VMT 008_Vibrant Music Teacher Questions and Answers.mp3

Vibrant vibrant music teaching proven and practical strategies and ideas for music teachers.

You’re listening to episode 8 of the vibrant music teaching podcast. I’m Nicola Cantan. And in this episode I am answering questions from teachers about make up lessons Pentascales goals and recordings.

Welcome to another episode of the vibrant music teaching podcast if this is the first episode you’re listening to then a welcome. It’s great to have you here. And I would encourage you to go back and listen to the first seven this episode in particular is a bit different. Today I’m going to be answering some questions from vibrant music teaching members that they’ve submitted to me so it’s going to be covering a broad breadth of topics and it should be really interesting to dive into these different topics that are important and are on the minds of various vibrant music teaching members. But the other episodes are more focused on particular topics at the time so do go back and listen to those. When you get a chance to the first question I have submitted today is from Laurel South Carolina and she said I make videos and audio recordings for some students to help them prepare what to practice at home. This is helpful for my young students or struggling students with non-musical parents. The file size can be quite large even for short recordings so I am unable to email or text them. I’ve been trying different methods of sending the recordings Facebook Messenger works but not everyone uses Facebook send anywhere works but there is a 48 hour expiration on those and I’m wondering if anyone can recommend their best option. Private YouTube upload. Or another software. Perhaps it would be awesome to find one solution that can work for all that has a large sized Limit and No Expiration.

Thanks so much for this question Laurel. This has actually come up a few times recently in the Facebook group and around the place because teachers members are VMT are starting these practice pro course and in that course I recommend having students record their own practice and doing recordings and lessons and things like that and whether it’s audio or video. The file sizes can be quite large as you mention here Laurel. So audio or a little bit smaller but still if you have a lot of them or there for long periods of time they’re still going to be but restricted in how you can send them though. The absolute easiest way to deal with this form of video is to upload to YouTube. Like you’ve said there. However I don’t suggest you use the private option. That is extremely cumbersome and age comes with all sorts of problems the way it’s supposed to work is that. You upload it and you set it to private and you tell Google slash YouTube which email address which account to which person can watch this video. But the problem is there are often logged in to a different account and then it stops them watching it. And you know parents are busy they’re going to be doing lots of other things and they’re just going to give up if it’s that hard. So that’s not what I’d recommend. What I’d recommend is that you upload it and set it to be un listed oken.

What that selling means those three options by the way when you upload to YouTube so you create a YouTube account and then you can upload videos you can have public ones. Those are the ones that you watch all the time I’m sure. On YouTube the dogs and the cats and the lessons and everything else was on YouTube that you should see in search and in recommended videos and that kind of stuff. Then those private which I’ve mentioned I don’t recommend. And then there’s unlisted so unlisted means that it’s not private. Anyone with a link can get there but it’s not going to show in search. So someone searches even for the exact title of your video in YouTube. It’s not going to show up so it’s not completely public either. They need the actual link which effectively makes it private. Now if you had something that sensitive information. If it’s a video of a student that you’re not allowed to share publicly. Absolutely do not use this option but if it’s just that you don’t particularly want to show anyone else because it’s only relevant to this student but it’s not a major problem if someone else sees it. Uploading to YouTube and sending it to unlisted is the easiest and freest option out there and nobody can watch it honestly. There is really no problem and less like I say you have a privacy issue like urine.

It has a student in it and you’re not allowed to show them but it’s just a case of you not really wanting other students to see it for free they want OK. So unless it’s a privacy problem or the other issue I would see sometimes is if you are having someone pay specifically for that video then it’s no good. So if I’m doing videos for courses for VMT I wouldn’t upload those to YouTube because it’s not safe enough for that. But if it’s just a bonus for your current students absolutely go with that option. It is the simplest thing. If you really don’t want to do that for some reason there are options like practicia all these kind of plan but they’re all going to come with a cost or they’re going to require you to download an app or all of these different things and if all you want to do is send videos YouTube unlisted is the way to go with that. Hope that helps you with that Laurel so my next question today is from Carolyn in Wyoming. She said Just curious as to how you introduce Pentascales to older students. I use the stairsteps from your library with my younger students which I love. But the older ones feel it a little childish. Do you discuss whole steps and half steps or just teach by rote. Do you discuss major and minor sounds. Thanks so much for your question there Carolyn.

