Instrumental Music Teaching: Strategies for Securing Maximum Motivation and Musical Achievement Playing a musical instrument is not only immensely enjoyable and satisfying but has far-reaching implications for educational achievement and personal development that can last an entire lifetime. Yet, of the thousands upon thousands of young people who begin to learn musical instruments every year,…
Today, the first four articles in the series tracing the acoustical origins of the major developments in western music over the centuries, revised and ‘refreshed’, are published. Since they first appeared several years ago, these articles have proved valuable sources for students, academics and for those with basic musical knowledge and curiosity about how music…
Actually, I prefer ‘practice makes permanent‘! Here is a short article exploring some of the often contentious issues regarding music practice. In it, I discuss how informed practice works to consolidate learning and thus the importance of appropriate preparation on the part of the students before commencing. I also examine how the teacher’s guidance during the lesson…
This article deals with one of the problems that, for many teachers, is the most challenging: how do we keep everyone involved while at the same time, giving due attention to the problems of individuals? You will find several solutions and discover why this calculation is correct! . Group Instrumental Teaching III – Keeping Everyone Involved
Let me start by telling you a story… When I was a lad of about 11, I played in a local brass band. I was something of a novice which meant that, with relatively rudimentary sight-reading skills, ‘keeping up’ was a real challenge – the notes just seemed to fly past! The conductor’s and older…
There has been much debate recently regarding an article that appeared in The Guardian on March 27th bemoaning the ever-diminishing provision and status of music education in the UK: a valid subject, well worth any number of column inches, given the decline in school music provision not “since 2010, when the baccalaureate was introduced” as…
I came across an interesting and thought-provoking article by Peter Greene the other day, entitled Stop ‘Defending’ Music. His basic premise is that music has so many affective – or if you like ‘human’ – benefits that it shouldn’t need defending. He tells us that it is “universal’; he mentions its omnipresence in our lives…
Pythagoras and the Music of the Future is a series of articles in which I discuss, in accessible terms, I hope, the central influence that the harmonic series has had on the development of western music since the Middle Ages. I look closely at the connection between the harmonic series and the conventions of the musical…
Klee Connections for Piano was composed in February 2013. It works by connections being formed between superimposed variants of very simple rhythmic and harmonic series. Some of these connections are made by the composer – using them as a means of developing basic material – and by the listener who may well perceive patterns that…
As we all know, group teaching is a controversial topic. One of the most frequent objections to it (in my experience) is that since no two students will progress at the same rate, or in the same way, the activity is doomed to failure because the less able students will hold the faster learners back and…
