Simpedia

Leeanne I., Australia

The way I sell shared lessons at my FIS is that Simply Music piano lessons are nothing like traditional piano lessons. They are more like a coaching session. The student doesn’t need to spend the whole lesson practicing at a keyboard. It’s actually more beneficial for our brain to remember patterns away from the keyboard. Using practice pads, or our lap. Then they get the extra benefit of observational learning – when we watch someone else play something, we see it from a completely different perspective than when we do it ourselves.

Kerry V., Australia

I actually bring that fact in the FIS that ‘you see there is only one piano but more than one student. Remember we teach a new way and shortly you will see how this all falls into place. The magic doesn’t happen here in the lesson, it happens at home with practice and what comes with that is growth’. After i show the OTJ i then remind them how they all learnt without having to have more than one piano.
A lot of people feel it is being AT the piano that is the learning. With SM you learn in multiple ways in with multiple senses where the learning comes from . Remind them that practice doesn’t even have to happen at the keyboard.

Mark M., New York

Multiple pianos make for multiple individual lessons all happening in a single room at the same time, not a genuine group lesson.

Ian B., California

Great questions, Tina!

One of my first teaching jobs while I was still in college was with a very successful (traditional) piano studio that taught group classes. The room was packed with about 16 to 20 smaller keyboards. It looked quite similar to a typical public school class, only instead of desks everyone had a keyboard.

The reason I was hired was because this type of class needed three to four teachers to have eyes on the students. The main teacher would be up front with a projector pointing to the music notes and “presenting”. The other teachers would go around the room and check individual students as they followed along.

While this approach was wildly successful, there were [at least] two problems that I became aware of over time:

1) The sound of 20 keyboards all playing together, even when in unison, was absolute cacophony!😜 Especially with beginner kids, the notes were often incorrect and the rhythm of the “orchestra” was pretty loose. We managed the volume on each keyboard, and there were also times that the students worked independently with headphones. But this all led to the TRUE PROBLEM, which was that the “group class” was very disconnected. Students didn’t really interact with each other. It was really more like 20 private lessons happening simultaneously. I wouldn’t say that it was chaotic. But everyone had trouble actually hearing themselves and each other. When we’re trying to teach music, I’d say that listening and hearing are pretty high up on the priority list. So this really was an issue.

2) The students didn’t benefit at all from *observational learning*. Even in a private lesson, the teacher demonstrates and student had opportunity to watch and listen. In Simply Music shared lessons, this occurs repeatedly as students “round robin” and they quickly learn from each other’s mistakes this way too. Even in my online lessons where everyone DOES have their own piano, I make a point to have students actively observe and listen to reach other as each plays, rather than just practice on their own while they “wait their turn”.

Take what you can from my experience. But one thing I’d emphasize to the grandmother is the relational aspect of our approach. We want parental involvement and we want students to interact both with each other and the teacher. Sharing one piano is the best way to do this.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one keyboard btw. Especially in higher level classes, or in larger classes, there can be room for students working together in smaller groups or one student “mentoring” another student while you teach the main class. Breakout sessions are fine in context and in those situations having a second or third keyboard could be useful.

Gabrielle B., Iowa

There’s an entire list of benefits in the shared lesson training in ITTP I recommend using your favorites to convey the importance of the lessons. If you don’t believe it no one else will!

Something we add is…what do soccer, gymnastics, swim, football, dance etc all have in common? They’re all group, but music is private, and we wonder why people quit…

Music is meant to be experienced in a group format. Concerts, tribes, monks, caroling, these are all large groups of people experiencing music as a unit. Putting students together gives camaraderie and from a business perspective helps tremendously with student retention knowing there’s other people in the group going through the same music relationship as themselves.

Terah W., Kansas

And aligning with Gabi’s comments, while it is using peer pressure to it’s best (possibly only) use, that camaraderie actually does more than make it fun. It is much easier to encourage one another in an environment where everyone is pulling for each other than the incessant pressure for competition. I have always felt that learning to work together is more important than constant comparison. I think a grandmother might appreciate that difference. Of course, my fav, indeed, most fav and used info is the 3 learning styles —see, do, teach!

Btw, I had multiple keyboards in my physical Studio and while they all got used for round robins (fun!) and other stuff, so Many times we were all around one piano.

Brenda D., Colorado

I shifted to multiple keyboards after returning to in-person lessons about a year ago. It was more practical to keep keyboards sanitary and maintain social distance. Families felt more comfortable returning to group classes.