I really appreciate it. So Pentascales. I only use with younger students so the question I introduce Pentascales to older students goes with the answer. I don’t I go straight to regular scales. The main point of Pentascales for me. Well there are several points. One is to give students the routine of practicing something that is similar to scales and get them used to playing these kinds of patterns that they’re not reading. Another is to get them moving all over the piano and the main reason they introduce pentascales with younger students is to get them to transpose into various different keys. Now for older students I dont feel it all that necessary to really teach them these scales to have them do that. They can figure it out their ears a little bit more develop and they don’t need to have those patterns underhand and they can their fingers can move around more easily right so it doesn’t take that much practice technical practice to get used to the pentascales before they can do that and they’re perfectly able for regular scales pretty early on. So Pentascales. If I did the full set the way I’d do it with young students it would only delay that process of getting to one octave scales and that would be detrimental in my opinion. So that’s why I don’t do that now in terms of how I actually teach pentascales when I am teaching them which is with younger students say let’s say under sevens would I talk about whole steps and half steps in Ireland tones and semitones.

M No. Sometimes depending on the circumstance. If a student is having particular trouble or I just know that they’re gonna latch on to that. But in general no not really. Do I talk about major and minor sound. Absolutely. That’s a huge benefit of doing these scales so I’ll have them learn the scales basically by listening and we do a lot of singing with them so we’ll be singing do re mi fa so and back down obviously and by. Through that process of singing along with them they’ll notice when they go to D Major from C and the F which they’re playing doesn’t sound like me does it. Doesn’t sound like the third note should sound so how can we fix that and they’ll explore and they’ll find the black keys themselves and through this process it means that they can practice these at home easily without my help because they’re used to finding where their mistakes are. It’s waking up their ears it’s doing all this kind of stuff. So that’s how I approach teaching Penta scales and then we talk about dropping the third down and the difference that makes in the sound and again always transposing different songs to these folk songs as well as reading songs that they’re learning as well in their books. I’m glad I helped that and her as useful Karilyn book.

Feel free to follow up with them. Other questions in the VM to clubhouse. So next question is from Dana in Portland. Hi Dana thanks for the question. You said what do you do differently when scheduling adult students especially in regards to make up lessons. My only make up lessons are group class offerings but that isn’t going to work for my adult students especially as one comes during the day and the two come on different evenings. So Dana my answer to this question is somewhat similar somehow to the answer to the question about pentascales. What do I do differently with makeup lessons with adult students. I don’t do them but I don’t do them with any students so we differ there. I see you’re doing them as a group as in general so with adult students and with all my students I am not doing make up lessons at all. I do not call anything a make up lesson. No no no no. That’s go how I feel about make up lessons and going to give my thoughts in more depth on make up lessons in an upcoming episode so I won’t go on and on about my philosophy on this here but basically my view is that makeup lessons in general send the wrong message they send the message that. The student or the parent is entitled to that amount of time from your week and if they don’t receive it for whatever reason they are entitled some compensation for that what ever the compensation is and I think that is inaccurate.

They are not entitled to anything. What they are entitled to is that spot in your schedule which you have agreed together. If you can’t make 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and that’s when they scheduled then absolutely you should do something about our situation. But if you are still reserving that for them and they cannot make it that is not your fault and they are not guaranteed 45 minutes out of your week. That is not what they signed up for. They signed up for 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. So thats my view I makeup lessons in general across the board so that I don’t love things like offering a group class as a way to make up for lessons. I love the idea of offering group classes as bonuses as part of being in your studio and I think that’s essentially what a lot of teachers who are offering this as a make up lesson alternative are doing it’s just a bonus for being their studio. It might be different with you Dana but I know a lot of teachers who do this they’re actually offering those group lessons to their whole studio. I don’t know if that’s the case with you but a lot of teachers are doing that and then they’re saying to parents okay you can consider this as a make up if you like.

Well that doesn’t make sense to me how is it a make up if everyone can attend. It’s just part of being in your studio and that’s awesome. That’s great. It’s a wonderful bonus. So that’s how I see it in terms of alternatives to make up lessons and all of this I think just cut them out completely and make being in your studio about more than that weekly lesson but that weekly lesson is reserved for the student. So I wouldn’t do anything differently with adults or with anyone else. I would just reinforce that you are saving that time for them every single week. They also get blah-di-balh-di-blah whatever else they get. They also get access to your lending library or the opportunity to participate in recitals or group lessons and all of that stuff is part of your studio package and yet make up lessons don’t even enter into the equation then hope that’s useful. Dana I know it’s a little bit different than what you’re doing already but that’s kind of how I see make up lessons overall and how I frame them within all the business communications everything like that. Okay so my next question is from Carina in Germany she said I listened to your last podcast episode about lesson planning and got a question about that issue. How do you pick literature for a student that finished their method books. There is such a variety and I always find myself struggling with narrowing down choices.

