My Teaching Method

I used holistic ear first pedagogies (Kodály, Orff, Dalcroze and Gordons Music Learning Theory) in order to develop the Ear and Technical skill at a comfortable rate. These methods of teaching encourage critical thinking and embodying the music you play and listen to, as well as developing a student’s Audiation ability.

What does this look like in practice?

The overly simplistic answer is that Students will be shown how to properly utilise what I am calling “The Cycle of Sound”. This Cycle should occur when we are learning music to get the absolute most out of what we are learning, and it goes like this:

-You listen to a sound either internal or external

-You Audiate that sound

-You then vocalize the sound to confirm that what you are audiating is correct

-You then transfer that sound onto your instrument

-Then the sound your instrument creates starts the cycle anew

Using the cycle of sound, elements of music can be internalised and learnt the same way we learn a language. Starting with folk songs and slowly move to more difficult music as both the ear and technical develops with the student, allows people to start talking in music, and interacting with music in a more honest and personable way.

How much practice should students do?

That depends entirely on what they are reasonably able to do. 5 Minutes of focused practice will always be better than hours of noodling or nothing at all. If you are able to concentrate for 30 min, Great. If all you can do today is 5, Perfect!

Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. As long as there is some form of consistent practice, that’s all that matters. Of course, the more the better, but that doesn’t always fit into life, and that’s ok.

How can practice be encouraged?

For Kids, A Parent taking an active role in practice with their kid is amazing. Children develop so much with parental guidance. Making music fun in your house should be the most important thing. The most obvious way is sitting down with your kid and running through their homework with them. But this isn’t always the best, sometimes people need privacy and feel embarrassed to practice in front of others. There are other ways you can make music fun, such as playing music, dancing and singing with your kid, talking to them about music that you like and trying to start an open discussion with them about the songs they like, and why they like it. Get them to teach you, so you can learn and grow together. Remember to not talk negatively about any music, let children listen and explore all the music in their life to their heart’s content, even if you don’t like it or understand it yourself.

For Teens/Adults

Listen to that album that you haven’t listened to in a while. Go to a concert. Talk about reasonable goals to set with your teacher. This could be to play some songs at an open mic or to play in a band. Explore a new genre and have a think about why you do or don’t like it. Maybe the biggest encouragement for teens and adults is to make friends who also play music. This can be online or in person. Being around other musical people can enrich your life in the thing you love. And remember not to take it too seriously, Music is meant to be fun at all levels. Seriousness is for the practice room, not in the real world.

Tab, Notation and the Ear

We are lucky to be living in a time where access to learning music is now quick and easy. Guitar tab, music notation, midi and the ear are all readily available for people to find and start playing. Each one has it perc and downfalls.

Tab is quick and easy, but it limits you to only be able to communicate with other guitarists. Notation is harder and more complex, and if audiation skills aren’t developed enough, it can feel like a goliath task, in which the student is constantly decoding what they are seeing, instead of playing, but it is a shared language amongst all musicians and can be written in as much or as little detail as needed.

The ears trouble is that not many people know how to teach it, or it isn’t taught well, so it can feel impossible, but the overall musicianship skills improve through proper teaching, and the students will have the ability to go and learn notation or tab at a faster rate than they would have been able to before.

All three are both good and bad, it’s up to the teacher to make sure that the student is best prepared to understand whatever is chosen.

Music Theory and its relation to the musician.

Music theory is a descriptive view of music. It is a way to analyse past works and understand their inner workings. Theory can be used as a prescriptive tool to help creative juices flow. It is a shared language between musicians to quickly explain what they are doing to another musician. Every musician should have at least a basic understanding of Theory.

Music Listening for Musical Education

For students to grow, they should be taught how to listen. Listening is at the core of understanding and playing music. It’s how we know that we are playing the right notes at the right time, and how we know the chorus is about to come up. If your ears are in the best shape they can be, you can learn songs just by listening to them a couple of times on the way home from work. How cool is that?! You can learn and practice just by doing something you love, listening to music and vibing out. Listening to music is the greatest teacher of music.