Performance anxiety is a significant hurdle for many young musicians, but Sonia Poon has mastered the art of helping students conquer it with grace. In this episode, we delve deep into effective strategies for teaching teens and tweens with the remarkable Sonia Poon, a dedicated piano teacher since high school and founder of Forte Music Studio. She shares her wealth of experience from decades of teaching, including her unique approaches to addressing performance anxiety, building student trust, and curating balanced repertoires that resonate with young musicians. We explore how Sonia utilizes technology, sets up ideal practice environments, and offers practical advice for both teachers and parents to support their children’s musical journeys. Sonia’s engaging methods are shaped by her extensive background and passion for music education, making this episode a rich resource for anyone involved in teaching music.

Sonia shared a brief overview of her teaching journey and her home studio.
Teaching teens and tweens, their performance anxiety, and establishing a connection with this age group.
Importance of eye contact, listening skills, and personalized communication to build trust.
Why reading non-verbal cues and giving students the space to express their emotions during lessons is critical.
Sonia stresses balance between necessary repertoire and pieces that resonate with students.
How she uses video assignments to keep students accountable and help them get used to performing.
Importance of setting up practice environment that is crucial for effective practice.
Sonia advocates for a clear and structured approach to preparing for performances.
Some tips and advice on handling performance anxiety.
How group classes and overlapping lessons help students get comfortable in performing.
Value of parental involvement by celebrating milestones.

Links Mentioned

Today’s Guest

Sonia has been teaching passionately since she started high school. She specializes in intermediate/advanced private piano, and in contrast, also loves to work with her Music Explorers preschool programme.

At seven years old Sonia was accepted under the tutelage of Constance Kline with whom she completed her RCM examinations, receiving top provincial marks five times. During her years of study, she also garnered numerous honours and scholarships at the Kiwanis Music Festival. She competed in the Canadian Music Competition, where she was a semifinalist. At the University of Alberta Sonia studied with Marek Jablonski, Alexander Sandler and Jean-Paul Sevilla. After completing her Bachelor of Music, she went to Paris to continue her studies for piano solo, chamber music, and analysis. In 2001 Sonia founded Forte Music Studio, and currently serves as the Vice President of the Alberta Piano Teacher’s Association. She is also a standing member of the Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association and is a registered Royal Conservatory of Music teacher.

She has three wonderful children- Sascha, Luka, and Camila who play guitar, piano and violin. When possible Sonia also loves to play tennis, read and sleep in.

About Rachel Ehring

Dr. Rachel Ehring is a pianist, teacher, music administrator, and lover of piano teaching gadgets. She holds a DMA in Collaborative Piano from the University of Colorado Boulder and a MM in Accompanying from the University of Kansas. She currently serves as Director at St. John’s Conservatory of the Arts in Orange County, CA. Previously, she held positions at Concordia University Irvine and Henderson State University. Rachel is passionate about empowering music teachers to create engaging and exciting lessons for students of all ages. When she isn’t playing the piano, you might find Rachel reading books with her son or walking her beagle Frieda.

Visit her website at https://rachelehring.com/
Visit her Instagram page: @rachelehring
Visit her Etsy shop at Dream Lavender Music

TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP 14-DAY FREE TRIAL

Thank you for tuning in!

Consider implementing the ideas from this podcast by writing several actionable steps for your teaching practice if it’s inspired you.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other teachers find our show.

Stay updated by subscribing to this show, and get automatic delivery to your device every time a new episode goes live! We publish on Fridays weekly.

Is it just me or is it getting harder to stop teens quitting piano lessons?

No one has any time, teens are more stressed than they were ten years ago, and practice always takes a back seat to everything else that’s going on.

Teacher: “So how did your practice go this week, Luke?”

Luke: “I didn’t really get any time” (cue: sheepish look)

Teacher: “Really? Not even 30 minutes on the weekend?”

Luke: “Well I had to play basketball for school on Saturday morning, and then on Sunday it was football with my local club, and then my grandparents were down from the country, and we had to do things with them all afternoon and…”

You get the idea.

The real issue for students like Luke is motivation. If our students are really motivated to play, they’ll make the time for it.

So how do you motivate teens?

In my experience, teens drop piano study for three reasons:

1. You aren’t teaching them music they want to play,

2. You aren’t making music relevant,

3. You aren’t keeping up with technology.

So let’s sort through these three common reasons to understand the disconnect teens can experience in piano study, and find real solutions I’ve used with my students.

Reason 1: You aren’t teaching them the music they want to play

This might be the single most frequent offence of non-practising and then quitting: your teen student doesn’t like (or can’t manage) the pieces you’ve chosen for them.

Ask your student what they would like to play and be open to teaching it– even if it’s outside your comfort zone.

Listen to the music your students like together and work out an approach for learning it. Yes, you can use lesson time!

I get really excited when students bring in new music that I’ve never heard of before.

If you don’t let teenagers play at least a few pieces they want to learn, you’ll lose them very quickly. When they bring in a piece that’s way too hard for them, help them to simplify it. Even if they only learn the chord structure or the melody, they’ll re-engage in their learning and practice.

Make sure you have LOTS of cool repertoire up your sleeve.

Even if they choose a piece they want to play, you’ll need other options to keep them engaged in the middle-longer term.

For one, teenagers love choice.

But also, shy or bored teen students may choose the easy (or safe) answer of “I don’t know” or “I don’t care.”

Explore more about this mindset with the book — Not Much, Just Chillin’ by Linda Perlstein about how teens think about their worlds. One teacher described it as “an accurate view into the mind of a middle schooler.”

Have pieces in your back pocket before their lesson day: Plan A, Plan B, and surprise piece Plan X.

You may need to play/demonstrate/show on YouTube a number of pieces before they find one that clicks with them. Search YouTube for ‘piano tutorials’ – these are normally the most popular pieces, but you’ll need to stay current.

Here’s my easiest tips on finding pop music

Admit that you don’t know everything!

Teaching has changed in this century, for the better. But that doesn’t mean you’re unqualified if you’re unversed in jazz band piano, improv pattern fills, or how to teach DAW and your student is keen to try it.

Share the learning journey with them as a facilitator. You’ll gain much more respect from students and a deeper connection with them and their music. In the process, you’ll grow as a teacher. Isn’t that what effective teaching should be all about?

Ps. I’ve found that some teens who start out wanting to play pop music often lose interest in it after a while when they realise that great piano solos and classical music can be much more fulfilling to play.

Use pop music as your “in” while you slowly introduce great piano solos into the mix. You’ll have them hooked!

Here’s a demo you could try instantly with teens:

Reason 2: You aren’t making music relevant

Teenagers need to see the relevance in what they are doing, and they need to be working towards goals that they set themselves (with your help, of course!).

If all they do when they come to lessons is to show you something they’ve composed, then teach them more about composing. If they always come to lessons having learnt something by ear, encourage it and give them a deeper understanding of harmony and form to enable them to make their own arrangements of melodies they can play by ear.

I’m not saying that just because Billy likes playing by ear that we should drop all attempts to teach him anything else.

Rather, use his natural style of learning to motivate and engage him in other aspects of music: e.g. reading, composing, improvising, etc., while you work on the thing that motivates him each week to play the piano.

Teens are much more open to doing the “boring” stuff like learning to read music, if it’s part of a lesson that’s based predominantly on their intrinsic motivation and musical passion.

How do you find out what motivates your teens?

If he/she is a new student, just ask. I’ve developed a questionnaire for incoming students so I can quickly learn the music they’re most motivated to start playing.

If the student has been with you for a while and is starting to fade, you might have missed the signals about what they’re really interested in.

A little research will go a long way!

Want to know what questions I ask my incoming transfer students so they’re playing music they love, right from the start? The new Teens & Transfers Course in TopMusicPro includes the checklists I use and the best repertoire out there for teens or transfers.

Reason 3. You aren’t keeping up with technology

Piano as a hobby can easily feel embarrassing to teens (who hate to be singled out for doing something suspected to be uncool.) Modernising your studio and lessons experience with updated technology goes a long way in this department.

Here are easy ideas to incorporate better technology into your teaching:

This is quite simple, but start with upgrading your sound system. I recommend avoiding playing examples off of a laptop. Instead, buy something with a decent subwoofer like this Logitech Z623. The better sound quality will instantly elevate the sound level of whatever you’re doing in the studio, and teens love it.

Try my must-have apps. Here’s a shortlist of apps I love for teens specifically:

MusiClock – make scales more interesting and create cool backing tracks
ForScore – mark up and organise their music.
SuperMetronome Groovebox – put away the stodgy metronome beat and use drum & bass instead.
AmazingSlowDowner – highly useful when you’re trying to get a handle on a hook from a pop song or video game clip.
iRealPro – play lead sheets with backing tracks from an open-source library, from jazz standards to 12-bar blues to praise band chart hits.

Watch a demo I’ve made about my favourite metronome-alternative choice here:

Consider using a method or supplementary music with backing tracks. The list is ever-growing, but here’s a starting place.

Carol Matz interactive piano method
Mike Springer “Not Just Another” series for Christmas, Jazz, and Praise
Daniel McFarlane’s Supersonics Pro app
Faber’s entire line comes with a really solid play-along app
Wunderkeys Rock Repertoire books
Jerald Simon’s Cool Songs
Handy tip: Piano Maestro includes a ton of backing tracks in the methods segment (Hal Leonard method, Piano Pronto, Supersonics, Alfred, Jennifer Eklund books, and even Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey).

Conclusion on why teens are quitting piano

Part of the reason TopMusicCo came into being is to stop the tide of teens quitting piano, and help teachers find solutions that save and motivate those great students.

Did you ever quit piano yourself as a teen? Or almost quit? Tell me what it was like in the comments below. What made a difference for you to return to playing?

I hope some of these tips will help spark an idea the next time you have a teen on the rocks in lessons. Check out our Teen & Transfer Student Toolkit as a standalone course or join TopMusicPro membership and let us help you further.

Teens can be some of the most rewarding and challenging students we teach. In this replay of our member-exclusive Spotlight Session, Turning Meh into Motivation: 5 Tips for Teaching Teens, Andrea Dow from Teach Piano Today shares practical strategies to help you connect with and inspire your teen students. From fostering creativity and confidence to embracing pop culture and structured choice, Andrea offers ideas that can make a real difference in your teaching.

The value of a reliable teen toolkit to confidently navigate mood swings, low motivation, and inconsistent practice.
How to reframe practice as “creation” to shift teens’ mindset from chore to self-expression.
The importance of offering structured choices to foster motivation without sacrificing progress.
Why balancing freedom and guidance in lessons helps teens feel seen, capable, and respected.
How pop tutorials and TikToks can become teaching tools, not distractions, by focusing on transferrable skills.
The role of identity formation in teen motivation, and how music supports emotional development.
How to build musical confidence so teens proudly identify as piano players within their peer groups.
Why lightness and humor matter, including how simple games can boost connection and retention.
The importance of small, steady wins over dramatic breakthroughs in building long-term success.
Andrea encouraged teachers to be curators, not dictators, guiding teens with intention and empathy.

Links Mentioned

Today’s Guest

Andrea Dow, together with her husband Trevor, are the composers, authors, and educators behind TeachPianoToday.com and WunderKeys. Their collaborative work has transformed piano education, providing teachers with imaginative resources that engage students of all ages. From quirky piano books to game-based learning materials, Andrea and Trevor’s creations inspire piano teachers worldwide to bring creativity and joy into their lessons. Over the years, they have published 207 piano books, each designed to motivate students and make learning music fun.

Andrea and Trevor live on Vancouver Island off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. When not composing or creating, Andrea and Trevor balance family life with two teenage daughters, and spend most of their time at the hockey rink or track.

Today’s Sponsor

RSL Awards is leading the next generation of creativity. We are an international Awarding Organisation, creating qualifications in music, performing arts, and creative industries subjects.

Our vision is to help teachers and students within the creative arts sector through a range of innovative, relevant, and rewarding resources and qualifications. This includes our flagship Rockschool graded resources for piano.

The new edition of Rockschool Piano offers a holistic approach to piano education, shaped around the needs of today’s musicians. Exploring five centuries of music, from classical to classic rock, this genre-spanning syllabus features an expansive mix of popular Hit Tunes, bespoke Rockschool Originals, and brand-new suites of technical study, all packed with class-leading technology.