Then I play three or four pieces and the student picks one. But while planning for that I often feel lost and helpless. These are really hard decisions and I’m often feeling unsure. Okay this is certainly something that I struggled with in the beginning Carina so hopefully I can give you some tips and help you out here. It is tricky especially if students are not heading through exams and I know that’s not a big thing in Germany anyway but it’s often a bit of a cop out when we are an exam system because they just it gives you that natural structure to follow. But without that system you certainly can design something that makes sense and a progression that makes sense for your students and that’s really a big part of our job. Beyond the late beginner early intermediate stage once we start getting intermediate and above students a big part of what we are doing is facilitating that learning journey. Taking them through repertoire that makes sense allowing them to discover new genres new areas that they might not have discovered on their own. And of course helping them to learn it but in a lot of cases a big part of what we’re doing is actually just deciding what they’ll learn now. You shouldn’t be doing this on your own and I love that you’re already playing pieces for each student to choose from. However you seem to be playing one like so three or four pieces and then they pick one and then you probably repeat that process.

What makes it a whole lot easier is if you can tap into a book that they’re going to like because it can just give them so much more material to work with it means you don’t have to do this process again and again and you can still do this choosing from three or four pieces for something special or for their big project pieces so I would have layers of repertoire with all my students especially at this kind of level. We would have easy pieces that they can read very quickly and easily and might even be sight reading level. Then we’d have medium pieces and that would be the bulk of their repertoire. So you know it would be quote unquote at their level and then they’d usually have one big project piece on two with different students. This works differently but that’s the basic structure. I would be following with most students at like an intermediate and above level. So the first thing to know there is their goals if their student is determined that they will only ever play pop music then you’re not going to give them a classical book to choose from. If there’s someone who wants a whole breadth of things then it’s up to you to provide that as well. So choosing books like this is one of the reasons that I absolutely love having materials fee and providing everything for my students.

Another way to look at that is just that my fees are all inclusive depending on which way you look at it. But the main thing is that I have a big library I have a big wall of books and I get to choose when they get a new book. So before the lesson I would pick out three or four books that I think this student might jive with that I think would be their cup of tea OK. And then I would add the lesson played just short excerpts from a few of the pieces from each book. It’s enough to give them a flavour. That means that they can choose the book they want but it still includes a whole variety of things depending on the book and it gives us a lot of scope to work with. If there ends up being one piece in that book that they hate then it’s not a problem but I find most students especially if you’re choosing a book that all by one composer when they find something they like they really love it and they really love working through a whole book of pieces in that style coming to big those big project pieces is harder because you do need to allow students to really hear them properly to commit to something that big. So if you’re giving a student three or four bigger pieces to choose from that are going to take them say a couple of months or maybe even more than that to learn.

Then I would send them a YouTube playlist just put together a play list of the three or four pieces that they can choose from. Or more if you like and send it to them and say listen it’s up to you you watch this during the week. Normally at that level there’ll be like a teenage student anyway so they’re perfectly capable of doing this for themselves. Have them watch the YouTube playlist slash listen to it during the week and text me or email me. When you’ve decided and then I can prepare that music for them for the next lesson I can get the sheet music ready and we can start on it. And they’re so much more invested because they’ve picked it up. These types of pieces can come from other places like it can just be something that your student mentions and I certainly reinforce to my teenage students regular lead that they are welcome to come with me come to me rather with any special requests anything in particular but they’d like to learn and I try to pick up on stuff that they mention as well along the way like I had a student last year who just happened to mention to me she’s a YouTube convert okay so she came to me after learning from YouTube and deciding that deciding completely for herself that this wasn’t the way to learn piano and that she needed a professional to help her out so she came to me as a YouTube musician as it were and she had learned guitar that way and she still sometimes learns piano pieces from YouTube and that’s totally fine with me.

