Piano Lessons In Tulsa | Maximizing the Effectiveness
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
In this edition of the Curtis music Academy podcast, we are going to be discussing how to maximize the effectiveness of our piano lessons. So without further ado, my name is Steven. I have been an instructor at the Curtis music Academy for 11 months now and I’ve enjoyed every single month, every single week, every single day, and every single minute of my experience here. One of the best things that I have done in life was teaching. I’ve been teaching music since I was 18 years old, which now is going almost has been five years going on six years now. I’ve loved every minute of that as well. And so in my experience I’ve learned many different tools, tricks, tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of your piano lessons in Tulsa and my piano lessons in Tulsa.
How having a clear goal and a concise goal is going to be very crucial to reaching the goal. Also having a time-specific, a specific time set for each topic in your lesson. This comes down to more of the method by which you, you know, time and block out and, and kind of organize your lesson. And then lastly, we’ll talk about how the edge method is one of the best tools and methods for transferring skill. So without further ado, we’re talking about having a clear and concise goal. The first step to maximizing the effectiveness of your piano lessons in Tulsa is to first have a clear and a very, very, very laser focused and concise goal.
So in my experience, anytime I have experienced a lack of effectiveness or a lack of, maximizing or maximization of my lessons, it had to deal with me not really knowing where I was going and there not really being a game plan. So this is the first step, having a clear, concise goal to being able to have a, a clear target to where you want to go with your students. And so one way you can have this clear and concise goal is to ask yourself, what is it that we want to achieve? What is the big picture here? You know, ask yourself what is, what am I really trying to accomplish by learning the guitar?
Hey, maybe it’s, I just want to learn jazz guitar. Maybe I want to learn more classical guitar. Maybe I want to more blues guitar or rock or any other type of genre, but you want to just ask yourself the specific questions of where are we going? You know? And that’s where you start with the end in mind when planning your lessons, when trying to maximize the effectiveness of your piano lessons in Tulsa. It all starts with the goal. All right, my next point is going to be the specific times set for each topic or each section in your lesson.
This would be one individual lesson and so once you have your goal, then you’d break that goal down into even smaller pieces and one of those smaller pieces would be one of your lessons and your lesson, you’re going to need to either have a 30 minute lesson or you’ll have a 45 minute lesson or even an hour lesson. I wouldn’t suggest anything shorter than 30 minutes for those that are 12 and up, and I wouldn’t suggest anything longer than an hour for those that are 12 and up.
And so having specific times set for each topic is going to be very crucial. You want to separate that 30 minute lesson into whatever you want to break it down and kind of dice it up into certain specific time increments for, for example, when I am giving a a lesson, a 30 minute lesson, I will break it up into the first five minutes or when we’re going to, I’m going to develop some rapport and ask the student how, what did they do this week? You know, how is their life? I’m going to ask them questions that really probe at how they’re doing outside of the lesson.
In the next five minutes, I’m going to review what we learned in our last lesson and if we learn nothing, I’m asking, if for instance, if this is their first lesson, I’m going to ask them what they’ve learned previously to this lesson. Have they ever taking piano lessons in Tulsa before? Have they ever played guitar before? Have they ever played music before? Do they like music? You know, I’ll be hitting questions, trying to pinpoint why and, and really what they’ve done where they’re at is really the aim is getting a good idea of where they’re at when they come to me for their first lesson.
So that I know where I’m starting to teach them so that I don’t teach them something they already know and therefore wasted some of their time. And so these are religious principles that are good to, to nail down so that you know kind of where to go with your students moving forward. Okay. After the first 10 minutes of the lesson, I’m going to go into 15 minutes of the new content. One topic, not two topics, not three topics. One topic that the whole lesson is built around is this one topic. And so this 15 minutes I’m going to either be teaching them a scale, I’m going to be teaching them a riff. I’m going to be teaching them, one to two chords. Maybe a piece of the song maybe.
So if I’m trying to teach them a song, I will focus on just learning the introduction to that song. And maybe the verse, but you never want to have more than two topics per lesson. Best case scenario is breaking down one topic and so that they can fully understand and fully digest what it is that you are talking about and trying to show them. So that is how I will break down a one 30 minute lesson. And for the last 15 minutes I’m just going to review with them what we just learned. So what did we learn in that 15 minutes? You know, was it a scale? Okay. I’d say run through that one more time for us.
Or in the last three minutes I’m going to be talking to them about how they can be practicing at home. You know what, what things I want them to focus on when at home so that they know exactly what to practice. And then the last two minutes I’m just asking them to repeat and to, to show me what it is they’re going to be practicing at home. So I’m not only telling them what to do, but I’m asking them to show me what to do at home so that they know exactly. And I’ve already had one one practice rep at the Academy before they leave to an entire week at home. My last point is using the edge method.
The edge method comes from the boy Scouts, which was a method to transfer skill such as creating a fire, climbing a tree, chopping down a tree and building a Fort. Different things like that. How to find food, how to find water, how to purify water, different skills like that to help you navigate and you know, accomplish your goals whenever you’re trying to survive. And so using the edge method when it comes to piano lessons in Tulsa is going to be huge. It is the transfer of skill and that’s really what, why they’re taking piano lessons in Tulsa to become more like you so that you can teach them to go further faster so they don’t have to go through all of the experience, all of the trial and error that you did and helping them go further faster by teaching them what to do.
And what not to do. The great tips, the not so great tips. And so I didn’t explain this already, but the edge method is an acronym that stands for explain, demonstrate, guide, and enable. Again, the edge method is an acronym for explain, demonstrate, guide, and enable in any of my 30 minute lessons, 45 minute lessons, our piano lessons in Tulsa I’m going to be explaining them to them, what to do. Then demonstrating to them what to do in guiding them. So where’d we’d be doing it together? And then lastly, enabling them so that they can do it by themselves. So how do you maximize the effectiveness, effectiveness of your piano lessons in Tulsa? Make a clear goal. Has specific time set.