Thank you for tuning in!

Consider implementing the ideas from this podcast by writing several actionable steps for your teaching practice if it’s inspired you.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other teachers find our show.

Stay updated by subscribing to this show, and get automatic delivery to your device every time a new episode goes live! We publish on Mondays weekly.

TopMusicPro 14-Day Free Trial

Heard about TopMusicPro Membership? As a valued podcast listener, I’d like to offer you a special chance to try our community free for 14 days. You can access a treasure trove of teaching resources, professional development courses, and creative lesson ideas. Click the link below to access your exclusive 14-day free trial for our Studio Membership.

TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP 14-DAY FREE TRIAL

Teaching teens can feel overwhelming. It can make you feel like you’re back in high school, trying desperately to impress the popular kids (unless you were one – kudos!)

But piano lessons with teenage students don’t have to be like that.

Choose one of your teenage students and ask yourself these five questions. You’ll start to understand what it takes to be a successful piano teacher of teenagers.

Table of Contents:

How Well Do You Know Them?
Are You Flexible?
Do Your Teenage Students Think You’re Cool?
Are You Making Things Relevant?
Are You Being Yourself?
Extra Help Teaching Teens

How Well Do You Know Your Teenage Students?

If you’re teaching a teenage student and you don’t know why they’re learning, stop. Normal lessons should not resume until you know if they’re

Being forced by their parents (hopefully not!)
Wanting to show off to their mates at school
Desperate to play something they heard in a movie
Seeing it as a potential career
Really committed to learning in depth about music
Already making their own music

Why is this important?

Because, when you know the why you can figure out the how.

Do they want to be able to play the latest Taylor Swift song to impress their mates? Great! Let’s help them figure out songs by ear.

Or do they want to learn how to compose a film score? Cool! Let’s start by finding scores they’re inspired by and unpack why they like them.

That’s exactly what I did with one of my teenage students. I discovered he was a keen filmmaker by getting to know him and asking questions about what he gets up to outside of school. He’d been trying to work out how to score one of the short films he’d created. I asked if he wanted help and he was thrilled!

This only happened because I asked questions and learned something about him.

Build connections when teaching teens

Having a good connection with your students goes a long way. Find out about their hobbies and appreciate them.

Teenagers love nothing more than when you remember that they had a dance show on the weekend and you ask how it went. Or how did their cricket match go?

Find out what they listen to. One of the first questions I’ll ask, and I’ll continue to ask regularly throughout the year, is what they are enjoying listening to at the moment.

Ask them to show you their playlist (most teenagers love sharing what they’re listening to!) You might be surprised to see what’s made the list – maybe there are some old Beatles songs that their parents listen to that they like, too.

If there’s music you’ve never heard of, take time to ask about it and listen to it. Again, you’re sharing things with your students and building a relationship.

If they like you on a personal level, they’ll feel more comfortable asking questions. They’ll also want to work harder to impress you!

Are You Flexible When Teaching Teens?

Teaching teens doesn’t work the same way as teaching young kids. Teenagers aren’t going to fit into the structures that you use to teach seven or eight-year-olds.

I reckon there are three categories of musical teenagers:

The composers.
They’ll just naturally make things up on the piano. Some things will sound good. Others will sound bad. But it doesn’t matter because they’re curious and will explore sounds. They’ll come back each lesson with some amazing things.

They might not have practiced what you asked them to, but they’ve composed this great new piece.

As hard as it is not to tell them off, you’ve got to encourage their creativity.

The YouTubers.
These students can play pretty complex stuff, but they have no idea what they’re playing.

They can’t read music or tell you anything about the piece they’re playing.

They just learn by copying someone on YouTube.

The Readers.
They’re desperate to be able to read music and play classical pieces.

Maybe they’ve even started trying to teach themselves.

Whatever the type, you’ve got to cater to them.

Be flexible and willing to change your plans.

How can I be flexible?

If you’ve got a composer, don’t spend all their lesson time forcing them to read music.

Allocate composition time every lesson, even if it’s just to hear them play and commend them on what they’ve created.

If you have a YouTuber and you ban them from playing YouTube stuff…Well, they’re going to do it anyway! Find a YouTube video together and then show them the written music for it so they can compare how it sounds, how it feels to play, and what it looks like written down.

If you try to stop them from doing what they want to do, two things will happen:

They’ll lose respect for you
You’ll break the relationship you’ve built

Be flexible and work with them.

If something’s not working, change the activity. And change it fast.

There’s nothing wrong with holding your hand up and saying, “You know what? I don’t think this is working. Let’s try something else.”

They’ll respect you for that.

Do your teenage students think you’re cool?

Okay, “cool” is possibly the wrong way to describe it.

What I mean is, are you down to earth? Reasonable? Do you have a sense of humour? Are you keeping up to date with current music? Build rapport with your students and learn to laugh at yourself.

Students learn from teachers they like (this goes for boys in particular)

Be the type of teacher that encourages your students to play what they want from time to time.

Don’t blacklist any music just because you don’t like it or don’t think there’s merit in it.

It might be too hard for them, and it might be something you don’t like. Too bad! Get on and do it because they’re going to love the fact you’re helping them out.

Support and encourage any musical interest they have. They’re far more likely to then go and do what you want them to do (e.g. note reading or rhythm work)

I’m too old to be cool

Wrong!

Age doesn’t matter. I’ve met very cool and trendy teachers in their 60s and quite dull and boring teachers in their 20s. It’s not an age-related thing at all.

Make a connection with your students and be a fun and reasonable but still respected teacher.

Teenage students also love it when you share some of your life with them. Let them know about the kind of music you like. Some of my students have discovered new music because of songs I’ve told them I like.

Do you have any interesting hobbies? Do you like sports or video games? Share them with them because they might have something in common. It’ll create a fantastic connection.

Teaching one-to-one is one of the most exhausting forms of teaching I’ve ever done. But even if you’re tired at the end of the day, keep your humour up as much as possible and ensure you’re still inspiring and enthusiastic. It’ll make such a difference for your students.

Even if your student isn’t giving you anything back, despite your efforts to be incredibly inspiring and motivational, keep at it. You’ll be amazed at what happens when you make the effort. You might find that suddenly, a couple years down the track, they’ll turn the corner.

Are you making things relevant?

Connect with your students’ lives.

For example, if you know a student plays tennis, you can make a clear and relatable metaphor between practice and sports.

Talk about being on the court, facing a ball machine, and practicing the forehand technique over and over, then swapping to the backhand technique. Tennis players single out techniques and exercises to strengthen their overall game. Pianists single out techniques and exercises to strengthen their overall playing. Playing a match is the equivalent of playing a piece of music from the start to the end.

Making the connection between sports and music works fantastically for teenagers.

When it comes to technical exercises, I love asking students why they’re doing them. Can they tell me why I’m getting them to play a scale?

This is fantastic when they drag their heels when it comes to scales and you can provide them with a convincing argument for why they should play them.

Explain how it’s to help…

With speed and agility.
The independence of the fingers.
Understand the harmonic structure of a piece.
Remember all the F sharps in the piece they’re playing in G major.

When they understand the relevance and the connection, they’re more likely to do it.

Are you being yourself?

Not everyone’s going to be instantly inspired by teaching teenagers.

Be authentic to yourself and do what you’d like to do.

Sometimes it’s great to push yourself and see how you go teaching older students. You might find that you have fun and you’re actually fantastic at teaching them.

The important thing is to be yourself, look after yourself, and make sure you’re having fun.

A happy teacher creates happy students!

Extra Help Teaching Teens

For more information about teaching teens, download the free eBook: Teen Teaching Toolkit.

The thought of teaching teens can be enough to make a piano teacher break out into a cold sweat.

Their unpredictable levels of motivation, ever-changing interests, and judgemental looks they give you when you suggest something they don’t like.

But when you get past the challenges, teaching teenagers is fun and rewarding. Some piano teachers discover they love it so much they specialise in teaching only teens!

We’ve collated all our resources on teaching piano to teenagers so you can dive in and crack this often tricky-to-teach demographic!

Table of Contents:

Motivation
Quitting
Repertoire
TopMusicMag: Teaching Teens

Motivation

Motivating teenagers can sometimes feel like teaching a dog new tricks. If you bring the right treats, they’ll surprise you with what they can do.

Free resources to help you figure out what those ‘treats’ are:

Quitting

Why do teens normally quit lessons?

This is a great question, and it’s answered (in-depth) in “Teens Quitting Piano: Surprising Reasons You Need to Know.”

Repertoire for Teaching Teens

The method books your 7-year-old piano students love aren’t going to cut it with your teenage students.

How about:

Emotive Repertoire for Teens and Adults from Movies & New Age
Getting Teen Beginners Fired-Up with Jennifer Eklund (teenage students love Piano Pronto books!)

TopMusicMag: Teaching Teens

Grab a coffee and a notebook, download the free copy of TopMusicMag: Teaching Teens and feel inspired for your next lesson with a tricky teen!

You’ll learn:

Small changes to make in lessons with teenagers (that will have a big impact)
Ways to retain your students
How to boost their motivation to practice

Teaching teens can be a completely different experience from your average 7 year old student. Teenagers are starting to figure out who they are and what they like. This means that they won’t always just play a piece because you gave it to them, and they won’t practice something they don’t think is relevant to their goals.

Their goals could be to play a Beethoven sonata, but they also might be to write their own pop songs, or play in a school band. When teaching teens, you really need to have them on side. Creating a good relationship with your teenage students is so important. If they think piano “isn’t cool” (whatever that means to them) they won’t practice enough, and they just might quit.

Do you ever have trouble with teaching teenage students? Do you find students dropping out when they get to high school? Then you have to listen to today’s podcast, I’m sharing my 5 top tips for teaching teens.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The difference in my approach to teaching teens/adults versus kids
How to relate piano practice to things in their world
Why building a rapport with teens is vital
How to become “the cool teacher” and why you should want to
How to convince reluctant teens to practice their scales

Items mentioned in this podcast:

[thrive_leads id=’23840′]

Thank you for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine.

Being a full-time teacher myself, I know how busy teachers are and how much time, effort and passion we put into our students. Sometimes, the last thing we want to do in our time off is listen to more piano teaching stuff! So, well done for using this time for self-improvement.

Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run. Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

What’s your approach to teaching teens?

Do you use any of the methods I talked about today? Is there something else that has worked for you with this age group? Or any part of my approach that you disagree with?

Do you have trouble motivating teens in your piano studio? I think we’ve all found this difficult from time-to-time. My guest today is an expert at reaching teen students and connecting to them with the music they love.

Jerald Simon has composed a whole series of pieces designed to inspire students that are especially great for motivating teens. He calls them Cool Songs because that’s what his students call them.

Take a listen to this episode and hear how Jerald saved many students who were on the brink of quitting by listening to what they wanted to learn and finding the music that would hook them.

Transcript

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

[thrive_leads id=’134421′]

Special Offer from Jerald

Use the code “timtopham” to get 20% any order from Music Motivation.

In this episode, you’ll learn

Why Jerald was inspired to start his Cool Songs series
How to find the “hook” and bridge students towards classical music
How to make theory fun for students by making it practical
Why Jerald creates backing tracks for his songs
How to simplify improvisation to get students started
Top tips for motivating teens in your studio

Links Mentioned

Today’s Sponsor

My Music Staff is studio management made easy – our web-based software helps you manage the core aspects of your private music teaching business. Whether you are a single teacher or part of a multi-teacher studio team, our affordable software is a perfect fit and designed to help your business achieve success.

My Music Staff can do everything your private music studio needs. It helps you centrally manage your website, student contact information, schedule, invoicing and more.

Visit our website (www.mymusicstaff.com) to start your FREE 30-day trial today and experience all of the features that My Music Staff has to offer. No credit card is required to start your trial and there is no obligation to subscribe.

Get $100 off Annual TopMusicPro Membership

As a valued podcast listener, you’re eligible for a $100 discount on an annual TopMusicPro Studio Membership. This discount lasts for as long as you’re a member and whatever price you sign up for today is the price you’ll pay as long as you remain a member. Copy this coupon code to use when you see the “Coupon Code” box: PIANOPODCAST.

Become a Member

Thank you for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine. Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run. Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons! If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes or on my Facebook page. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally. Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

Do you have trouble motivating teens in your studio?

