motivation. The discussion centered around findings from Amabile and Kramer’s book, The Progress Principle, and vetera…
by Kamini LaRusso LaRusso.Kamini@MacPhail.org
On Tuesday, March 4, 2014, Suzuki Violin Teacher, Susan Crawford, presented her ideas on working with older students who practice independently. She mentioned that teachers often tell students what to do, rather than teaching the student to self reflect…
by David Birrow
One idea that intrigued me from Philip Johnston's book The Dynamic Studio was sending out a monthly studio newsletter.Probably not a revelation, since I'm sure many of you already do this in one form or another, but I thought it'd be great to share more information with parents…
by David Birrow Birrow.David@MacPhail.org
This post is a 2-part open ended question about private lesson curriculum.
Part I: Among other things, two of my main goals when teaching are:
by Jeremy Hanson Hanson.Jeremy@MacPhail.org
As teachers, we’ve probably all heard a student exclaim, “I always make that mistake!” or “I always screw that up.”
I don’t know if you have this reaction, but for me, this is as bad as fingernails on a chalkboard. We know that what students …