3 Types Of Confidence You Never Knew Your Music Teacher Had

 

Success in music lessons can largely be attributed to the confidence of a music teacher. Simple as it sounds, there are many different manifestations of confidence a private music teacher can possess in their skill set that go way beyond knowing how to teach a student their instrument of choice. A confident Music Teacher leads to successful Music Lessons.
 

Confidence In Starting Lessons Off On The Right Foot

A very shy student starts her very first voice lesson. She thought she wanted to take voice when her mother asked her, but with the voice teacher now in her home, she’s having a lesson right in her living room.  The student feels like everyone is listening to her sing.

The confident voice teacher needs to make the student feel like it’s okay to sing out, but you just can’t do this with words and wait. You have to start singing with the student. The teacher is much louder at first; we as music educators have to know that’s okay and the way to make the student feel at ease. This may continue for some time:  maybe minutes, maybe days, and maybe weeks. A confident teacher has a plan. No part of the plan involves saying to the student’s mother, “Sorry, she’s not ready for voice lessons yet”.

 

We Don’t Like Doing That Work In The Theory Book

“We Don’t Like Doing That Work In The Theory Book,” says the mother of a piano student. “My son complained the whole time.  Can we just not do that?” Working with this statement requires a type of confidence that comes from a deep level of understanding. The confident music teacher doesn’t want to loose a student just because of a workbook, but also doesn’t want to have a student illiterate to Music Theory.

The Confident Piano Teacher says, “Thanks for letting me know, I’m going to make sure we add purpose to theory from now on. I can’t say we won’t have theory to do for future lessons, but let me work on some of it with him and learn what makes him tick when it comes to theory. Mom, would you mind going over flash cards with him throughout the week? That’s a great way to get in a lot of Music Theory without a workbook.”

 

I Want To Play A Guitar Solo

The guitar student walks into her lesson, plays a bunch of rock and roll to her guitar teacher and says, “I want to play an Eddie Van Halen Guitar solo.” The teacher smiles, says, “Great that’s exciting,” and shows her a scale. The guitar teacher isn’t ignoring her, but after showing her the scale asks, “How do you like playing the solo.” The student the replies, “You just showed me a scale.”

The confident guitarist and teacher then rips off the guitar solo on her own guitar, much to the student’s delight. She shows her student that 90 percent of the solo is actually a scale and that the other 10 percent is just adding some simple twists to it. Then they begin to re-approach learning the scale with a new purpose. Yes… your guitar teacher wants you to play that guitar solo too.

It Takes More Than a Music Degree to have the confidence to teach a music lesson. Students, of course, control the level of their personal success on an instrument, but a confident music teacher insures the success of a music lesson.

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