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Building Positive Relationships with Your Music Students

Formerly of Ireland, Barry Carroll is a musician in Scotland who runs the music teaching business ‘One Lad Music Academy’. Since starting in April of 2021, his school grew to almost 100 students and 6 teachers before Barry went back to teaching on his own with 17 students. Today, Barry has a studio of 60+ students with a healthy wait list and an amazing balance between his work and life. He teaches and plays guitar, drums, ukulele, bass and band classes from his fancy little wi-fi-enabled and air-conditioned shed.

I worked a lot of jobs in my time before actually settling on working in music full time. I was never satisfied with any of those jobs, but I did learn one vital lesson: Personal relationships between people, no matter how long or short, will ultimately determine the majority of your life outcomes.

As I started to focus on making my music teaching business more profitable and enjoyable, I listened to an audio book called ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie.

In just a couple of hours spent listening to this book, I learnt more about human interaction and connection than I had in nearly 30 years of living out in the world.

The Importance of Listening

Do you really listen to people when they’re speaking to you? Are you truly hearing what their point is and what they’re trying to communicate to you?

One surefire way to tell if you’re listening well is to ask yourself: Am I just waiting for the other person to stop talking so I can jump in?

Listen Actively

As a music teacher, active listening is crucial when working with students. It means giving them your full attention whether they’re playing or talking through their musical challenges.

By actively listening, you can speak the same musical language as your students, making complex concepts more relatable to them.

Younger students might struggle to articulate their thoughts clearly, so it’s essential for teachers to tune in closely and translate their students’ expressions into appropriate musical terminology.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Encourage musical exploration and critical thinking by asking open-ended questions.

Instead of simply asking, “Did you like that song?” I’d recommend throwing out questions like, “Would you have chosen that tune yourself?” Or, “What part really grabbed you?”

It’s all about getting your students involved and feeling like they’re calling the shots. Open-ended questions can prompt students to reflect on their musical choices, interpretations and preferences.

Avoid Criticising at All Costs

Criticism, even when well-intentioned, often creates barriers in relationships. If you think about it, what purpose does criticism have? What is there to be gained by pointing out flaws in a student?

Offer Guidance 

When giving feedback on a student’s performance, it’s essential to focus on areas where they can improve while still affirming their value as a musician. Instead of highlighting mistakes, offer guidance on how they can enhance their skills. 

It’s easy to let slip that a student didn’t play very well, then offer what you think is a quick and simple adjustment. For example, ”If you just used your first finger rather than your pinky, then it would work.” 

Statements like this don’t impart any encouragement whatsoever. Rather, they make the student feel stupid for using the wrong finger.

Try this instead: “Your first finger looks like it’s closer to this tricky note than your pinky. Do you think it might be a good idea to try using that one instead?”

Acknowledge Effort

Learning an instrument is hard no matter what your circumstances.

If you acknowledge that a student has made an effort to learn something, or even just mastered the simplest of tasks, then celebrate it! Let them know they have achieved something. 

A guitar teacher’s major-scale shape could be a student’s Mt. Everest. 🧗

Make a Positive Impression

As an adult imparting knowledge or wisdom to children, I influence their development – whether intentionally or not. I choose to be an adult who doesn’t nag about practising or studying, but who focusses on what makes each child unique.

Use Their Names

Whether we admit it or not, we all have a degree of self-focus and enjoy hearing our name. When someone uses our name, it demonstrates they’ve invested effort into knowing this personal detail.

As a child, I often felt unheard by adults. So I make it a priority to ensure my students feel that I truly listen to them – and using their name is an easy place to start.

When playing games in group classes, I always refer to each child by name. Often, when giving lesson notes, I address each child individually so they know I listened to them just as attentively as I did to everyone else.

If they do something well, I’ll celebrate it with the whole class, saying, “Hasn’t Oliver done an amazing job with that riff, guys?!”

Give Them What They Want (sort of…)

Humans are fickle. We tend to do things if there’s a reward involved. And while using rewards to incentivise music studies can be a controversial topic, it’s worked for me at times.

Think about the most mundane and boring task that you do and then think about why you bother to do it. I’ve got waterproof shoes that I HATE putting on because they are so hard to take off. But I know that my feet will be dry when I take them off.

I do something I don’t like (putting on waterproof shoes) in return for a reward (dry feet).

Some kids don’t like being told to practise their instrument, so I offer them a reward in return.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em

One story I vividly remember from ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ was about a boss who wanted his workers to stop smoking right outside the property. Instead of being “the big boss man” and telling them what to do, he offered them all cigars and asked that the workers enjoy them somewhere other than right outside the office.

Now, I’m not saying that you should offer little 7-year-old Jimmy a cigar to encourage him to pick up his drum sticks. However there’s a lot to be said for encouraging the behaviours you expect from students rather than dictating rules from on high.

Spotlight on Social Media

If we want our students to practise, then we might want to make it worth their while. Since a lot of people value being the centre of attention, why not offer to include students in a social media post once they’ve mastered their current song?

Incentivise

Being featured online could be the reward itself, or you could make it more tangible.

For example, in one term I encouraged my students to make their own YouTube videos. They created practice-room tour videos, song tutorials and new-instrument unboxing videos. Everyone who took part was put in a drawing for an Amazon voucher.

In another term, I sent written worksheets home with the students every week. At the end of the term, students who completed all their worksheets were entered into a drawing for an Amazon voucher.

By incentivising their interest in music education with the chance to win a voucher, they can buy something they love while also learning and improving at the same time.

For more advice, resources and tools you can use to get your students to practice effectively and efficiently, check out Colourful Keys’ hub page all about practice.

Winning 

For some, the title of this book – ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ – might seem a bit sneaky and manipulative. The content of the book couldn’t be further from it.

In running a music teaching business, we must always strive to “win” at personal relationships in order to positively influence our students. 

The book doesn’t teach you how to sell ice to a polar bear or Guinness to a thirsty Offaly man. It simply teaches you to be sound to everyone, whether friend or enemy, and the world will return it tenfold.

As the famous saying goes, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

How can you use some of these lessons to forge better relationships with your students?

Tell us about it in the comments.

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