4 Ways To Nurture Your Child’s Music Lesson Confidence 

 

4 Ways To Nurture Your Child’s Music Lesson Confidence

At Spark, we believe that we have the ability to change the lives of students. A big piece of that is working with students to develop and nurture their confidence. Wether your child has been taking piano lessons for years, self taught themselves drums, or just started guitar lessons, we work with them to build their confidence. Here are 4 ways we can help nurture your child’s confidence.

We Encourage Curiosity

We love helping our students explore styles that they might not be comfortable with. Wether it’s learning to sing a jazz song, or play a rock song on a ukulele, showing a child there is more out there than just the music they know, helps facilitate curiosity and build confidence.

Learn From Our Mistakes

Nobody is perfect. As hard as we can try to achieve perfection, we still make mistakes. Our music teachers use the opportunity to teach students the importance of learning from mistakes. We do this by recording students in their music lessons or encouraging them to record themselves practicing at home. These are opportunities to help students learn and grow to become better musicians, students, and community members!

Encourage Practice, Don’t Pressure

We all want the best for our kids, especially when it comes to making a piano or violin sound beautiful. We have found that pressuring our students to practice can actually make them resent playing music. We teach our students that practicing will help them grow their skills, and if they practice, confidence in their music lessons and abilities will grow exponentially.

Let Them Find The Answers

Life is full of surprises and situations where we have to dig for the answers. We love leading students to uncover answers. Our music teachers work with students by not giving the answers right away, but rather asking questions to help the student find the answer. For example, if a student is taking piano lessons and doesn’t know what note they have to play, the teacher will ask questions about notes surrounding the unfamiliar note, in hopes that the student will find the answer using context clues.

Why Is Music So Important?

Why Is Music So Important?

4646392_origI started thinking about how important music is to our children and society. As I read articles understanding the importance, I realize how music is worked into many of the school subjects that kids are learning in school today.

Science

The science of music and sound is something that we take for granted every day. From the strumming of an acoustic guitar, or the pounding of drums, the sound waves travel to our ears in unique ways. Changes in frequencies or volume and how we hear the sound is all science. The size of a room, what the room is made of, or even what is in the room can all change the way we hear the music.

Math

In music, everything is mathematical. Rhythms are based on subdivisions and fractions. Knowing how many beats are in each measure, you can then do the math to find out how many notes and what subdivisions you can place in that measure. I frequently have my drum and piano students counting out and writing specific rhythms in a measure, to make sure they fully understand why the notes fit.

World Language

Music is frequently referred to as the universal language. Most of the terminology used is in music is Italian, German or French. Many of the most beautiful operatic pieces are in foreign languages, forcing vocalists to read, speak, and understand what the composer was trying to express.

Physical Education

As a working musician, I experience this everyday. From the movement of our bodies, to coordination of the fingers on a guitar, all 4 limbs on a drum set, and the lips and facial muscles of a vocalist. All require muscle movement that make you burn calories. Studies have shown that there are as many calories burned by a symphony trumpet player in one performance, as there are by a quarterback in the NFL.

History

As someone learns music, they are reflecting on the time and place of the creator. Whether someone is playing a classical piece by Bach on the piano, or a pop tune on the radio today. All are showing what society was like, and the emotions of people during those times. As we learn the music, we can also begin to learn history behind why its sounds the way it does. In the 1930’s, Soviet composers were expected to write optimistic, patriotic music that communicated directly to the masses. Shostakovich wrote music during this time that seemed to almost mock the Soviet government, to the point where he faced arrest or imprisonment.

Art

Music has a very unique medium, as it can be repainted over and over again. Slight and subtle changes can be made for someone to translate it into an emotion they’re feeling. Sometimes a beautiful piece of music can be transformed into something funny, such as Weird Al’s music. Or a joyous “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” could be turned into something sad, such as Andrew Belle’s version.

I don’t expect my students to become music majors, and create a life being a musician.  My goal is for my students to have fun and translate their thoughts and emotions through their instrument. Music is a versatile subject that covers many of the topics studied in school and can be carried over into their professional career

HELP! I’m buying my first drum set!

“Help! I need to buy a drum kit and have no idea where to start.”
There are so many options out there, so what is the best for you? Things that will factor in what the best option for you is going to be size/age of the students, noise tolerance, budget, needs, and features.

Continue reading

Technical…? Feel…? Technically Feel Both.

There are three different areas that musicians and music teachers come from. The first is the technical musician and teacher. The second is the teacher and musician who play off of feel. The third is the musician who uses both. Using both is the most valuable.

Continue reading