About The Method
Lessons learned as a teacher
As a somewhat new teacher (one year), I am interested to know what is the most important thing you all learned in your studios this last year? For me personally it is that patience pays off – patience with myself (in growing the studio) and…
Non-accompaniment Christmas music for early students
How is Christmas music taught? I have a couple of level 2-3 students, not reading notes yet, and lots of level 1 students. The upper levels really want Christmas music. They’re kind of tired of accompaniment and want music with the melody line. I can…
Parent wants both SM and traditional
Most people who inquire for lessons with me are not wanting the traditional approach, but this past week two mothers came to me who seem to want the best of both worlds – their child learns tons of songs and enjoys playing and has fun…
Permission to touch students
I’m very excited to be starting my first shared lesson class and going over the training for how shared classes differ from private, but I do have one question. In the training (for the 1-student situation), Neil said he asked the student for permission: “Is…
Learning upper level songs playing-based
Confessions here…with upper level pieces, I have often just used the music for learning them myself before teaching them, since reading is so easy for me. Thanks to Mark Meritt’s ‘words of wisdom’ this summer, I decided that I would try and learn them the…
Using SHM audio files
Who makes active use of SM audio in teaching and/or assignments? I’ve been pretty weak on this and could use some ideas–not only what learning activities to do but how to routinize it, how to train students so they know how to regularly use the…
Older student having trouble with diagrams
I have an older (70ish) student who plays pretty well, but stumbles over what the diagrams mean. I’ve reviewed them countless times and of course, told her to watch the videos. When she’s playing at her lesson, she looks at her hands most of the…
New teacher feeling overwhelmed
I feel like I’m trying to climb Mt Everest with just a daypack. So much left to learn! I’ve got all the Foundation 1 songs, basic versions, and most of Foundation 2. I’m barely ahead of some of my students. Also trying to do the…
Keeping track of prospective students
What sort of system do you use for tracking your contact with prospective students? I’ve been playing around with some free CRM (customer relationship management), but it’s incredibly confusing for someone like me who has no prior experience with something like this. I’d like to…
Student having trouble playing Night Storm
I have encountered a problem that is new for me. One of my students (8 years old) has trouble with the sets of two fingers in Night Storm. She can tell me which are the three sets of two and what to do with them…