What music has clicked with them? Have you tried any of Jerald’s Cool Songs?

What does it take to become the go-to piano teacher for teenagers? In this episode, I’m giving you my 5 tips for teaching piano to teens.

Most of my tips are actually relevant to teaching students of other ages, too – including adults. I cover strategies you can use to approach teaching piano to teens and adults versus younger children and relate piano practice to a teenager’s way of thinking.

Teaching teens isn’t just about having them learn chords and read music. And this episode will help you understand what to do, how to connect with your teens, and make lessons relevant, relatable and fun.

Transcript of the Show

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

[thrive_leads id=’137205′]

In this episode, hear tips on teaching piano to teens:

[04:08] Must-ask questions for your teen students
[05:27] Getting teens to read music
[06:41] Encouraging teens to play something they like
[08:01] Building relationships with your students.
[11:03] Flexibility in teaching structures.
[15:20] Be cool and build rapport with your students.
[21:03] Be relevant – connect with your student’s lives
[25:34] Use technology to teach and inspire teens and adults.
[27:49] Be yourself and have fun.

Links Mentioned

Thank you for tuning in!

In conclusion, there are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine. Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run.

Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons!

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes or on my Facebook page. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

Learn about inspiring and motivating teen piano students in this podcast episode.

Jerald Simon of Music Motivation joins us in a rebroadcast of one of our favourite shows from last year. One of the interesting points Jerald shares in this conversation is a story about one of his students coming in for a lesson and literally saying he didn’t want to touch the piano keys!

We talk about how and why he started composing music for his teenage students and the awesome outcomes he achieved from doing so. Teaching isn’t just about being rigid to help the students learn their chords, notes, etc. It’s more about inspiring and motivating your teens to play and make the music their own.

Transcript of the Show

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

[thrive_leads id=’137243′]

In this episode, you’ll learn about motivating teens in piano:

[03:46] Jerald’s background and studio.
[04:36] The types of classes he teaches in his studio.
[05:43] Teaching a transfer student who hates piano.
[14:49] Hooking students to learn piano.
[18:56] Finding music that connects with your students.
[21:15] Tips for teachers to have their students take ownership of their cool songs.
[23:44] Using backing tracks during lessons.
[25:45] Boosting students’ self-esteem in piano recitals.
[27:59] Jerald’s compositions and YouTube videos.
[30:21] Starting spot in teaching students to play.
[32:48] Top tips for motivating teenagers.

Links Mentioned

Jerald Simon YouTube Channel
Special Promo Code for TopCast listeners: get 20% off on Jerald’s Cool Songs repertoire with code “timtopham”

About our Guest

motivating teens for piano - Jerald Simon author image

Jerald Simon is the founder of Music Motivation, a company that provides music instruction through workshops, seminars, concerts and performances in the field of music and motivation. He is a composer, author, poet, music mentor, and piano teacher primarily focusing his piano teaching on music theory, improvisation, composition and arranging.

Thank you for tuning in!

Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons!

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

In this episode, find 20+ emotive teen piano repertoire picks that appeal to older or adult students, complete with play-through demos.

Teen and adult students require extra repertoire planning, because you’re not often teaching from a method book, but finding specific pieces that appeal to their unique tastes. They often gravitate toward darker, moodier, rich, chordal-based music with repetitive lines.

We’ll look at themes from movies and popular new-age style composers, from Yiruma to Einaudi, in this episode, (and save you some time playing through them all yourself!)

Transcript of the show about emotive repertoire for teens

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

[thrive_leads id=’139434′]

In this episode, you’ll hear our 20+ emotive teen repertoire picks

All of Me – Piano Guys
Comptine d’un autre ete – Amelie theme
Cristofori’s Dream – David Lanz
Forrest Gump theme (in Piano for Leisure series book)
Glasgow theme from Love, Actually
Kiss the Rain, and A River Flows in You – Yiruma
Primavera – Einaudi
Gymnopedie no. 1 – Satie
Le Onde “The Waves” – Ludovico Einaudi
Nuvole Bianche “The Clouds” – from Insidious – Einaudi
Schindler’s List theme
Song for Guy – Elton John
The Heart Asks Pleasure First and Big My Secret – Michael Nyman from The Piano
American Beauty theme – John Williams
St. Elmo’s Fire theme
Summer of ’42 theme
Tubular Bells from The Exorcist
Metamorphosis works – Philip Glass
Chariots of Fire theme
In My Place; Atlas; Fix You – Coldplay

Sponsor

Links Mentioned

Repertoire Rap page

Thank you for tuning in!

I encourage you to implement the ideas from this podcast by writing several actionable steps for your teaching practice, if it’s inspired you.

And if you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other teachers find our show. I do read every single one review personally, too!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

Are Your Teens Quitting Piano? Here’s how to motivate them:

Is it just me or is it getting harder to stop teens quitting piano lessons?

No one has any time, every after-school minute is jam-packed with activities, and despite the costs and logistics of piano lessons, practice always takes a back seat to everything else that’s going on.

Teacher: “So how did your practice go this week, Luke?”

Luke: “I didn’t really get any time” (cue: sheepish look)

Teacher: “Really? Not even 30 minutes on the weekend?”

Luke: “Well I had to play basketball for school on Saturday morning and then on Sunday it was football with my local club and then my grandparents were down from the country and we had to do things with them all afternoon and then my best friend came over and…”

You get the idea.

The real issue for students like Luke is motivation. If our students are really motivated to play, they’ll make the time for it. Won’t they?

So how do you motivate teens?

Is it about the music? Is it about how you teach? Or is it about the connection they have with you? Is it about keeping it relevant? Or is it just about helping them play pop music? It is about having fun and sharing some jokes? Is it about being the “cool” teacher?

The Real Reason Teens are Quitting Piano – Part 1

In my experience, it’s a subtle combination of all the above, but with a focus on three key issues that that really stand-out if you’re wondering about teens quitting piano and how to avoid that:

You aren’t teaching them music they want to play,
You aren’t making music relevant,
You aren’t keeping up with technology.

This blog series will focus on each of these factors in more depth, giving you a number of quick tips that you can immediately use in your studio to improve your connection with teen students.

Part 1: Teaching students the music they want to play

Here are my Top 3 Tips for this week:

1. Ask your student what he/she would like to play and be open to teaching it.

Even if it’s outside your comfort zone. Listen to the music your students like together and work out an approach for learning it. Yes, you can use lesson time! I get really excited when students bring in new music that I’ve never heard of before. If you don’t let teenagers play at least a few pieces they want to learn, you’ll lose them very quickly. If they bring in a piece that’s way too hard for them, help them to simplify it. Even if they only learn the chord structure or the melody, they’ll re-engage in their learning and practice.

2. Make sure you have LOTS of cool repertoire up your sleeve.

Even if they choose a piece they want to play, you’ll need other options to keep them engaged in the middle-longer term. Teenagers love choice. You may need to play/demonstrate/show on YouTube a number of pieces before they find one that clicks with them. Search YouTube for ‘piano tutorials’ – these are normally the most popular pieces, but you’ll need to stay current. I’ll soon be releasing a blog article about how to find epic repertoire for your teens online – stay tuned at my blog for more info (links below).

3. Admit that you don’t know everything!

The days of teachers being wise ‘know-it-alls’ and students being empty vessels that need to be filled with knowledge are long gone! Share the learning journey with them as a facilitator.You’ll gain much more respect from students and a deeper connection with them and their music. In the process, you’ll grow as a teacher and isn’t that what effective teaching should be all about?

PS. I’ve found that some teens who start out wanting to play pop music often lose interest in it after a while when they realise that great piano solos and classical music can be much more fulfilling to play. Use pop music as your “in” while you slowly introduce great piano solos into the mix. You’ll have them hooked!

Of course, there are many factors that can impact the relationship you have with your teen students and next week in Part 2, I’ll give you my top tips for developing better connections with your teens by helping make their lessons more relevant:

Using YouTube more effectively
How sport can enhance music practice
Giving teens the skills they need to play for life
How to think like a video-game maker when setting goals

If you’re looking for more ideas on motivating teenage students, to stop teens quitting piano lessons and can’t wait for Part 2, you can also check out my free eBook: Teen Teaching Toolkit.

If you’re having success with your teens, I’d love for you to share some of your tricks and tips with other readers – please leave a comment below with your thoughts. Have you got some great repertoire ideas? Got a favourite teaching app to inspire teenagers? Know how to engage teen beginners in their first lessons?

To be continued…

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 2

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 3: Technology

Introducing

Teen and Transfer Teaching Toolkit

Learn how to motivate, inspire and retain your teen and transfer students.

FREE With TopMusicPro Membership

Prefer to Buy the Stand Alone Course?

Buy now for $99 USD

Lear to build a framework for teaching energising, rewarding and fun lessons for your teen and transfer students

How to motivate, inspire and retain your teen & transfer students

What’s your biggest struggle when teaching
teens and transfers?

Buy now for $99 USD

From grappling with motivating students to struggle sourcing relevant repertoire,
most music teachers find teens and transfers overwhelmingly difficult to teach.

Some students have had bad experiences learning music, some are (poorly) self-taught,
some are complete beginners but aspire to play advanced repertoire…
It’s not easy to teach such a diverse group of students!

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THE REAL REASON IS YOU’RE STRUGGLING?
YOU DON’T HAVE A FRAMEWORK TO TEACH THIS GROUP.

Learn tactics to motivate teenagers and how to set their weekly and monthly goals

Get insider tips on finding the right supercool repertoire your teens will LOVE

Discover the do’s and don’ts of teaching teens and retain those students in your studio

Learn to build rapport with your teenage students and find out what makes them tick.

Deep-dive into the workings of the teenage brain to better understand & teach this group

Use Cheat Sheets and Tools to prepare the perfect first lesson for teens or transfers.

Use these strategies and skills to engage teen and transfer students and inspire their love of music for life.

And all of this is available inside TopMusicPro, the world’s leading music teacher membership site.

What’s Included?

8 video modules tackling everything from motivation and goal setting, teen beginners to transfer students

Downloadable cheat sheets and checklists detailing step-by-step instructions

Tips and strategies that have been road-tested to help you work better with your teenage students

Helpful advice from a teen and transfer teaching specialist

Buy now for $99 USD

This course is designed to help you figure how to really engage your teenage students, build a bond and inspire them to practise, play and enjoy music lessons.

Learn from the expert – Tim Topham

World-renowned educator and specialist in teen teaching, Tim Topham,
has been teaching teenagers for over 10 years.

It’s been the bread and butter of his own teaching studio, and he is well-known
for transforming non-practisers or almost-quitters into motivated,
engaged and hard-working piano students.

Tim has created this fantastic course to share his extensive knowledge on
the subject with you.

By taking this course, you will learn everything you need to feel confident and
competent teaching teenagers and transfer students.

Access your Course through TopMusicPro Membership

How Do I Access the Course?

VIA TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP

Get full ongoing access to this course today as part of my TopMusicPro membership and enjoy all the benefits of membership, including:

Regular help growing your studio and developing your teaching skills

Access to 50 + comprehensive pedagogy and business courses in our Academy

Ask questions in our supportive, private community forums

Discounts, lesson plans, downloads, PDFs and teaching videos

Help using technology and updating your website

The support of a community that you can access at your fingertips

Once your membership is confirmed, you’ll have full access to all courses and resources via your own TopMusicPro login and members app.

Join TopMusicPro Membership Today

VIA ONE-OFF PURCHASE

Alternatively, if you’d like to just buy the course, get your for $99 today.

You will be given a login, but it will only provide course access for 12 months.

Please note that you will not be able to ask questions of the group or interact with course creator and specialist, Tim Topham, if you purchase the stand-alone course.

Your access is limited to the full course materials only.

But Now for $99 USD

TopMusicPro is the place to be to sharpen your teaching skills and grow your dream studio

AS A MEMBER YOU HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS TO:

STUDIO GROWTH ROADMAP

Your step-by-step plan through all the resources to get your studio from inspiration to innovation.

MEMBER TRAINING & COURSES

25+ courses and regular online masterminds ensure you’re always current with the latest strategies.

MEMBER FORUMS

Spark a discussion, ask questions, share ideas and feel supported in our private member forums.

ACCESS TO EXPERTS

Join the best-known teaching experts from around the world as they give you ideas and answer your questions.

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS

Access exclusive discounts on training, sheet music, products and services from our trusted partners.

