Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [teaching]

For questions about the knowledge of music theory and musical practice and the methods by which they are to be taught.

Techniques, strategies, tools etc. involved in the practice of teaching another how to do music. A tag to cover pedagogical questions asked from the teacher's perspective.

110 questions
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How can I teach a student who seems to have no rhythm?

I've been teaching a highschool kid acoustic guitar lately and even though everything related to the left hand is progressing well, he is having major problems with his rhythm. To give you the full picture my opinion would be that he has no rhythm.…
xray1986
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How to help students remember Half vs. Whole rests

The symbols for the half rest and whole rest are pretty much the same and in the literature my students play we rarely encounter them. Is there a good, memorable way to describe which is which to students?
Josiah
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Why don’t piano teachers teach the chord method of playing to young children and adults?

I have been playing piano since I was 10 and now I am 43. I have never really been good at sight reading sheet music. I have recently been researching alternative methods of learning songs fast as sometimes learning one piece of sheet music took me…
Jennie
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8 answers

Teaching a student to match pitch

I'm a piano teacher and I currently have a student that is taking voice lessons from another teacher. Our lessons involve me accompanying her and discussing interpretation and style. She has some interesting problems with pitch matching. Once…
ecline6
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6 answers

What are the problems in teaching guitar via Skype?

I have taught guitar one-to-one for several years and would now like to start offering lessons via Skype. What are the major problems in teaching guitar by Skype and can they be overcome? Are there any advantages?
Mlshoe
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9 answers

Why would a teacher ban the metronome altogether?

So when I was a kid I had this piano teacher who was completely against even owning a metronome. He was adamant that using a metronome to practice was a bad habit and insisted that pupils always count "internally". In retrospect, several years…
Some Dude On The Interwebs
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Becoming a good guitar teacher

I am thinking of starting guitar teaching and, of course, I am aiming to become a good guitar teacher. I don't think it will happen in the near future, because I don't have enough skill level yet, but since this is my plan, I think it's a good time…
Silver Light
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Should sight-reading be emphasized less for piano instruction with new developments in technology

I realize this post may be controversial. I've been playing for about eleven years. I'm somewhere at the amateur/intermediate level. When I started sheet music was the only medium available. Since then, nearly every single song ever made has been…
prettykitty
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Is there a recorder-analog for the flute?

I have used soprano baroque recorders for students aged 8-10 as a "pre-band" instrument. I find that most students enjoy practicing note-reading, and the average student is able to progress reasonably far in two years of study. I find that…
nuggethead
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How can we effectively teach schoolchildren theory?

Background Reading: I thought it was worth extending the recent discussion about music theory to the topic of teaching theory. I think our default approach to teaching theory is sometimes too disconnected from the actual music we play. I believe…
endorph
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Why is Schenker so influential in US academia? Is it the same elsewhere?

Adam Neely's recent video on race and music theory focuses in part on the views of Schenker and the limits and biases of his system of analysis. It seems that Schenker has had a very strong influence on music pedagogy in the US (this is also an…
Bob says reinstate Monica
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Should fingerboard tapes be used for beginner violinists ?

Some teachers use them and some don't. I've heard that they can become a crutch and cause delayed ear training development, but others say they are necessary at the beginning. Can they really cause problems? Has this been studied in any kind of way?…
Lilitu88
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Expectations from a violin teacher towards an adult learner

I am an adult student learning the violin. I have have been playing for slightly more than a year. I can play most of the pieces in Suzuki book 1 now and have progressed up to book 2. I do not know if this is the norm; I feel like my teacher does…
Geraldine Chia
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Piano scales: Why bother with hands together?

During my first ten years studying classical piano, the scales that I played were hands together, parallel. But the only literature that actually has scales in both hands, for more than one bar per page, is quite advanced and non-solo: Brahms piano…
Camille Goudeseune
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How can I help a piano student who doesn't slow down to read the notes

I have a student who, when he tries, can figure out what notes he's looking at on the score at a decent pace. He couldn't sit down and sight-read something fluidly, but the foundation is there. The problem is that when he's trying to learn something…
JETM
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