Teaching is like gardening – you start with a seed and some earth. By tending to both, little by little things start to grow and before you know it you have a mature plant.

Students come to you as a teacher with only their desire to learn and their natural talents and abilities. You are then responsible for developing a learning process and a learning partnership between yourself and the student. For this partnership to work both sides have to contribute – the teacher works at providing an appropriate course of study and the student must practise regularly to the best of their ability.

If this all goes to plan, great success and enjoyment will be achieved.

The following are a potpourri of ideas and suggestions that can help your teaching – for more ideas go to Michael’s Maxims

· The first few lessons are the most important lessons – This is the time when the student is laying down the foundations of their technique. If this isn’t done correctly it will adversely affect the student's progress for years. Aim to get it right from the start.
· Process over product – the learning process is as important as the product that it produces.
· Create a learning partnership – build the relationship between teacher and student.
· Motivate, inspire and encourage the student – As much as possible, frame things in a positive way. Aim to show what the student needs to do, not what they are doing (there are always exceptions to this rule of course).
· Help the student discover their musical interests – show and guide your students how to play their instrument.
· Teach students how to practise
· Teach students and parents of the benefits of regular practice – many people don’t understand the relationship between practising and progress.
· Continually encourage and remind your students (and their parents) to practise regularly
· Develop the student's musicianship.
· Develop the student's theory.
· Encourage the student to participate in bands, orchestras and music groups.
· Set goals for your students – concerts, exams etc.
· Monitor your students' achievement.
· Remain as flexible as you can to the student's needs without losing sight of the long term goals and achievements.
· Be creative in your approach.
· Continually improve on your own abilities.
· Read books about your instrument and teaching.
· Read books about other instruments (especially violin).
· Assume nothing about your students.
· Be able to see things from the student's perspective.
· Develop and build a rapport with your student.
· Pace lessons at the student's pace and level.
· Always expect high standards of achievement, but don’t allow yourself to get frustrated when the student does not meet them. Never shrink from reminding your students of the high standards you expect.
· Demonstrate your instrument to the student.
· Play with your student, make the lesson a musical experience for the student.
· Encourage the student to listen to recordings of their instrument.
· Learn how to play like the student – learn to play “incorrectly” so the student can hear what they sound like.
· Be sensitive to the student's needs without losing sight of what needs to be taught i.e. don’t let the tail wag the dog.
· Care for your students – be concerned about their welfare in all areas of their life.
· Continually reinforce – you have to be a tape loop the says the same thing over and over.
· Use Mnemonics – Mnemonic is from the Greek word “mneme” which means to remember – This can be anything that helps us remember eg acrostics, visual images, alliteration etc. – the odder the mnemonic is, the easier it is to remember.
· Use as much humour as possible – your students will remember things that are funny.
· Speak slowly and clearly – never hesitate to repeat a question (think how questions are asked in Quiz shows – they are delivered slowly and are often repeated).
· Use the Socratic method to engage your students' minds – Socrates got students to find their own answers by continually asking probing questions on the subject at hand – look it up on the internet.
· Encourage your students to apply their intelligence to the music.
· Get the student to think for themselves – try not to “spoon feed”. I very rarely answer a student's question before getting them to answer it first themselves. 9 times out of 10 they know the answer to their own questions, it’s just they don’t know that they know!
· Seeing things from the students point of view will avoid misunderstandings.
· Demonstrate the difference between good and bad technique – getting the student to hear the difference – they will always prefer the sound of the better technique
· Appreciate that students don’t necessarily see the logic behind music theory – eg. stems can go up or down – this contradicts what we are taught in writing - the direction of a line changes a letter eg. the difference between “pappy” and “daddy”. This sort of thing can be confusing!
· Start lessons with a bit of theory right from the start.
· Incorporate aural training into lessons right from the start.
· Teach learning strategies – teach students how to learn, as much as what to learn.
· Visualisation – get students to visualise the finger actions away from the instrument.
· Get students to look at their fingers without playing the instrument.
· Develop the student's awareness of what they are doing.
· Help students direct their awareness eg. listen to your sound, focus on your rhythm, feel the reed on the tongue, taste the reed etc.
· The feedback loop – We create a sound which is then fed back into the ears – we respond by making adjustments to enhance it, creating an improved sound, which is then fed back into the ears – and so on and so on ………
· In order to be able to do something you have to be able to not do it first – we generally “fail” at something before we “succeed” at it. Therefore failure is an integral part of success.
· We learn by a series of approximations of an ideal.
· Students start with Conscious Incompetence (not being able to do it). Then they develop Conscious Competence (consciously being able to do it). And finally Unconscious Competence (being able to do it without thinking).
· First we Imitate, then we Assimilate and then we Innovate.
· Posture – correct posture is fundamental to good playing – continually encourage it.
· Relaxation – only use the muscles that are required to play and relax everything else.
· Fitness – the fitter you are, the easier the instrument is to play.
· Try to have a lesson without any verbal communication – this encourages the student to listen and focus their attention
· “Don’t think of the colour blue” – it is not possible to not think this when asked – So verbalise positives rather than negatives. It is easier to action a positive rather than not action a negative. Eg “Tongue the reed lightly” rather than “Don’t hit the reed hard”.
· Use analogies.
· Be positive.
· When a student gets something wrong, it is better to tell them what they have done rather than tell them that it is wrong. For example if you ask a student to play a “D” and they play an “E” instead, I will tell them that they have just played me a beautiful “E”. They are immediately aware that it is not what was asked for. This frames my response positively and adds a bit of humour and allows the student to take charge of their own actions rather than be told they got it wrong.
· Always get students to do scales and arpeggios.
· The 3 most important things when playing any musical instrument are 1. Tone 2. Tone 3. Tone.
· The next 3 most important things to focus on are – 1. Rhythm, 2. Rhythm, 3. Rhythm.
· Demand high standards from you students.
· Teachers teach students how to practise and what to practise – the student will be their own best or worst teacher – help them to become their own teachers, always encouraging them to listen and analyse what there are doing when playing. The best players are thinking players.