CHALLENGES

Our member-only challenges keep you fresh, inspired and motivated to grow and develop as a teacher.

Revolutionise your teaching with this creative teaching framework

Buy Now for $99 USD

Membership Details

Instant access to entire Academy Course library including teen & Transfer Teaching Toolkit, No Book Beginners, 4 Chord Composing, Studio Marketing, Teaching the Blues + many more

100s of lesson plans, quick-win videos, PDFs and downloads

Access to expert teachers from around the world

Stream teaching videos and webinar replays

Access everything on your dedicated member app for iOS and Android

Grab members-only discounts on sheet music, software and method books

Just $49/month

FREE With TopMusicPro Membership

Why you need this course

Teaching teens can be a completely different experience from your average 7-year-old student.

Teenagers are starting to figure out who they are and what they like.

This means that they won’t always play a piece just because you gave it to them, and they won’t practise something they don’t think is relevant to their goals.

Their goals could be to play a Beethoven sonata, but it could also be to write a pop song, or play in a school band.

When teaching teens, they have to have a big say in what they study.

Creating a good relationship with your teenage students is so important.

If they think piano “isn’t cool” (whatever that means to them) they won’t practise, and they just might quit.

Get Instant Access Today!

All prices in $US

Monthly

Annual

Studio

50+ Academy Courses

$49

/per month

Studio

50+ Academy Courses

$499

/per year

Evolution

Break Through to the Next Level

$79

/per month

Evolution

Break Through to the Next Level

$799

/per year

Learn More

TopMusicPro is the place to be to sharpen your teaching skills and grow your dream studio

AS A STUDIO OR EVOLUTION MEMBER, YOU HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS TO:

Repertoire Detective

Greatly reduce the time it takes for you to find teenage appropriate repertoire with this handy tool.

TRAINING & COURSES

30+ courses on pedagogy and business ensure you’re always current with the latest strategies.

MEMBER FORUMS

Spark a discussion, ask questions, share ideas and feel supported in our private member forums.

ACCESS TO EXPERTS

Join the best-known teaching experts from around the world as they give you ideas and answer your questions.

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS

Access exclusive discounts on training, sheet music and resources, such as a 20% discount to all musicnotes.com sheet music.

FREE SHEET MUSIC

Your Membership comes with a FREE monthly piano sheet music book, studio licensed and all yours to keep!

Other courses that you might like

ALL INCLUDED IN STUDIO & EVOLUTION MEMBERSHIP

Taking the Lead

Use this step-by-step course to learn how to teach your teen students to arrange their favourite tunes and play from lead sheets. Huge 94-page course workbook included!

Teaching the 12 Bar Blues

This course will be a life-saver for those times when your teenage students just aren’t engaging. Teach them the 12-bar blues and you’ll see them transform before your very eyes!

4 Chord Composing

Watch and learn as renowned creative teaching expert Tim Topham takes you step-by-step through his highly popular chord-based composing approach that students of all ages will LOVE.

GET ALL THESE COURSES FREE with TopMusicPro Membership

Repertoire Rap #2: Film and New Age music that teens and adults love.

All right, hi, everyone. Tim Topham here. Again, for my Repertoire Rap for this fortnight, this is number two. Today’s focus is going to be on your teen and adult students in particular. I found that in working in school environments and with more teenagers than just about any other group, they have some particular choices and desires and things that they want in music. Particularly if they’re low level. They’re not beginners. Been working or playing for a few years, so they can play, but I find they have pretty specific choices and really look for certain styles.

Like the other day I’m going to be generalizing a little bit today. I know that plenty of teenagers won’t like the music I’m going to show you today. I know plenty of them love classical music, whatever it is. I am just showing you music that I know does resonate with this crowd, and particularly adults. If you’ve got any adults in your studio, then you want to find music that engages them because that’s what it’s all about for them. As you come onto the call, if you’re watching live, then please just say, “Hi” in the comments. Be great to know where you’re from, as well.

Just say, “Hi, this is Tim from Melbourne,” or wherever you’re from, that’ll be great. As I play through the music, feel free to give me a thumbs up or a heart if you like the song or the piece that I’m playing. That’d be kind of cool. Again, feel free to share this if you know of other teachers around the world who might value this. Please press the share button there in front of you. Share it so other people know that I’m live, or know that they can access this recording. You can follow the recording at any time after this event as well.

All the links that I’m going to talk about today and more information on some discount codes, too, can be found at topmusic.co, T-O-P-H-A-M.com/rap. Make sure you check that page out if you’re interested in any of this music. I’ve got a little bit to go through today, so I’m not going to chat for too long. I think we might just get straight into the pieces. The first book I want to show you is one that is going to really resonate with teenagers and adults in particular is this one here. I’m not sure if you can see the title too well there.

It’s called River Flows in You. I’m pretty sure it’s distributed, yes, by Hal Leonard. Really good book because it’s just got a mix of some of this, the best music that this group of people really, really love. The kind of style that I’m talking about today is a little bit like, slightly minimal music. I find that this age group tends to like quite repetitive patterns, quite atmospheric music. I don’t know if this is the same for you. Give me a thumbs’ up or something if you find this as well with teenagers. Atmospheric music, quite repetitive lines.

This is the kind of music that I’m finding and demonstrating for you today. Please be aware, too, had some great discussion and feedback from the last Repertoire Rap when I was talking about pop music about whether it’s an important thing to teach, and whether we should be … I think one of the comments was, “Pandering” to our students and always playing and teaching them what they want to learn. I’ve always pretty clear, and maybe I wasn’t last week, but pretty clear when I present and talk about pop music and styles like this that this is just one aspect of a piano lesson.

I would never teach only one style. The only exception to that would be if it’s an adult student or a teenager student, and really they just want my help doing one thing. Composing or playing one style of music. You know what? If they’re doing year 12, and they’re playing piano for the fun of it, I’m not going to force them to learn a Bach invention if really they want to play some cool feel music. You know what? Because it’s an outlet for them. It’s meant to be relaxing and that sort of thing.

On the whole, though, I think music like this, pop music, video game music, all of that kind of stuff, it forms a part of a piano lesson. I don’t advocate only doing one thing at a time. Anne-Marie says, “Hello from Tennessee. As you know, I like the music from the movies, the movie the Piano.” You know what? That piece, the Heart Asks Pleasure First, is in one of these books, and it’s still a real winner. That style of music is exactly what I’m talking about. First piece from this book, River Flows In You. It’s the Piano Guys, their piece, All of Me.

I’ll just give you a little snippet, a little taste of what it sounds like. It’s got lots of big chords, big sounds, it’s in D flat major, so this is a reasonably advanced level piece. I figure my sight reading today. This isn’t something I’ve practiced, so a little bit rough. The full version is a little bit thicker and fuller in context and texture I should say. That’s the first piece in the book, it’s a great one. It’s called All of Me, by Jon Schmidt from the Piano Guys. You can buy that piece on its own, too, and it’s also in the Piano Guys compilation book too.

The second piece is an absolute sure winner. I want to give me a heart if you like this piece, okay? I could go on. This is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve seen since Hearts Go Along there. I think this is an absolute winning piece for students in this age category, the teenagers and adults. They’ll love it. I love it, and I’ve performed this at recitals, as well. It’s an absolute surefire winner. People love listening to it. People love playing it. The thing is it’s not that easy. The left hand is moving in octaves and has an arpeggiated pattern between the fifth and the fourth finger.

There’s a fair bit going on. It’s not a particularly easy piece, which is why I wanted to show you where you can find an easy version of this piece. You’re going to be blown away by the fact that this is so much easier, and yet it sounds almost the same. I’m going to play now a version from Noviscore, which is this site that I told you about last week, N-O-V-I-S-C-O-R-E. They have simplified arrangements of so much music online, and it’s all downloadable. There’s a discount. They’re offering until the end of February. If you’re watching this video, write down this coupon code.

TIMTOPFEB. Gets you 20% off until the end of Feb on their music. This is one of the examples. This is why I love what they do. Here’s their level two version of Compting, which is this piece, which everyone gave their hearts and thumbs up to. Here’s the simplified version. It just use breaking chords on the left hand. Try it. The melody is the same. It’s scored slightly differently, and then single notes. You can see it sounds pretty much the same, right? But a much more simplified version because the left hand is not doing something nearly as complex.

This is an absolute winning piece. If your student can play, grade. I don’t know, two, three, there’s some octave work in the second section. They’ll need to have a reasonable reach in their hands, but if I can play a piece in E minor that uses some primary triads in the left hand and a simple melody in the right, then they can play this piece. Absolute winning piece. If you want to get the copy of that, noviscore.com, and use that coupon code. It’s all on the Repertoire Rap page on my site, topmusic.co/rap. That’s a really great one.

The original is in this book, and I’m talking about Cristofori’s Dream by David Lanz might be one that you’re familiar with. It’s got this twinkly sound again. A simple arpeggio of the left hand so that students can learn really, really fast. Nice melody up high the [keys 00:09:10]. What Susanna said, “That’s the most popular piece I get requests for from your adults.” Well, Susanna, check out if they’re not very advanced adults, then definitely check out that simplified version. It’s really good.

Another piece many of you will know, particularly if you teach in Australia and you use the Australian music exam board, Piano Felicia, Forrest Gump, that main title is in here, as well. That’s the one that goes. I’m sure many of us have taught that over time, particularly if you’re in Australia. That’s in the grade five Piano Felicia, Series Three Books. Again, you got another reference here. I guess in these Repertoire Raps, I’m trying to find resources and music books that have a lot of music in it that is useful.

Don’t you hate it when there’s a really great piece, but there’s only one or two in the book, and you’ve got to get your students to buy the whole thing? Just a bit of a waste. This book is brilliant. It’s full of lots of great ones. The Glasgow Love thing from Love Actually is in here, as well. It’s kind of nice. Sad but flowing. Chords, can practice bringing out a melody on the top. You get the idea. There’s also some great pedagogical work in this, in that they’ve got to bring out the melody, while using their thumb, [inaudible 00:11:06], while keeping it quiet, so we don’t hear …

Kind of thing, right? While a lot of this music there’s simplified areas to it, repetitive patterns and things like that. There’s often little complex issues that have a lot of pedagogical benefit and merit in teaching. I do like this style of music for that reason. Look, it appeals right? I said at the start, that I don’t teach a diet purely of one type of music, be that baroque, classical, contemporary, whatever it is. Students should have a mix, right?

This is a prime example, Kiss The Rain, by Yiruma. Yiruma’s two most favorite pieces are in this book, the other is at the back here. River Flows In You, most people will have probably taught or played at some stage. It’s a really popular one with students all over, all over the place. That piece there, sorry … His other most famous piece is called, Kiss The Rain, which may not be quite so familiar. Again very similar it’s got some similar styles and singularly appealing as well. This if I can find the main thing, goes …

That’s also in the book, his other piece Kiss The Rain. The first of Ludovico Einaudi pieces, which I’m going to be covering a fair bit of his music, because it’s the current now appealing, musical, pianistic choice for a lot of teenagers and adults. This is his piece called Primavara. It goes something like this. There’s a lot of similarities between Ludovico Einaudi, who I just played then, and then the likes of Max Richter, and Philip Glass, Michael Nyman. The minimalist composers. He’s got huge appeal, in fact I went to see him on stage, live in Melbourne. He played two weeks ago. It was a phenomenal concert.

The thing that I thought the coolest is, this is effectively a piano recital. He was on the grand piano facing the back of the stage, he had violin and cello, he had bass player and extra keyboards and percussionist and some guy at the front left playing a whole load of instruments I don’t even know what they were. It was fascinating watching the audience come out, and it was, I recon average age, 20-40. Huge difference to what you get from your standard traditional classical recital. That’s because the music is so appealing.

Look out for his work, Ludovico, L-U-D-O-V-I-C-O, Ludovico Einaudi, E-I-N-A-U-D-I, if you haven’t come across his music before. That’s all from a book called River Flows In You, distributed by Hal Leonard. Again, links to all these books and where you can grab them and any discounts that I’ve been able to find for you, is at Timtopham.com/rap.

“Thank you for the different background.” Ah yes, I’ve moved into a new room, so it makes a nice change. Okay, second book that I want to show you a few pieces from, this is another great one for students. That looks like this here. Let me just grab it, sorry. Can’t do two things at once. Okay. All right, that’s Piano Anthology. This is volume two. It’s in volume one and volume two copies. I like volume one the most, I think that’s better of the two books.