So she was telling me that she had learned a bit of Claire de Lune from YouTube and such a painful process I’m sure. But anyway so she had learned that and she was playing it for her. Her mom’s something or other. Her mum’s birthday or something like that that was on because it was her mom’s favorite piece. So of course mental note at the time she was working on lots of other stuff as well so I didn’t do anything then but a month or so later I said listen you’re finished your exam. I thought we might start to tackle the actual Claire de Lune from the notation it’s a bit above your level but I think you could do it and it would mean a ton wouldn’t it. Actually with her face just lit up so you can notice the little mentions like that great. Otherwise you select a few pieces yes but send them that YouTube playlist so that they can listen to them at their leisure and also ask them to bring you requests put back on them especially if they’re a teenager or an adult or whatever. It’s not all on you. They need to tell you what kind of music they like and want to learn because they’re learning piano for fun it’s a hobby they need to be learning stuff they like and they need to tell you what they like so that you can help them and facilitate them learning the music that they enjoy.

Hope that helps Carina get back to me with any follow up questions on that one as well. Now my final question today is possibly the biggest one. It’s from Teresa who’s in Ontario in Canada. She said what type of processes have you found to be effective helping students prepare their goals for the term and or a year. How might you stretch their goals beyond what they think they can achieve. Big question because goals are always a big topic but I think it fits in kind of alongside Carina’s. So I set goals with my students especially older students at the start of each semester am heading into New Years and those kinds of times and when we do that it’s a collaborative process so I’m getting students to set goals with some guidance from me. So the very stage of helping them prepare their goals or helping them to push themselves further all that kind of stuff is that when they are setting their goals I am helping them to figure out what those goals should actually be and if they’re saying well I want to finish three pieces because they can’t understand the length of time that is in a whole year. That does happen and I try to look backward them and see how many pieces did we finish last year.

So do you think you could do a little bit more than three. Those kinds of questions can help guide them along the way. Now in terms of keeping them on track with those goals it’s just a matter of reminding them what they are. For me you know during the lesson saying OK where are we in relation to our goals. Do you want to adjust any of your goals. Do you want to change them. They’re always movable movable goal posts as it were. So I’m not forcing them to stick to whatever they came up with. It’s more about the process and the understanding of how we set goals and how we work through and all that kind of stuff just so that they can see where they are and understand their own progress and their own trajectory. Goal setting is another of those big topics that I’m sure I’ll do a full in-depth episode on but I hope for now Teresa that gives you an idea of the process I’m working through and how I am allowing them to move the goals around and to set them based on time feedback from me and also from their selves and from their experiences as they work through the goals each year. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted questions. All the members who submitted questions that was absolutely fantastic to dive into those topics and I hope it was useful for all of you listening not just those who submitted the questions in advance.

Before you go I wanted to tell you about something special that’s coming up this week. In fact as this episode is released it’s going to be starting in two days so you’ll have to hop on those wagon pretty quick. I have a special celebration week coming up so it’s starting on Wednesday that’s Wednesday the 12th of September and all week for a whole week I’m going to be having daily workshops on my Facebook page so that’s the colourful Keys page on Facebook and I’m gonna do live sessions there every day. It’s seven days and it’s seven ways to game gamify your teaching so seven different game of vacation type workshops every single day. I’m also going to be giving away a prize. So to get in on the prizes the seven different prizes you’re going to have to comment on the video before the next video goes live so you’ll have round about 24 hours depending on the time frame between the videos to get your comment in. This is all leading up to the first birthday of the vibrant music teaching site which is on the 18th so this of the seven days leading up to the 18th and on the 18th. I’m going to give away a free annual membership huge prize for anyone who has submitted for any of the other prizes. Right so its going to be taken from the whole week and one person will win that open to VMT members and non members so if youre already a member youre getting a year for free of your membership and if youre not a member youll become a member.

Get the year for free. Either way thats the same prize. And then I have super Funspot prizes every single day. Really fun surprises planned along the way to Silver you wont get the notifications by email as I go live. You can go to vibrant music teaching dot com slash birth day to subscribe to those emails and youll get notified a few minutes before I go lives so you can catch the videos as they go like theyre going to be at different times every single day so its going to be hard to track if you want to do it manually. Its a much better job. Subscribe to the emails. The reason it there are at different times every day of course is to be fair to multiple timezones basically and also fit in with my own teaching schedule. So I will a of you will jump in for this fun bonus week. It should be a really great way to celebrate the vibrant music teaching first birthday and I hope a lot of you will join me. That’s it for today. I hope you got a letter out of these questions and Anthea’s and I’ll see you for the first birthday celebrations. Bye for now.

If you want to get your questions answered on the podcast and also in live office hours every single month then you need to become a vibrant music teaching member. Go to VMT dot Ninja to sign up and you can hop on the next office hour call with me and get some one on one personalised support.

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