What good music teaching looks like.

Last week's blog discussed the benefits of music teaching but raised the fact that the benefits do not occur when the teaching is unstructured and poor quality.  Read on to find out what bad music teaching looks like and discover what makes good music teaching.  

If you had instrumental lessons as a child, what are your memories?  Mine are of sitting at a piano as a very small child, struggling to understand what I was expected to do and not finding it at all fun or enjoyable.  It was just plain difficult.  As for music, well that was absent for most of the time in the struggle to decipher the musical code in front of me.

Good music teaching teaches concepts and skills first; away from the instrument.  Children should be learning to sing songs, say rhymes and play musical games.  These develop the core music skills such as pitch (high and low sounds), pulse (a steady beat) and rhythm.  Watch some children playing musical games here.    

As these skills grow they can then be made conscious, in the Kodaly way, before being applied to an instrument.  Children who learn in this way become joyful, rounded musicians, able to fully express themselves through their instrument.  This is because they have a solid foundation on which to build.  ​​

The Kodaly approach to music teaching is very similar to how children learn to speak.  As babies they listen and begin to explore the sounds they can make.  As they grow they start imitating words they hear and finally they begin to put words together to make their own sentences.  Imagine if they were not allowed to make any sounds until they first learned to read!  It sounds ridiculous however this is what 'traditional' music teaching expects.  With no musical foundation children are expected to interpret musical symbols - is it any wonder that they struggle and don't enjoy it.  

What did your music lessons look like?  Did you learn through songs and games, developing your musical skills away from your instrument or were you a victim of traditional teaching and expected to somehow 'know' all these things without being taught?  

Next week's blog looks at the importance of teaching musical skills and concepts within a framework; so that the learning is structured and progress can be measured other than using exams.  

In the meantime if you're interested in reading more about the damage that traditional piano teaching causes why not check out this excellent article 'How Traditional Piano Lessons Cripple Our Children'.