3 MORE Simple Ways to Make Your Music Lessons Engaging!
I recently wrote a blog article on “3 Simple Ways To Make Your Music Lessons More Engaging!”. The article gave you some ideas on how you can incorporate fun music games and activities into your lessons, use technology to make your music lessons more visually captivating for your students, and showed you how to create a fun class atmosphere by starting your music lessons with a Question/Riddle/Joke Of The Day.
I noted some more things that I do in my daily guitar classes for my students and thought I’d share them with you all. Here are 3 more ways to make your music lessons more engaging!
Teach Skills Through Songs That Your Students Know
I’ve heard the same story a million times from the parents of my students. “I wish I continued my guitar/piano lessons when I was young but my lessons were so boring. All we did were scale exercises and play ‘Ode To Joy’! I’d rather watch paint dry!” Me too. That’s why I teach guitar skills through popular songs that my students know.
This might appear to be common sense but there are so many music teachers out there that solely focus on teaching techniques without showing their students how to use in a practical way. We don’t practice Scales because we like the sound of a scale when it’s ascending and descending. As music teachers, we teach scales so our students can enjoy the euphoric and amazing experience of soloing on stage or composing a great song!
I prefer to find songs (or write my own) that feature practical uses of the musical technique and get my students hooked on trying to learn it. The song acts as a trojan horse to excite the student into repetitively practising the piece simply because they love the song. Little do they know, they’ve repetitively practised their A-minor arpeggios or Triads!
For example, I would teach them the C major scale and the theory behind it and then show them how ‘Memories’ by Maroon 5 uses the C major scale and how the melody fits in with the chords.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of merit in doing repetitive exercises in lessons to develop a particular technique but use these exercises sparingly in your music teaching. When I do train my students by using a repetitive exercise, I often gamify the activity (especially with my guitar students who are kids and teens) so it’s more appealing.
2. Make The Switch From Private Music Lessons To Group Music Lessons
The best thing I did to supercharge my enjoyment of teaching guitar was to make the switch from Private guitar lessons to Group Guitar Lessons.
Aside from the dramatic financial gain of group lessons that allowed me to go full-time and earn a six-figure income while only working 16 hours a week, the switch from private lessons to group lessons made teaching more collaborative and effective for my students.
Making the change was scary at first, but once I changed my mindset, developed an effective group lesson curriculum, and improved my classroom management skills, my group lessons ran smoothly, and my group lesson students showed way more progress than my private students.
I’ll be writing an article soon on how to run effective group lessons. Sign up to the Level Up Guitar Teaching mailing list on the home page so you don’t miss out on those tips.
Here are a few benefits to running group lessons that I’ve found:
Students develop friendships and challenge each other to improve their guitar skills
Students collaborate, share ideas, and create bands
The teacher doesn’t have to exert as much energy to keep the engagement levels high
Student retention is way higher if you work on facilitating a community vibe to the classes and fostering new friendships. The students aren’t just coming for a guitar lesson, they are coming to connect with other like-minded guitarists while also improving their skills
3. Incorporate Music Gear Into Your Lessons
Do you have GAS? And by GAS, I mean ‘Gear Acquisition Syndrome’, what did you think I meant?
Gear Acquisition Syndrome is “the musicians’ unrelenting urge to buy and own instruments and equipment as an anticipated catalyst of creative energy and bringer of happiness”.
I too, am I victim of GAS…But let’s use it to our advantage!
There’s a weird and wonderful world of technological devices out there that we can use in our music lessons to blow our student’s minds. The first time I brought my Ditto Looper during one of my group guitar classes, 2 of my students had bought one by the following week!
By incorporating music gear into your music lessons, you will unlock a myriad of musical possibilities for your students. I run a Guitar Pedal Masterclass for my students on a particular Membership tier in which they can come in a try out my collection of guitar pedals for 2 hours. It’s a blast and it always inspires my students to learn more and my student retention goes up as a side effect!
I hope the above tips were helpful in creating an engaging music lesson experience for your students. If you run your own music school or your music school employer is flexible with how you teach, try to incorporate these ideas into your teaching to Level Up your lessons.
Have fun!
