Practicing & Playlists
Successful playlist management
If your students are successful in managing their playlists, what do you think you have done to facilitate that? I have had lots of conversations with some students and parents but the conversations don’t seem to work. I understand it is mostly the parents’ job…
Curriculum Pacing in a School Setting – Neil Moore
I’ve been teaching Simply Music in an R-13 school the last three years and my students don’t get anywhere near the progress expected from the SM program. Most are getting though around 2 levels a year. This is obviously falling very short of the 4…
Teacher feels out of depth with gifted student
I have a student who is very naturally gifted with composing his own songs. His songs are good enough to be on mainstream radio and his father is recording his songs at the moment through a sound recordist to mix and produce it. My issue…
Differences in practice habits in group
A group of three students: The first one does everything I assign beautifully. The second one (the fastest learner of the three) only practices 1/2 of the assigned items, but beautifully. The third one does 1/3 of what I assign but not so beautifully because…
How Tune Toolkit interacts with the playlist
I had a teacher recently write me personally with a question about Tune Toolkit, and I thought I’d address the issue here since it could be of benefit to others. The question was about how Tune Toolkit interacts with playlist tracking. Certainly one can add…
Playlist review lessons
How often do you do a playlist check for all or most of a lesson? I remember somewhere in the training that Neil recommends these pretty often. I use the Popsicle stick idea. We do it 2-3 times a year, but I’m thinking Neil recommended…
“How to practice” guidelines for students
Does anybody provide students with a “how to practice” guideline, especially when they get to higher levels? I just put together a draft for some students beginning Foundation 4 and Reading Rhythm. I welcome your ideas/comments! This is 40 minutes – what do you expect…
Writing extra notes for Arrangements
In the Arrangements 1 program, I have reviewed the material and it says that the content is not to be supplemented with written notes. Is this referring to the types of notes depicted in the reference section of the Foundation levels, or notes we write…
Playlist management
The biggest struggle I have with my students is the playlist. Most of them are not interested in using it, forget, or just don’t do it despite my best efforts. Keeping their songs instantly playable is an ongoing problem and uses more lesson time than…
Using win/lose games
I had kids earn points from cards they picked for playlist check. Some kids started to cry because they didn’t win their cards even with a prep talk about why they should not be so serious about winning or losing a game. Personally I set…