Teaching advice

I tell my students to count loudly on the things they are supposed to play and whisper the counts of the things they don't play. This way, they are essentially playing the exercise with their voice. Also, on my more advanced students, I have them start counting what they see. For example, if they have to play something like 1_+a, 2_+a, I have them count it that way instead of counting all of 1e+a, 2e+a. They do need to have an 8th note pulse going through their head as well. Vocalizing what they play also transcribes well to playing drumset beats. I have them voice a lower pitch for bass drum and a higher one for snare. I think it works well for them in reverse, where they can hear a beat on the radio and figure out where everything is.

Mike

Yeah, get the bored student looking at the pics on the wall, that drum set over there, or whatever. I like how they play the beat for 4 meas and then stop and look at you.........like......I PLAYED IT.......ask them "how long is a song, 4 meas or close to 4 minutes?......or the kid that I ask to play something off of a page we have already gone over say 3 months back........."you mean I am suppose to able to play that stuff now, I already learned that...... [img]mad.gif[/img] then if you learned it already..........play it . Or the bored look, I tell them that I have better things to do and Oprah is having a good show on today that I am missing..... [img]wink.gif[/img] They get the idea then.

So what did you do this week? Nothing.

Great, so did you practice? No.

This was a four month scenario with one student.

The Mom talked to me and thought that she might have to drop the student(4th grader) At the lesson, I decided to drop her, didn't talk to the Mom. They missed the next week, so I thought it was a done deal. Then they come back all pissed. They bought a drumset and signed up for two months of lessons, but the student didn't bother to tell Mommy that I dumped her.

So we did lessons and the next to lessons were great she played some beats loud and clear. then the third week... Nothing, did you practice, No. ETC...

So now I just collect the money. I don't even bother teaching her anything. I make her sit in a chair while I practice.

Any student who repeatedly says they didn't practice, get to watch me practice for their lesson---and get paid for it. That's a good deal [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Don't get me wrong, but some kids are so lame it's not even funny. But that 1/2 or one kid each day that actually digs it, makes it all good.

True story.

A new student came to me from another teacher. She had been taking lessons for about a month. I asked her if she had her sticks with her. "No" was the reply "I don't own any sticks".

"hmmmm, So how have you been practicing over the last month?"

"Well I haven't."

"What did your previous drum teacher tell you about practicing"

"She didn't say to practice, just to THINK about drumming."

I said that my lessons involved playing and that she would need to practice.

She lasted two lessons.

Haha dazzler and flamtriplet, good stuff. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]
Flam, getting paid to practise, lol. Nothing wrong with that. I do that too sometimes when a student doesn't turn up, even though I'm meant to go find and fetch them [img]wink.gif[/img]

Lol dazzler, I've also lost some students in the past for being too hard on them. Actually there's one student I have now( I've had him for ages) who's very thick skinned. I've gotten away with really bollocking him and he smiles it all off. Just as well [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Got another student who's dad would sit in and watch every lesson of his at the music school. He increased the 15 minutes to 30 mins. Now the student tells me he's stopping because they have no money. Yet the head of music told me he'd said it was because he was bored, that he was doing the same thing every week. I showed her the lesson record for every week, and it showed different exercises each week, a methodical continuation through a book. Yeah, I guess I could mix it up and do completely different things from week to week to keep it more interesting and I'll do that next week with this kid. But what fucks me off is that not only did I feel I was teaching 2 people for the price of 1( him and his dad) but his dad could have spoken to me at any time if his son wasn't happy. Considering he'd increased the lesson to 30 mins indicates to me he was happy with the lessons. Well, it could be the money, or boredom, or who knows what.

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Originally posted by Andy Vermiglio:
"She didn't say to practice, just to THINK about drumming."

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]eek.gif[/img]

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"She didn't say to practice, just to THINK about drumming."

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I saw that movie/play -- The Music Man!!

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 17, 2005 05:10 PM: Message edited by: fuseU1 ]</font>

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Originally posted by MRhet:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">"She didn't say to practice, just to THINK about drumming."

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I saw that movie/play -- The Music Man!!</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Isn't this basically what most of the eMpTyV crowd thinks/does? [img]wink.gif[/img]

She prob said/did that because of those other reasons ["teaching" horror stories] you guys just listed... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Regarding counting aloud, another reason a lot of students don't like doing it is because they feel embarassed. Some are just too shy to vocalise for some reason.

Another thing. It REALLY annoys me when I'm trying to talk and the student fidgets, yawns, looks around the room, or just keeps tapping away on the drums. I do ask them not to play when I'm explaining something and I also ask them not to look around the room and to concentrate on what I'm saying. You guys get that too? Also, many will play an exercise once, stop and look at me. So I ask them to keep playing it and they'll play it once or twice more then stop again. I mean seriously, it never crosses their mind that these things need to be played several times before moving on. I think music teachers earn their money because we need the patience of a saint and then some.