Hal Leonard, if you’re in Australia, is doing a little discount for people who are watching this. You can 15% off, I think it is. Either volume one or two. The links on that Repertoire Rap page. I’m going to actually show you a few of the pieces of book one. Which includes one of the first pieces it includes is the Gymnopedies, by Sati, that everyone plays at some stage. That’s a great way to get a copy of that in a book with a whole lot of other goodies.

Let me show you a few other things. We were talking about Ludovico. Let me play you another of his pieces. This one is called Le Onde. It’s from one of his other compilation books, goes a little bit like this. This beautiful minor note sound, isn’t it, fantastic when it’s arpeggio like that. This called Le Onde, L-E space O-N-D-E. You’ll be able to find this in other books by Ludovico Einaudi. Great piece, really appealing. It’s in B minor. It’s got some challenges again of bringing out a melody and an accompaniment in one hand. It’s by no means simple, but a great level of challenge for those intermediate students.

Yeah, Suzanne says, she’s getting a lot of LE, Ludovico Einaudi requests too. You know what, it’s okay. His music’s great. Because it’s so pattern based, you can actually teach it in quite a patterned way. You can work on the chord progression, and you can explore what he’s done to keep the variations interesting.

I want to play you one other, which is in this book. I’m still in this book, volume one of this series, is probably one of his most popular pieces called Nuvole Bianche. I’m going to play a little bit of that now. Give us a heart, if you like this piece. Sorry. Finishing key? Let’s try A. Sorry, F minor.

Not even sure, what key is this in? It’s in F minor, my bad, wrong choice for finishing chords right in the middle there. Great piece, sorry if I botched that for you and you were having a little moment there and enjoying it. Really good piece, it’s called Nuvole Bianche. I’ve taught this a number of times. Great, again some good challenges in there for students, it’s not just an easy piece that they can learn in a week or two. Take a little bit of effort, but again, really, really appealing. Warm, rich sounds. Thank you for the thumbs up that just came through there.

Susanna says she, “Had an adult beginner who was able to play that in just seven months.” There you go. Adult beginner, in seven months. That is impressive. That ain’t easy. Also in this book is the Schindler’s List theme. Which, I don’t need to play too much of. This is clearly the jazz version, I’ll play again. I’ll start again.

So, I’m just mentioning that because it’s a piece that a lot of teachers use, and is on some exam boards. That’s in here as well, it’s a good one to know about. An interesting one, choice that they’ve put in is, Elton John’s, Song for Guy. Great piece, fairly simple, it’s in C major. The thing that I like about this is from a teaching perspective, is that it introduces students to the concept of having to hang a chord under a melody. It’s a little bit like playing a lead sheet. We’ve got this.

They’ve got to bring out the top line, while playing the chord underneath. It’s almost like a ridden out, a realized lead sheet of some sort. I’ve got a fantastic podcast coming out tomorrow week, with Suzanne [Deez 00:20:33]. We’re talking all about lead sheets, and all the research she did into lead sheets and how teachers teach it, or not and that kind of stuff. Make sure you check that out. That’s episode, I think it’s episode 77, due to come out not tomorrow, but the following week.

Someone mentioned the pian, there’s two songs from, or pieces from the piano. The hardest I’ll play first, which is the old … Most teachers have taught that at some stage, if you’ve been teaching for any length of time, that does tend to come up. Again, very, very appealing, that’s in there. Thanks for the thumbs up. That’s in there, as is I think it’s called Big My Secret. It’s got a funny name. Right at the start I saw it. Big My Secret. Which I think is also from the Piano, yep. There’s two pieces there, by Michael Nyman. That could be nice and appealing for students as well.

Okay, that was the Piano anthology Book. The next one that I want to show you is, let me just go up here. This piece, oh sorry, this book. It’s called Greatest Themes From The Movies. Has anyone already come across this? Give me a thumbs up if you already know about this one. This is another winner out of this little series that I’m showing you today. I’ll show you a few different pieces that are in here. While I’ve never taught it, I always enjoy playing it, because it seems to bring back memories.

Let me play you this, see if this sounds familiar to you? It’s that eerily, kind of memory, hauntingly, memory bringing back. I don’t know. Does anyone know what this one is? Give me a thumbs up if you like this piece, or if you ever taught it. Again, it’s not something that I’ve taught, it’s kind of almost … Because it’s just fifths in the left hand, I haven’t used it as a teaching piece. It could be appealing for some adults who remember the original piece, or the movie, which it’s from, which is American Beauty. For those of you who are wondering. That’s in there.

I’m also interested to find an easy version of The Heart Asks Pleasure First. The Michael Nyman one that I just played before, this is the easy version, which I think is pretty cool. That section that I just played sounds like this in the easy version. The left hand has just been simplified and you haven’t got any of the complexity in the right hand. It’s pretty much melody and accompaniment.

Great way for the students of this, although the left hand is doing a lot of repeating, the octave pattern. Students would need to be able to reach and octave. It’s not that far beyond a grade three level over here in Australia. That could be worth checking out. If your student likes that piece, maybe they’re an adult beginner who likes that piece, and really wants to learn it, but the full version is too hard, that could be a good option for you.

Hello to Rene, thank you for saying, “Hello.” Please introduce yourself, say, “Hi.” We’ve got a few people on the call now, so tell us where you’re from too. Now I’m going to play a tune here by Dave Grusin. This is from the movie Tootsie. Now, I don’t actually know this movie, when I was playing through it I was like, “That’s kind of appealing.” I would be interested, give us a thumbs up if you know this movie theme. All right, I’m going to play it. Here we go. I’m going to try and play it anyway. Goes something like this.

Have I done that right? Those of you guys who know what this is like. I don’t know. Hello to [Kaylene 00:25:19] as well, from North Carolina, awesome. That’s called, It Might Be You, theme from Tootsie. Again, not one that I know that well, but I thought could be quite appealing anyway. Heres one that I know for a fact, is 100% appealing. If you’ve got a teenage boy in your studio, who can bring some music and you haven’t done this piece yet, then you need to get onto it.

Let’s find the main theme. Write the title in the commentary if you can tell me what it is. Biff, Biff is on the call, hey Biff. One of my members, good to see you on the call. What is it? Who can tell me? Has it already flashed past my screen. Really, really popular, everyone loves to play that. It’s of course, John Williams, and it’s the theme from Jurassic Park. That’s in there too. What else did I like here? I don’t want to go too long today.

Theme song from Saint Elmo’s Fire. Again, this is one I know the tune of, I don’t really remember the show or the movie. But I did know the tune. It goes like this. Pretty cool tune. It’s a little bit [inaudible 00:27:19] a little bit cliché, would I say? Or, I don’t know. It’s bit like playing Ballade Pour Adeline, or something like that. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe a little bit old school. It’s fun to play, I enjoy playing it, it sounds good. It sounds fine.

There’s also a piece by Michel Legrand, the theme from Summer of ’42. Give it a heart if you know this tune. This isn’t one that I knew, but again, I thought it would be quite appealing. Anyone know that one? Ah yeah, we’ve got a couple of hearts coming through, good. That’s a good one, that’s also in the book.

Oh, we’ve got a few more thumbs up, thank you very much guys. The theme from Tubular Bells. This just takes me back to listening to my dad’s CDs when I was, I don’t know, 10-12, something like that. When did we get a CD player? I can’t even remember when they came in. We just got a CD player, this was one of the tunes I remember playing over and over and over again. I’ve never taught Tubular Bells, this is the theme from the Exorcist. There’s some great challenges in there, I think it would be really appealing. As I say, I haven’t taught it. If you’ve taught Tubular Bells, just click that thumbs up. It would be interesting to know.

I think it would be quite an appealing little tune to play. Good rhythmic challenges in particular. Okay, last book, or last couple of things I want to show you. I haven’t played a whole lot of Philip Glass, at the moment. I find that Philip Glass … I do like some of his music, but some of it is a little bit odd. It can be quite repetitive too. I know there’s one piece, one of the metamorphoses is in our grade 4 piano syllabus over here in Australia for the AMEB.

I think, again, it’s not one that I’ve really used, because I don’t think that it appeals that much. One piece that does tend to appeal of Philip Glass’ is his opening piece from Glassworks. I’ve put a link to it on the Repertoire Rap page. It goes a little bit like this. Incredibly repetitive, it’s minimalism in its purest sense. This piece is great for working on two versus three rhythms. Two to three, versus the one two, one, two. Some fun technical work there.

You can teach it very quickly as chords. It’s reasonably quick to learn once the students get the hang around the rhythm. I find that it’s quite an appealing piece to listen to. Now, someone’s mentioned Chariots of Fire. One of these books has Chariots, which one is it? I should have mentioned that.

Chariots of Fire is in this one, Greatest Themes From the Movies. Let’s see if it’s the real version. Ah yes, I think so. Yeah, I can’t really do the drums and play at the same time. That’s in this book, Greatest Theme From The Movies. I haven’t played every piece in these books, so do go online and check their listings, so you can find out what’s actually in them. That’s the full list of pieces just in this book. I’ve really just chosen a few selections. Definitely check that one out.

The last one I want to show you is a book called Coldplay for Classical Piano. Right? This is the Philip Keveren series. He’s rearranged Coldplay pieces in a classical style. He’s given them some real pianism, and obviously, some different styles. This is In My Place. I’ll just play a couple of selections from him, see if you recognize this one. Little bit rough that one. That was In My Place.

I also liked Atlas. I think this one will really appeal. It’s got this flowing right hand arpeggio, Adele style thing going on. That’s a piece of music from the Hunger Games, Catching Fire. That will appeal potentially to a lot of teenagers. The other one I thought would be good, let me just check my bookmarks. I haven’t book marked this. There’s Clocks, there’s a version of Clocks. You know, it’s so done, I wouldn’t necessarily worry about that one. Although, a student might want to learn that.

The other one I think is kind of cool is, Fix You. This is one of my favorite Coldplay songs, and it goes a little bit like this. What I think Philip Keveren has done with the Coldplay music is really create some dedicated piano, pianistic, piano arrangements of it. An intermediate to early advanced level, so they’re a good challenge, and I think students will really enjoy them, because they’re all songs that they will have heard on the radio. They already know those songs, a great one to use.

That was a book called, Coldplay For Classical Piano, arrange by Philip Keveren. Again, the links for all these books that I’ve been talking about, any discounts that I’ve been able to find for you is at Timtopham.com/rap, R-A-P. Please check that out and make sure you grab any of those discounts. There’s definitely one for Noviscore and people buying Hal Leonard, if you’re in Australia, they’ve given me a little discount to share with you there too.

Okay, I think that’s really what I wanted to cover today. I don’t want to give you too many books. I know we’re all really busy and I don’t want to overwhelm people with too much information. I think with those three or four books in your collection, you’ll be able to really inspire and engage and keep your teenagers and your adults very interested in music. As I said, right at the beginning, if you missed it, I’m not advocating that we ditch every style of music and just teach Ludovico Einaudi. Unless, that’s something that the student is … You know, if they’re an older student and that’s really what they want to do, then maybe that’s okay. I always advocate from a mix of activities and a mix of styles of music in lessons.

As you know I love the whole, let’s play as much repertoire as possible during the course of a year. Let’s explore a whole repertoire of all different levels. If your student is playing at this level and that’s their grade six, or whatever, then they should be playing lots of music at grade one, two, and three level, and just exploring repertoire, okay?

Please do keep that in mind, I would love your feedback on this. Getting some comments coming through, thanks Biff and Caroline, it’s awesome to see you guys on the call today. Please take the chance now, if you can share this I would really, really appreciate it. It would be a fantastic help for me to keep spreading the word about, well, it’s good music right? We want to keep as many students playing piano for as long as possible. If we can really hook them in with some great music by one of these composers, then you know, we’ve done part of our job, right?

All right, I think that’s all from me, thanks again today, it’s been just over half an hour, which I think is probably a good amount of time. Go grab a coffee, or a glass of wine wherever you are in the world, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. See you.

Have Your Teens Always Got Something Better To Do?

Let’s face it, most teens can always find something to do instead of practise piano.

