Manageable Creativity in Piano Lessons with Monthly Focuses

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by all the possible stuff you could be including in lessons? Confused as to what to prioritise week-to-week?

Monthly focuses or themes can be very helpful to make this more manageable.

By deciding what topic you’ll cover with your students each month, and keeping it the same across your studio, you’ll feel more confident that you will get to everything important throughout the course of a year.

So let’s reduce that overwhelm!

How to Use Monthly Focuses

Setting up monthly focuses for your studio really couldn’t be simpler. All you need is a list of themes that you want to rotate (we’ll look at that below) and a schedule for rotating them.

I’ve set up a template for you to get started creating your table in Google Docs. Click here to create a copy of the template.

As you’ll see in the template, I’ve dedicated a few months in a row to certain themes. I’ve also put in a “challenge” column which refers to my challenge board.

There are no rules here! But just having monthly focuses set up is very helpful to manage your planning and stop you feeling overwhelmed.

Possible Monthly Focuses for Your Piano Studio

So, if you’re going to alternate topics, you need a list of topics.

The Every Lesson List

Start by making a list of areas you want to cover in each and every lesson – without exception.

It might look something like this:

• Repertoire/method book pieces
• Technique

…or it might be a longer list. But don’t let it get super long! Remember this is stuff that you include in every lesson. Not most or some.

The Some Lessons List

Next, make a list of what you include sometimes. This will probably be a much longer list, including, but not limited to:

• Scales
• Chords
• Composing
• History
• Note names
• Sight reading
• Improvisation

Perhaps scales goes in your first list. Or maybe improvisation does.

These lists will vary greatly from teacher to teacher, and that’s exactly why this system works.

How to Make Your Monthly Focuses Schedule

Now you can just plug your “sometimes” list into the spots in the monthly focuses template.

Be strategic about where you put each theme. You might like to focus on scales in the lead up to an exam and sight reading at the start of a new term for example.

Once you have it set, display it prominently in your studio. This will encourage you to stick to it and your students can start getting excited about upcoming topics.

Have you tried setting monthly themes in your piano studio?

I’d love to hear how it went for you in the comments or in the Vibrant Music Studio Teachers community on Facebook. 🙂

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