Time Flies - Here's a net!

Okay, so you can't catch time in a net.  However, Marienne Uslzler does give many great strategies for making the most out of teaching time with her book Time Flies...

Once again, I really appreciate her very practical advice on teaching piano lessons.  She also wrote That's a Good Question (which you can find here) about teaching using questions.

This book is filled with many short chapters each with a specific point about teaching piano lessons.  Ms. Uszler advocates using a timeline to ensure that teaching time is effective.  She gives examples of what a lesson could look like without a timeline, as well as several model timelines.  She doesn't expect teachers to follow her timelines exactly, but to sort out for themselves how they will effectively use time and incorporate all the concepts needed in a piano lesson.

The author points out that all piano lessons should include:
*Making Music - This includes playing new and learned material

*Rhythmic Activity - something the student has to respond to in rhythm, not just "count outloud while playing the piece."  This could be echo clapping, clapping with a pulse, imrprovising a song, playing a duet,

*Reading Activity - Sight reading, playing through a new piece

*Listening - listening to the teacher, practicing self-evaluation,

*Technique - exercises that stem from current pieces, scales, other supplements

*Practice Advice - This is one of the most important pieces.  It is essential that students know what and how to practice.

The author spends several pages listing ear and rhythm games for the beginner, elementary student, early-intermediate student, and the mid/upper-intermediate student.  These are extremely helpful ways of putting listening and rhythmic activity into a lesson without taking oodles of time.  I know with my beginners it would be easy to ask them questions even as they are coming into the classroom.  "Are these notes going up or down?  Are these notes getting faster or slower? Can you play this back to me? Clap this back to me."  This takes a short time as opposed to saving 7-10 minutes at the end of our lesson to play a board game.  I found these suggestions helpful, and also thought provoking.  I'm sure after reading these, I would be able to add several more of my own.

There is a chapter with specific examples of how to incorporate practice advice right into teaching time.    There are also other suggestions outside class, such as utilizing a computer lab or a group class to teach and reinforce some concepts to allow for students to spend more time making music in the lesson.

There are other chapters with modifications for advanced students as well.  The book ends with TTM (Talkative Teacher Mode) both what it is, and how to guard against it.  Talkative teachers is often the biggest waste of time.  It may be that there is too much unrelated chatting, but it could be that too much background is given, or the teacher used words the student couldn't understand and had to spend some time explaining.  There are several practical thoughts.

Time always flies, and while this book doesn't give the secret to slowing time down, it does offer many practical and helpful suggestions on how to most effectively use piano lesson time whether that is 30 or 45 minutes, no matter what the age and/or ability level of the student.

This book is available at Sheet Music Plus for $9.50.