Pedagogy
blog posts

Teach music confidently without the stress

Recent Guitar Pedagogy Creativity Repertoire Beginners Studio Business

by Georgina Wilson

Teaching preschoolers seems terrifying to me. I love teaching the piano to kids. But the youngest student I’ve ever taught was 6. Teaching preschoolers seems like a completely different (and, if I’m honest, intimidating!) world.

by Tracy Selle

Teaching preschoolers is a lot of fun and comes with a tonne of benefits (for everyone involved). But it also comes with some challenges. I’m sharing four things I’ve learned along the way, so you can learn from my mistakes! Table of Contents: My Favourite Preschool Story I was walking Katie into her makeup lesson.

by Tim Topham

“Time to get creative!” You probably have a plan for each lesson. You know the piece your student is working on, their next page in the method book, and the steps to take to help them progress. But what do you do when something doesn’t go to plan? Panic. Get creative!

by Tim Topham

Creative marketing has many benefits for music teachers. Rather than advertising and onboarding the same way everyone else does, think outside the box. It’ll make you stand out against your competition and act as a glimpse into how you run your studio.

by Tim Topham

Cohort-based learning is one of our latest additions to TopMusicPro. The huge success of the pilot of the cohort-based TopMusicCertification in 2023 led to this small but significant change. Self-paced learning is great. It gives you the flexibility to dip in and out when you want. But several challenges come with it.

by Tim Topham

A huge thank you to Andrea Dow from TeachPianoToday for the original article. Have you ever taught teenage piano students or transfer students who can either These kinds of piano students take a lot of energy to teach.

Plans & Pricing

by Tim Topham

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.

by Tim Topham

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.

by Georgina Wilson

Making music together is a great topic to talk about. We could tell you why you should include duets, ensembles, and group lessons in your studio…But instead, we’re going to tell you why we love including them in ours! Download TopMusicMag: Making Music Together at the bottom of this article.

by Tim Topham

Have you ever encountered Whole Body Learning? It’s an approach to teaching developed by Paul Myatt, the creator of ForteMusic and Piano Teaching Success. In this article, written by Paul Myatt himself, we’re going to skim the surface of this teaching approach. Looking for TopMusicMag? It’s at the bottom of this article!

by Tim Topham

Student-centered is one of the four TopMusic Teaching Pillars: But what exactly is it? And why should you be teaching student-centered music lessons? Table of Contents What Is Student-Centered Teaching? Put simply, it’s when the student plays a vital role in decisions regarding their musical education.

by Georgina Wilson

Integrated Music Teaching is at the heart of everything at TopMusic. But what exactly is it? We sat down with the main man himself, Tim Topham, to ask him. Table of Contents: Let’s start off strong. What IS Integrated Music Teaching?