With pressures from school, sports and other activities alongside the always-on social networking aspect of their lives, encouraging teens to engage in a solitary activity that requires serious focus and effort can be a hard sell.

That’s where this post comes in: I’m going to discuss some ideas to get teens fully engaged in their piano practice by getting them to do something else entirely.

Another Post on Teen Motivation?

Yes! We all know that teens are not some homogeneous group for which just one magical method will work. One approach may not always work even on the same teen!

We need a wide variety of methods in our teacher’s toolkit to engage and motivate our students. The ideas in this post are to help you with students who love being online and who enjoy messing around on their phones, tablets and laptops (I think that’s every teen isn’t it?!! -Ed).

The premise: choose an idea that fits what your student already loves doing (aside from playing the piano!) and soon you should find yourself motivating them to practise!

Blogging

For the teen that also has a talent for writing, setting them up with a blog writing challenge can provide structure and motivation for their practice.

Students could document their struggles and successes with learning particular pieces, record their explorations of different recordings of said pieces, research historical or biographical information about the composer or artist and even log their practice for technical exercises.

Direct benefits for your students include:

reflecting on their learning, which in itself can help them improve
being able to look back over time to see just how much progress they have made
having a reason to keep practising…after all they can’t let their fans down!

Piano Practice Blog Handout is a handy worksheet I give to my teens to get them started on blogging. Having a structure with prompts to think about can help them get past that overwhelming blank space in a new blog post. As this is aimed at students who are already keen writers, I haven’t included any sentence starters, but this is something else you could add for the right student.

Whilst many teens are probably blogging in ways and on sites that we haven’t even heard of yet, some of your students may need a suggestion. WordPress is an ever-popular platform and allows you to set up a free blog. Here is a video you could share with your students if they need some help getting started on WordPress:

An alternative and simpler approach would be to get your students to set up a Facebook page to serve as a blog for their piano practice adventures.

Once you have a teen or two producing blog posts you could ask them to share it with the other students in your studio. This would be so motivating for both the bloggers and the readers. It’s great to see that other students also have to work hard and to learn from them how they overcome challenges.

I love getting students to reflect and feedback on their learning. They invariably offer up some really charming comments and often share insights into areas I’d not even considered. I really believe you can always learn a lot from your students! This can even provide great feedback for you on your teaching.

Vlogging

A variation on the idea of blogging – but this is video blogging, that is, filming videos rather than writing posts. This idea of vlogging would be great for students who love to film the action in their lives, whether on their phones, digital camera or video camera.

There are two main options that I would ask students to choose from:

Creating a practice journal, covering similar material to that suggested in blogging. They can also document their actual practice sessions as they happen, not just in retrospect.
Creating a series of videos to explain points of piano technique.

Encourage your students to plan what they will say as this will be more likely to lead to a watchable video.

For this practice motivator, students could set up their own channel on You Tube or again, make use of Facebook, setting up a page on which to post their videos.

As a variation on the theme of blogging, many of the benefits of vlogging are identical to those for blogging. There is, however, the additional advantage of getting students to produce recordings of their playing. Being able to see how they look when they are playing can, where necessary, help them to improve their posture and hand position.

Regularly listening to their own playing will really help students to develop good listening skills and to understand what they are actually playing and thereby, how to improve their performance. Further, students who tackle the technique videos should learn a great deal about their chosen areas.

Teaching others is one of the best ways to ensure that you properly understand something.

I’ve had students who videoed their piano practice find they are really quite shocked at their posture, having had no idea what they looked like when playing the piano. I’ve also had students make great progress on tricky passagework once they had to record and listen to themselves regularly.

I do like to encourage students to record their practice every week anyway, using a voice recorder app on their phones, but by undertaking a vlogging project students actually make the recordings and, crucially, have to listen to what they were playing too whilst going through the editing process.

Photo Blogging

If you’ve got students who are photo-philes, set them a project of taking pictures of tricky passages, awkward hand positions, impressive sounding chords… in fact anything to do with learning the piano that catches their eye. They can upload to Instagram or Flickr or even Facebook straight from their phones, building an interesting record of their piano practice.

These sites again provide great social networking opportunities so do encourage them to share with the other students in your studio. It is really rewarding and encouraging for students to get “likes”, shares and comments on their work.

Not sure about these sites and how they work? Just google them for more information.

Safety Online

Life online sadly isn’t always friendly. Here is a great site from Australia about staying safe online and here is a similar one from the UK. I would strongly recommend sharing these with your students (you can suggest they make their posts private) as well as talking to your students’ parents about what you are asking them to do.

I hope that you have found an idea or two here that you can use with your students. Admittedly, not all teens are interested in technology but for those that are, I like the way that these strategies tap into both their interests in technology and social networking.

As they share their progress online with other students they can get positive feedback and reinforcement, encouraging them to continue practising.

For more ideas on working with teens take a look at this free toolkit or some of the many excellent articles found here.

What Do You Think?

Do you think this would work in your studio? I would love to hear how you get on – please let me know in the comments below and of course, please share if you have any further ideas for motivating teens to practise.

piano music for teens

Never content to sit back and relax, Daniel McFarlane, a prolific Australian-based composer of contemporary piano music for students, has recently released a collection of new books called Groovy Beats.

As you know, I’ve been a fan of Daniel’s music for some time now and featured his music in a number of previous posts, including Piano music for boys | 15 of the best pieces by Daniel McFarlane. I’ve spoken about his music at conferences and have always been thoroughly impressed by the way in which my students gravitate towards his pieces.

His pieces are pedagogically sound and lots of fun to play and teach. Concepts are introduced sequentially and his music is often based on patterns and chords, providing plenty of opportunity to teach about the importance of chords in the structure of music. Not to mention the fun and repetitive rhythms, strong supporting bass notes in the left hand and memorable melodies he continues to compose.

Put simply, his music is some of the most engaging teaching music around.

If you like Christopher Norton, you’ll love Daniel McFarlane! @nortonatwork @danielmcfmusic

Click to Tweet

Supersonics – where it all started

If you’re new to Daniel’s music, the first thing to do check out this welcome video and FAQ here on his music website: Supersonics Piano.

Daniel’s first collections of music were his Supersonics Collections – Levels A, B and C (graded by difficulty). He’s now offering these in value pack form, saving you 15%.

Basically, for just over $100, you get the content of all three books (over 60 pieces) that your students are going to love and you’re going to be able to use these pieces in your studio for ever with as many students as you wish.

Keep in mind that these are digital downloads, so once you’ve paid for the pieces online, you’ll get instant access to a download link from where you can print out your pieces.

If you want to hear his pieces and see the music before you buy, just head to his Digital Sheet Music page where you can browse by level of difficulty and see the scores and recordings.

What’s Groovy Beats all about?

Daniel has just released a new collection of pieces called Groovy Beats which are particularly going to inspire your teenage and adult students. Likewise, these are collections that boys are really going to enjoy.

There are four books in the Groovy Beats series, which includes both new releases and some of his favourites from other collections. Each book is $9.99.

I can’t believe it, but he’s selling a Groovy Beats MegaPack now for just $33.97. He’s almost giving it away at that price! The music ranges from Early Intermediate through to about Grade 4 level and you’re going to get so much use out of this music due to his studio licensing agreement (see below).

The pieces are rhythmic, exciting and harmonically interesting and will be fun to teach and play.

Make sure you take a look at Groovy Beats while the offer lasts!

Studio Licensing

Daniel recently decided to make all his music available under a studio-wide licence.

What this means is that teachers only have to pay for music once and then they are freely able to reproduce it for any number of students in their studios for life.

Let me say that again: Teachers only have to pay for music once and then they are freely able to reproduce it for any number of students in their studios for life.

This has to be the best offer in music publishing around. Here’s what Daniel says about it:

As a special bonus for teachers all my pieces are studio-licensed. I love that my music is enjoyed all around the world and the combination of instant digital downloads with studio licensing is the best way for me to reach everyone. Great for teachers as you can get your music immediately and use my pieces again and again. Great for me as I’m not forever running off to the post office! Great for the environment as my business’s carbon footprint is greatly reduced.

Not only will this be a great resource for your students generally, but this kind of licensing is going to be perfect if your students are completing the 40 piece challenge or need extra sight reading material. You’ll never be short of music again.

Stay tuned for a post later this week about my thoughts on Daniel’s Studio Licensing arrangement.

New lifetime discount offers for teachers

If the above deals aren’t good enough to convince you to check out his music, Daniel is now also offering teachers lifetime discounts on their purchases when they spend certain amounts on his online store.

For example, once you’ve spent $150 at his store (in one or multiple transactions), you’ll be entitled to a 10% discount on all future purchases, for life!

I wish some other music retailers would offer incentives like this. To take advantage of this offer, just purchase from his store – the software will take care of the rest. Perfect!

What have you got to lose?

As you can tell, I’m a huge fan of Daniel’s work and I can’t believe the deals he is offering. I’ve seen first-hand how many students he’s been able to inspire and the positive comments I get from other teachers, students and parents about how much their students are loving his music.

His pieces are particularly great to have up your sleeve if you have a student that is starting to lose motivation (I’m thinking teenage beginners), for special recital themes and music to use around a student’s core exam/performance repertoire.

Are you in the Supersonics Facebook Group?

If you’re considering using Daniel’s music or have already got folders of Supersonics sheets, then you must make sure you get involved in the Supersonics Facebook Group where you can join over 300 other teachers discussing all things music and teaching-related:

This group was formed to discuss Supersonics Piano pieces. You can post questions regarding teaching Supersonics pieces, how and why a particular piece was composed, request new compositions and chat with the composer and other like-minded teachers and musicians about general piano matters. (Daniel McFarlane)

Leave your comment

Got a favourite piece by Daniel? Leave the name of the piece below so that others can check it out when they go to his website.

Please note that links in this document are affiliate links; I receive a small commission if you choose to buy Daniel’s music. I only ever recommend music, products and services that I have thoroughly tested and continue to use regularly in my studio. If you have any questions, please contact me.

How do you motivate teen beginners?

We all know that video games are pretty popular with teens, particularly boys. So trying to convince them to do their piano practice when there are far more fun things to be doing online can be a real challenge.

Enter PianoMaestro – a really handy app that basically turns learning piano and piano practice in general into a video game.

If you’ve ever taken on a teenage beginner and found that they quickly lose interest learning to read music because it seems such a slow and boring process, then stay tuned for this! Motivating teens just got a whole lot easier.

What’s PianoMaestro about?

Use can use this app as a whole starting curriculum for students or just as an extra bonus in lessons. You can use it to learn classical music, pop music or to practise sight-reading. I’ve found it’s incredibly versatile and really popular with students.

It will appeal to pretty much all ages as well. While it’s probably designed for around ages 8-12, I’ve found it works equally well with teens and even adults.

Advantages

While I’ve only just begun exploring the app, I’ve been using it most with my male beginner students aged about 13-15. Used in this way, it’s a bit like an interactive version of a method book, but with heaps of advantages, including:

The video-game like interface providing increasing challenge and unlocking new levels,
Instant feedback and online scoring providing motivational reasons to keep practising,
Great backing tracks means that simple one or two note melodies are far more exciting to learn, and
The app is constantly updated with new music so it’s far more relevant than any printed method could ever be.

Here’s a quick 8-minute introduction of how I use PianoMaestro to get my students motivated. Please be aware that this is just a small introduction to how this app works.

Links referred to in the video:

Facebook Group: JoyTunes Teachers (closed group – ask for access)

Added benefits

As I said, these are just the basics. There are heaps more things to explore in this app, including:

Library – Piano Pronto and Alfred method books digitised and incorporated into the app. Supersonics Piano to come!
Summer Camp – Songs that progressively unlock and allow students to teach themselves in a guided multi-step practice process.
Exercises – scales, warmups, etc.
Song library – search by name, genre, etc. Lots of great pop music and songs/pieces of all styles and levels of difficulty.
Sight-reading – Students will find it extra fun because not only do they get to use their iPad, they also get a backing track to play along with. Best of all: students have to keep going when they sight-read to a backing track, so no stopping and fixing errors!

Check out more how-to videos on the JoyTunes YouTube Channel.

Download it and get started today – it’s totally free for teachers and students.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary download of this app for review purposes. I was not required to write a favourable review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own.

quitting your studio

Teenagers and Technology – a match made in heaven

This is the last article in a 3-part series I’ve been writing about retaining and motivating teenage piano students.

