20 Ways to Motivate Teen Piano Students to Want to Play the Piano
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Visit musicmotivation.com to learn more Watch videos and free piano lesson on YouTube.com/jeraldsimon COOL SONGS! Music Motivation® with music mentor Jerald Simon 20 Ways to Motivate Teen Piano Students to Want to Play the Piano Visit my website for FREE resources: http://musicmotivation.com/shop Learn why I compose COOL SONGS to help motivate piano students of all In the next few pages ages - especially teens: http://musicmotivation.com/coolsongs of this resource, you will find 20 ideas to Subscribe to youtube.com/jeraldsimon to watch free piano lessons. help motivate your Listen to my music on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and all streaming teen piano students. I sites and online radio stations. have also included 20 I have also created various PDF books, spiral bound, and paperback FREE COOL SONGS I books featuring original music I have composed as well as poetry books have composed to help motivate teen featuring original poems I have written and self help/motivational books piano students have and resources to help others do their best! fun playing the piano! Purchase my COOL SONGS Bundle: https://www.coolsongsclub.com musicmotivation.com/coolsongs Copyright © 2018 Music Motivation® !1 Visit musicmotivation.com to learn more Watch videos on YouTube.com/jeraldsimon COOL SONGS! 20 Ways to Motivate Teen Piano Students to Want to Play the Piano by Jerald Simon 1. Ask teenagers what they want to play. It’s simple, but true. Teenagers don’t want to feel as though they are being forced to do something they don’t want to do. If it is their idea, they are more excited about it and follow through with what they have decided to do. Every piano student is different! Find out what makes them unique and that will make all the difference in how you teach them and also in how they learn. Spend the first few minutes of each lesson connecting with your piano student. What did they do at school? What are they learning? What are their interests and hobbies? Do you know what they want to be and do when they grow up? What makes this student different from everyone else? Along this frame of thought, your piano students want and need a personal piano teacher. It’s okay to be a little bit informal and have FUN with students. Don’t be all business when teaching. I have seen far too many teachers be a bit too professional to the extent that there is no room to be personal and they cannot connect with their students on a meaningful level. The students, in return, don’t feel a connection with the piano teacher. Be professional, but be a friend and mentor to your piano students. 2. Find out what music your teenagers listen to and ask if they would like to learn their favorite music – with or without sheet music. Every month they should select and work on a piece of their own choosing that is something they listen to and enjoy. Sometimes simply listening to the music on their phone or iPod encourages and motivates them to play the piano every day (notice I did not say practice). Help students learn to play the piano every day and set daily goals to accomplish and improve. It’s about progress. Keep moving forward! 3. Along with the previous suggestion, ask students to come up with at least three to five weekly goals and monthly goals. These musical goals can give them direction. Sometimes students need an overview or game plan to give them the direction they need. I created a personal road map for my own piano students that I call the Music Motivation® Mentorship Map (you can download a copy by clicking on the image of the map at the end of this section). Along with this music map is the checklist of exercises (scales and chords). I encourage my piano students to learn from my book Essential musicmotivation.com/coolsongs Copyright © 2018 Music Motivation® !2 Visit musicmotivation.com to learn more Watch videos on YouTube.com/jeraldsimon COOL SONGS! Piano Exercises. It’s something I created for my own piano students to give them a sense of direction and what I hoped they would work on and learn each year. I often call it a road map because it points them in the direction we are heading. Simply having them take a few moments at the beginning of the month to write out what they would like to accomplish that month will help them learn to direct themselves. It’s not about the teacher telling them what to do and giving them hundreds of little step by step procedures. It’s about a music mentor guiding them so they can direct themselves and learn to depend more on themselves and less on the teacher. Again, this is not teacher directed - this is helping the teenagers tell you where they are and where they would like to go musically. You can also encourage them in setting goals in other areas of their life as well. 4. Teach the following styles: Pop, Rock, Jazz, Blues, Ragtime, Country, Big Band, Show Tunes, New Age, Hymns, Techno, etc. An occasional classical piece is fantastic, but most students at this age are wanting to learn to play music they can perform for their friends. It’s what they know and love. High school age students tend to do very well with classical music and enjoy it more, but for whatever reason, Jr. High School age students, especially teenage boys, do better if they temporarily focus on other styles of music and have an occasional classical piece here and there than the other way around. I have had several students come to me who were adamant about quitting piano because they “hated everything to do with piano.” It was not true at all! They did not like the classical pieces they were playing. That was all. Help students play many varied styles of music and learn to appreciate all styles. Most of my piano students who “hated” classical music when they were in Jr. High School begged me to play classical pieces in High School. It’s only a stage and phase, and they might come around eventually and enjoy playing classical pieces again. We just can’t lose them in the process! I personally love playing classical music and was classically taught. I enjoy playing all styles of music and want the students to become familiar with all styles. More often than not, the students are not familiar with a certain style because it is not what they listen to at home. This becomes a perfect opportunity to gain a little musical experience with different genres and styles. 5. Teenage piano students enjoy changing things up! I think we all do as well. We all need to change things up every now and then so we don’t remain stagnant. With change comes new growth because we are being pushed to do things that stretch us and help us (hopefully) become better. If we don’t accept change, we will remain as we are. Without change we cannot progress and improve. Do some of the following all the time and in a way to keep them on their toes. Your students will never know what you will do next. This helps them stay engaged, and it keeps the piano lessons interesting musicmotivation.com/coolsongs Copyright © 2018 Music Motivation® !3 Visit musicmotivation.com to learn more Watch videos on YouTube.com/jeraldsimon COOL SONGS! for you as a teacher/parent, and for the piano student as well. Change the format of what is taught and how it is taught. Here are some ideas and suggestions: Have the student play their piano music on conga or bongo drums. The treble clef is played with the right conga/bongo drum and the bass clef is played with the left conga/bongo drum. This is great for working on rhythms. Turn the music upside down and have the students play their piano music this way. This is fantastic for sight reading. What was the bass clef is now being played as the treble clef with the right hand and what was the treble clef is now being played as the bass clef with the left hand. Play a melody on another instrument (recorder, saxophone, guitar, bass, banjo, etc.) and have the student try to reproduce the melody on the piano. This is great for ear training. Teach with technology (use digital recorders, computers, camcorders, internet, phones, tablets, apps, etc.). Watch YouTube video tutorials with your students and encourage them to watch YouTube video tutorials at home. This is the way the majority of teens get their information. You may as well direct them to videos and channels you approve and recommend for them to watch as many as they want. Watch my videos at youtube.com/jeraldsimon. If students begin to lose interest in the pieces they are working on (it happens to everyone), it’s not a bad thing. Simply choose a new piece and start over. There is no need to keep playing something the student doesn’t enjoy and the teacher can’t stand listening to any longer. Move on! Watch a video on YouTube or listen to an MP3 of a song of the student’s choice and have them try to play the melody followed by the harmony or chord progression of the piece. Again, this is great for ear training and helps them learn how to play by ear. Teach composition and arranging.