This week, in the final part of the series, we’ll discuss how keeping up with technology can help you motivate and retain teenagers in your studio.

The initial idea for the series was borne out of feedback I received from readers of my free Teen Teaching Toolkit eBook. I found that despite their best efforts, many teachers didn’t know how to connect effectively with their teenage students and couldn’t work out why they were losing them to other activities.

I’ve already covered two key reasons that teens quit piano:

Part 1: They aren’t playing music they want to play

In the first part of the series, I discussed that teachers of teenagers have to be open to teaching the music their students want to play.

Part 2: They don’t see the relevance in their lessons

In Part 2 of the series, I explained that teenagers also need to see the relevance in what they are doing and their lessons have to be practical and useful. To them. Now.

This week, in the final part of the series, we’ll discuss how keeping up with technology can help you motivate and retain teenagers in your studio.

Bach v Xbox – how can you win?

Technology is a great motivator for today’s adolescents.

If you’re trying to get students to choose between 30 mins of Bach practice hands separately with a metronome and 30 minutes on their Xbox, you’re going to lose every time!

But what if they got to learn their favourite pop songs by playing along to the full band and vocals on their iPad for 30 minutes? Or if they got to practice their jazz improv by playing along with a bass and drums? How much more engaged could they be?

I’m not saying that learning Bach isn’t a good idea for the right student; rather, incorporating aspects of technology is what this post is all about. You don’t have to revolutionize everything that you’re doing in your lessons – small changes can have a lasting impact.

What if I don’t have an iPad?

OK, so I know that not everyone has an iPad. However, I’m hoping that if you’re reading an article like this and you don’t have one, you’re probably at least thinking about it. While I’m not here to convince you to buy an iPad, if you’re looking for ways to keep your teens engaged, I think it’s a ‘no-brainer’.

That said, not everything is about the iPad either. YouTube is a great resource and allows you to do far more than just watch and upload videos. Check out my post about creating playlists for students, for example. There is also plenty of free online music software on the web that you can use: notation software (eg. Noteflight), aural training software and music games.

So, how do you get a start motivating your teens with technology?

Here are my top 3 tips for using technology to inspire your teens this week:

1. Get stuck into Notestar!

The free Notestar app by Yamaha is probably the app I use more than any other when it comes to teaching teens. Notestar provides backing tracks with full vocals for all the latest pop songs. It is updated regularly when new material is released and has lots of the 60s, 70s and 80s included, as well as the latest releases. You’ll even find Baroque and Classical music on there (try playing along to a string section for Canon in D!). While the app is free, songs are about $4 to download. However you can download the first 30 seconds of every song in the catalogue for free to check out whether you’d like it and to see how easy/hard the music is to play.

Notestar is perfect for kids who are learning to play chords and who want to play pop music as it makes otherwise boring chord progressions much more interesting. The on-screen music has printed notation and chord charts so students who can’t read music can still play by chords. There is also a feature to change the music to any key and also play at 3/4 and 1/2 speed while practising.

Tip: This week, download and explore the app and the catalogue of music available. Get a feel for how it works and which of your students might enjoy using it. Test it out yourself and then try it out on one of your teenage students.

2. Find out about how other people are using iPads by reading blogs, magazines and following discussion threads.

I don’t claim to have all the answers when it comes to iPads and I’m always on the lookout for new app recommendations from others. When it comes to buying an iPad and downloading apps, it pays to do some research. Here are some of my favourite resources:

The iPad Piano Studio (blog and book).
App recommendations: FPS Resources – iOS App List, Best iPad apps for Piano Teachers and Music Apps for the iPad
iPad Piano Teachers’ Facebook Group
Clavier Companion, Pianist and International Piano are all industry magazines that feature articles about technology.

Tip: If you haven’t already done so, get a Facebook account and sign up for the groups that I recommend in my post: Top 4 Facebook Groups for Piano Teachers. This is one of the best ways to keep current with trends in music, technology and teaching (and meet teachers from around the world). Set aside a couple of hours this weekend and start doing some research and experimenting at home with apps. You’ll be amazed at what you find.

3. Set engaging practice goals using technology

While many of your teens may have no issue with motivating themselves to practice, there will always be some in your studio who would benefit from a boost. Here are some great practice motivator apps:

Scale Blitzer, an Australian app, is one of the best apps for encouraging students to practice scales. Set students some scales to work on and the app will do the motivating for you! It even has an international leader-board of top scores – great for those with a competitive edge.
MusicFlashClass is a great app for note recognition. I often ask students to spend 10 minutes on this a day while they are learning the notes on the stave. Both have competitive settings with time limits and count-downs that are great for teens. PianoNotesPro allows students to do the same thing using their MIDI keyboards. It even has a setting that allows students to practice chord inversions, not just notes.
Motivating exam students to practice their aural skills can be like pulling teeth! To encourage them, try using one of the following apps: ABRSM, AuralBook, Auralia.

Tip: If you have students preparing for exams, trial one of the aural or sight-reading apps and show students how to practice with them at home this week. If you have teens learning to read music, allocate them some time on MusicFlashClass or PianoNotesPro every day at home.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series about motivating teenagers in your studio. They can be such a fun bunch of students to teach and so rewarding when you connect effectively and can make a real difference in their lives.

While sometimes challenging, I get enormous pleasure from inspiring children to play the piano. I remember how much I enjoyed learning music through high school, the kudos I received as a piano player from my peers and the pride expressed by my parents and family. To be able to give that same gift to another young person is priceless.

For even more teaching tips and ideas, don’t forget to get a copy of my free Teen Teaching Toolkit.

Good luck and please get in touch with me if you have any questions.

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 1

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 2

Why write about teens?

I decided to write a short series about teaching teens because there seems to be a lot of teachers out there for whom teaching teens is becoming a bit of a struggle. You might have read their posts on piano teaching groups, wondering aloud why teenagers don’t want to have lessons any more:

“I let them learn ‘The Entertainer’ but they still want to quit. I don’t get it – isn’t that a ‘cool’ piece? All my students start with Alfred’s Primer Book A – why should teenagers be any different? Who doesn’t get their students to learn “Dozen a Day” every week? What’s wrong with Baroque music – that’s all I learnt when I was a student! Why can’t they spend 30 minutes a day practising scales? Why do they want to play this video game rubbish? I can’t possibly teach pop music! Playing jazz isn’t as important as classical music anyway…”

Thankfully, it only takes a few simple ideas and resources to change your thinking about teens and to keep them motivated in their studies and your studio.

Part 1: Teaching students the music they want to play

In the first part of the series, I discussed that teachers of teenagers have to be open to teaching the music their students want to play.

I gave readers three tips in Part 1 that they could immediately try in their studio:

Ask your student what he/she would like to play and be open to teaching it – even if it’s outside your comfort zone.
Make sure you have LOTS of cool repertoire up your sleeve.
Admit that you don’t know everything when it comes to music!

In this part of the series, I’ll be talking about the second reason that teens quit piano: You aren’t making music relevant.

Part 2: Keeping things relevant

Teenagers need to see the relevance in what they are doing and they need to be working towards goals that they set themselves. (With your help, of course!).

If all they do when they come to lessons is show you something they’ve composed, then teach them more about composing. If they always come to lessons having learnt something by ear, encourage it and give them a deeper understanding of harmony and form to enable them to make their own arrangements of melodies they can play by ear.

Andrea Dow, in her article, “How to rescue the unmotivated teenage piano student“, calls these kinds of piano lessons “functional piano lessons”:

What are “functional piano lessons”? They are lessons based on meeting the interests of your student; giving them the specific skills they need to use the piano in a way that motivates them.

I’m not saying that just because Billy likes playing by ear that we should drop all attempts to teach him anything else; rather, use his natural style of learning to motivate and engage him in other aspects of music: eg. reading, composing, improvising, etc., while you work on the thing that motivates him each week to play the piano.

Teens are much more open to doing the “boring” stuff like learning to read music, if it’s part of a lesson that’s based predominantly on their intrinsic motivation and musical passion.

How do you find out what motivates your teens?

If he/she is a new student, just ask. Not all teens will know what they like and some will say, “I don’t know – I’ll just let you choose”, but soon enough you’ll get a feeling for what they like to practice versus what turns them off.

If the student has been with you for a while and is starting to fade, you might have missed the signals. What are they listening to on their iPod when they wait for their lessons? What do they teach themselves when they are “mucking around” at the piano? And what YouTube tutorials have they been watching without telling you? What concert did they most recently go to? Are they in the school band/orchestra/choir/play?

A little research will go a long way!

Here are my top 3 tips for keeping things relevant for your teens this week:

Be “functional” in your approach to lessons. Keep activities short. Teen attention spans are generally pretty short (excepting anything with a screen). Beginner teens in particular are impatient and don’t often know how much work learning piano will take. While they are learning things like music reading and theory, use other techniques to keep them interested: playing pop by ear, using backing tracks (see my article about iPad apps for Piano Teachers), learning pieces from YouTube tutorials, etc. Even 5 minutes on these activities at the start of a lesson will boost their motivation for the week. Try mixing up your lesson content this week and encourage one activity that you don’t normally support.
Teach more than just the notes. Give teens the tools they need to understand music as well as just read it. Teach them about form, harmony, chords, structure, improvising. Listen with them to the music they like and work out how to play it together. Experiment with how to arrange music they like for piano solo. In my opinion, students who really understand music, know how it’s constructed and are able to compose/improvise, are far more likely to play for life. Use every opportunity during music reading to explain the chords underlying the musical structure. Discuss what key the piece is in and what chords form the basis of the composition (refer to the Circle of 5ths). Ready my article: Strategies for Teaching Improvisation to Beginners for more info.
Use metaphors to make connections. Ever wondered how the hours kids spend at sport practice can improve their piano playing? My students in particular seem to understand practice better when it’s related to sport. Questions like, “How was David Beckham able to ‘bend’ the ball into the net? Did he just play games or did he stand in front of the goal and kick 1000s of balls into (and past) the net?”. Of course, the answer is obvious – he isolated the technique before putting it into practice in a game – and that’s directly related to piano practice. Students who need to work on their ability to play fast runs might need to practice scales rather than playing pieces. Need to work on your trills? It’s just like hitting 100 backhand tennis shots in a row before playing your game on Saturday. The opportunity for metaphor goes well beyond sport, of course (actors reciting lines, artists blending colours, pilots using simulators). But in all cases, using metaphors enables teachers to make connections to students’ ‘real worlds’. Try using a sporting metaphor to encourage one of your teens to practice more this week.

I understand that if you’ve never taught students to compose before, this could seem like a daunting challenge. Similarly, perhaps you don’t refer to chords, harmony or the Circle of 5ths when teaching reading. Don’t stress! Just take it in small steps. Set aside perhaps 1 hour per week to research teaching ideas on blogs/Google and try them out in your studio the following week. Click here for a list of what a search for “chords” uncovered on my blog, for example.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing how it goes!

In Part 3 of this series next week, I’ll be talking about the final piece in the teen motivation puzzle: why it’s important for teachers to keep up with technology.

We’ll discuss:

Using technology to enhance lessons, not waste time
How my favourite app can be a real teen pupil-saver
How to make use of a student’s own technology to help with their practice

To ensure you don’t miss the final Part 3, make sure you subscribe to blog updates. If you’re looking for more ideas on motivating teenage students and can’t wait for Part 3, you can also check out my free eBook: Teen Teaching Toolkit – there’s a link to it in the menu at the top.

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 1

Click here for The Real Reason Teens Are Quitting Your Studio – Part 3: Technology

Is it just me or is it getting harder to keep teenagers interested in piano these days?

But, is that the real reason that teens are losing motivation?

Head to Wendy Stevens’ fantastic blog: ComposeCreate.com to read my latest guest post. In Part 1 of this new 3-part series, I share some thoughts and advice about teaching teens that you can use in your studio right away!

Don’t Lose Another Teen » Head to ComposeCreate and read the article now:

The REAL Reasons Teens Are Quitting Your Studio.

Looking for great piano music at a low price with no copy restrictions?

Jennifer Eklund of PianoPronto.com is a busy composer, teacher, presenter and author, well known in America for her Piano Pronto method books.

Towards the end of last year, she released a number of new books of solo piano music suited to adults and teenage intermediate students, around the Grade 4-6 “Piano for Leisure” level (if you’re in Australia).

While her book and download prices are already inexpensive, Jennifer has kindly offered an even better price for readers of topmusic.co. Keep reading for more info!

Cool sheet music for teens

Today I’m going to give you a quick overview of her “Impressions Suite” which has four great works in a contemporary romantic style, and which have worked well for a number of my students. These pieces could easily be used as “own choice” repertoire in ANZCA or AMEB PFL exams or just general repertoire during the year.

To see samples of the music and listen to recordings, check out her online store now.

Best of all, like Australian composer Daniel McFarlane (see Piano Music for Boys: 15 of the best pieces by Daniel McFarlane), Jennifer’s music is available for instant download and comes with a variety of flexible music copying licences.

Unlimited Copy Licence

For just $8.88, you can instantly download the “Impressions Suite” eBook to use with one student. However, if you pay just $22.88, you get an unlimited reproduction licence for life. This means you may copy and print the music in the book as much as you want for your students. Brilliant!

Under this licence, not only can you copy the music, you can scan it and upload to your iPad for reference (still not currently legal under other copyright licences).

I wish more publishers made offers like this!

What do you think?

What are your favourite pieces by Jennifer Eklund?

Technique. Just the word can make students slump in their seats and groan at the thought of “one more scale.”

But imagine if technique didn’t feel like drilling at all—what if it felt like a game?

Here’s the secret: technique is really a brain-training adventure. Every pattern, every finger tap, every careful breath is strengthening neural pathways for timing, precision, and sound awareness.

And when you wrap that work in games, something amazing happens: reward centers fire up, motivation skyrockets, and learning sticks.

Best of all, play works for every age. Little ones giggle through finger “quests,” tweens compete for points, teens chase challenges, and adults finally get to learn without pressure.

Make it playful, and suddenly everyone wins.

Why Gameifying Technique Works

When technique becomes a game, students experience:

Automatic repetition
Games naturally require multiple attempts, which means more synaptic strengthening without feeling repetitive.

Instant feedback
Clear goals and “wins” help students self-correct.

Emotional buy-in
Fun lowers anxiety and increases dopamine. That equals long-term skill retention!

Intrinsic motivation
Students begin asking to play the game instead of waiting to be told to practice.

Gamification isn’t about gimmicks. It’s about creating an environment where the body learns patterns, and the mind associates technique with curiosity, success, and connection.

In other words, something to look forward to rather than something to dread.

Game Ideas by Age Level

Below are some easy ways that you can make technique fun at every stage and age. These don’t require any prep time and are easy to implement!

Ages 3–6: Magic Wand Staccato
Give them a wand, pencil, chopstick—anything “magical.”
Tap the keys lightly and quickly, like casting spells. Say the technique aloud: light + quick = no bouncing wrists.
They feel like wizards. You get beautiful staccato.

Ages 7–12: Scale Dice
Roll two dice:
Dice 1 = scale
Dice 2 = articulation (legato, staccato, blocked chords, accents, forte/piano pattern)
Energy stays high, practice stays varied, and technique gets layered.

Ages 13–18: Metronome Mission
Start slow. Increase tempo by 2–4 clicks each round. They can only “level up” if they play clean, relaxed, and controlled.
Teens love rising against the clock. It’s athletic and satisfying.
Add in another level of fun by using YouTube drum tracks in different styles and tempos

Adults: Coffee Break Challenges
Each day’s “challenge” fits while coffee brews:

10 perfect finger drops
One diaphragmatic breath hold
Four slow patterns with eyes closed

It’s private, peaceful, and rewarding.

The Magic of Play

Technique is not about drilling perfection. It’s about waking up the body’s musical intelligence and building what we like to call muscle memory but it is actually about creating new neural pathways.

When you turn technique into a game, you eliminate the drudgery of doing the exercises and offer a sneaky way to get students to “eat their vegetables” so to speak.

And you, the teacher, get to enjoy the progress and self-awareness that happens when a scale suddenly smooths out, a wrist relaxes, and the student smiles not because they were told they “did it right,” but because they felt the shift inside themselves.

Behind every smooth-running music studio are systems that make daily operations effortless. In this episode, Cheyenne Olson of Cheyenne’s Piano Studio in Layton, Utah, shares how she keeps her business organized, from student registration and lesson planning to billing and communication. Cheyenne walks us through the tools and systems she uses, including Google Drive, Canva, and ChatGPT, to simplify studio management and support her students’ progress.

Cheyenne shared a brief overview of her background and piano studio in Layton, Utah.
How new students typically find her studio through word of mouth, local Facebook mom groups, and her Google Maps business listing.
Encouraging parents to leave Google reviews that help her studio appear in local search results.
How she uses her website’s registration form to manage new inquiries.
The importance of communication during onboarding.
How she uses ChatGPT as a digital assistant to record student progress.
Her studio follows a tuition-based payment structure with consistent monthly payments.
She explained why she no longer offers makeup lessons.
She highlighted her teaching philosophy of letting students learn the songs they love.
How maintaining clear systems and consistent communication has helped her studio.

Links Mentioned

Cheyenne’s website: Cheyenne’s Piano Studio
Cheyenne’s Instagram: @cheyennespianostudio
Cheyenne’s Facebook page: Cheyenne’s Piano Studio

Today’s Guest

Cheyenne Olson is the owner of Cheyenne’s Piano Studio in Layton, Utah. She’s been teaching piano for over ten years and specializes in helping kids, teens, and adults learn to play with confidence and joy- focusing on what she’s most passionate about: teaching students how to play the songs they love.

About Rachel Ehring

Visit her website at RachelEhring.com
Visit her Instagram page: @rachelehring
Visit her YouTube channel: @dreamlavendermusic6694
Visit her Etsy shop at Dream Lavender Music

Thank you for tuning in!

Consider implementing the ideas from this podcast by writing several actionable steps for your teaching practice if it’s inspired you.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other teachers find our show.

Stay updated by subscribing to this show, and get automatic delivery to your device every time a new episode goes live! We publish on Fridays weekly.

TopMusicPro 14-Day Free Trial

TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP 14-DAY FREE TRIAL

Rebecca Singerman-Knight runs a busy teaching in practice in South West London, teaching students from age 3 to 93! She loves teaching young beginners but is also passionate about keeping teens playing throughout the more challenging years. In order to do this, she tailors her approach to each individual student, finding the music and strategies that will work best for them rather than following a set curriculum or method. She also has a number of adult students and finds that this individualised approach works best for them, too.

Sarah Molenaar has built a teaching career that blends tradition with innovation. Based in Ottawa, she balances a thriving studio, published resources, and a passion for helping both students and teachers succeed. In this episode, Sarah shares her top piano apps, from Note Rush to ForScore, and explains how technology, games, and organization strategies can transform lessons into engaging, effective experiences for every age.

Sarah shared her journey from music education studies to full-time teaching in Ottawa, Canada.
How she balances teaching 25–30 students weekly with writing and arranging.
The importance of mentoring new teachers by offering resources and guidance.
Sarah shared how she uses apps for short off-the-bench activities with children under 14.
Why apps like Note Rush make note reading fun and addictive for students.
The value of Rhythm Swing for drilling rhythm patterns with engaging backing tracks.
The benefits of using Boom Cards for practice, though setup can be a challenge for families.
Sarah described the value of MusiClock for improvisation and scale practice with backing tracks.
She highlighted Tenuto and Music Tutor as excellent apps for teens and adults.
Sarah shared why teachers starting with apps should prioritize Note Rush and ForScore.
How ForScore allows annotation during lessons and easy sharing of notes with students.
She highlighted advanced apps like PolyNome for polyrhythms and IMSLP for accessing scores.
How organizing resources, from apps to physical games, helps students stay motivated.

Links Mentioned

Sarah’s website: www.sarahmolenaar.com
Sarah’s free resources: www.sarahmolenaar.com/freebies
Sarah’s Facebook page: Sarah Molenaar, pianist
Sarah’s Instagram page: @sarahmolenaar and @pianostudioevolution
Sarah’s Youtube Channel

Today’s Guest

Sarah Molenaar is a pianist, teacher, and author. She has performed solo recitals, released several albums—including Hommage à Chopin, Undercurrents, and Carols and Classics—and participated in masterclasses by internationally recognized pianists. Holding advanced performance diplomas and a Bachelor of Music degree, Sarah is a certified teacher recognized for her students’ successes in competitions and exams, as well as her own awards for teaching excellence. She is the author of The Advanced Piano Technique Book (2023), with companion volumes in progress, and has also created arrangements for piano four-hands, including You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

About Rachel Ehring

Visit her website at RachelEhring.com
Visit her Instagram page: @rachelehring
Visit her YouTube channel: @dreamlavendermusic6694
Visit her Etsy shop at Dream Lavender Music

Thank you for tuning in!

Consider implementing the ideas from this podcast by writing several actionable steps for your teaching practice if it’s inspired you.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other teachers find our show.

Stay updated by subscribing to this show, and get automatic delivery to your device every time a new episode goes live! We publish on Fridays weekly.

How to Change to Monthly Billing for Piano Lessons

Where to stay in Sydney for TopMusicLive

Teaching Piano Technique

Streamlining Your Studio

Using Technology To Motivate Music Students

Teaching Modern Music

Practice Makes Progress

Creative Repertoire: Musical Mashup

Best Ways To Learn Guitar Faster

5 Guitar Books Recommended For Guitar Teachers

5 Must-Have Books For Guitar Teachers in 2023

Tips For Group Guitar Lessons (I Wish I Knew These When I First Started Teaching!)

Essential Tips For Teaching Better Group Guitar Lessons

How To Become An Online Guitar Teacher & Content Creator – Interview With Chris Brooks

Easy Guitar Lessons for Kids

Guitar Chords for Beginners

Where to stay in Sydney for TopMusicLive

Teaching Piano Technique

Using Technology To Motivate Music Students

Practice Makes Progress

Creative Repertoire: Musical Mashup

Repertoire Remix

The Future of Music Education

32 Ways to Market Your Studio

Teaching Modern Music

Boost Performance Prep With These Recital Ideas

Teaching Improvisation with AI Prompts

3 Improvisation Activities Your Students Will Love

Compose. Improvise. Create

Teaching Preschoolers

When Music Lessons Don’t Go To Plan…Get Creative!

What Music Teachers Can Learn From Chiropractors

Creative Repertoire: Musical Mashup

Repertoire Remix

How To Teach Super Mario Bros. On Piano

How to Create a Piano Lead Sheet from Any Song

40 pieces “Coffee Card” and where to find more repertoire

Should I Be Teaching Piano to Preschoolers?

7 Reasons To Play Music Games During Your Lessons

A Piano Teacher’s Guide To Piano Method Books

How to Teach Creatively Using a Piano Method Book

The Best Aural Piano Activities for Absolute Beginner Piano Students

Product Review: Rockschool Piano Method

How to Make Your Adult Student Feel Comfortable Learning Beginner Piano

Where to Find Piano Sheet Music for Beginner Students

How to Change to Monthly Billing for Piano Lessons

Streamlining Your Studio

Looking To the Future: The Music Teacher in 2050

5 Ways to Market Lessons to Gen Z

Authentic Marketing Is Advertising Without Feeling Awkward

32 Ways to Market Your Studio

Studio Growth Secrets

Build Your Brand with a Party Pitch

ai search results

here's what we found…

Links Mentioned

Today’s Guest

About Rachel Ehring

TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP 14-DAY FREE TRIAL

Thank you for tuning in!

Reason 1: You aren’t teaching them the music they want to play

Ask your student what they would like to play and be open to teaching it– even if it’s outside your comfort zone.

Make sure you have LOTS of cool repertoire up your sleeve.

Admit that you don’t know everything!

Reason 2: You aren’t making music relevant

Reason 3. You aren’t keeping up with technology

Here are easy ideas to incorporate better technology into your teaching:

Conclusion on why teens are quitting piano

Links Mentioned

Today’s Guest

Today’s Sponsor

Thank you for tuning in!

TopMusicPro 14-Day Free Trial

TOPMUSICPRO MEMBERSHIP 14-DAY FREE TRIAL

How Well Do You Know Your Teenage Students?

Build connections when teaching teens

Are You Flexible When Teaching Teens?

How can I be flexible?

Do your teenage students think you’re cool?

I’m too old to be cool