Deliberate Practice
blog posts

Teach music confidently without the stress

Recent Guitar Pedagogy Creativity Repertoire Beginners Studio Business

by Tim Topham

In this episode, I’m bringing on one of our TopMusicPro members, Roslyn Walters, to talk about how she is using ideas, lessons and strategies from TopMusicPro in her own teaching. We specifically focus on how she ingeniously integrated our Creativity Kickstarter lessons to teach and explore creative composition and improvisation to her students. Roslyn has ... TC238: Member Spotlight: Roslyn Walters on Creative Composition

by Tim Topham

Have you ever dreamt of having your own app that can help with your own teaching and relationship deepening with students and parents? In this episode, we unpack the wonders of augmenting your teaching through apps with Dan Harvey, the Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Passion.io. Passion.io is a drag and drop, no-code app ... TC236: Using an App to Augment Your Students’ Learning with Dan Harvey

by Melody Deng

Silly Mistakes and How to Get Rid of Them! Hi there, my name is Melody, and I am a piano teacher from New Zealand. I have a studio of about 40 students, with a wide range of ages and abilities, and on the whole are an absolute pleasure to teach. I have been building the ... A Creative Piano Teaching Activity to Encourage Productive Practice

by Tim Topham

You asked and I listened! The number one requested topic from my recent survey, was how to get students motivated to practice. There’s a good reason this is the top concern for piano teachers worldwide, because when students don’t practise, they don’t progress. So, how do we get our students to practice? When students are ... TTTV030: Practice, Motivation and Mindset with Michael Griffin

by Tim Topham

Should 10,000 hours really be the benchmark? You’ve no doubt heard rule of thumb that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of something. The statement originated in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” and, even if you haven’t read it, you’ve no doubt heard the statistic. It has since been used by many authors in discussing high-achievement and ... 1000 Hours to Competence « Music Teacher’s Helper Blog

by Tim Topham

Slow practice: the importance of precisionI was chatting with a colleague at the end of last term regarding teaching students about slow practice. He let me in on a great secret about F1 racing drivers that we should all share with our students...especially the speed demons! At this time of the year in Australia most students ... Take a track walk: getting students to slow down

Plans & Pricing

by Leah Coutts

Self-assessment to Improve your Piano Teaching It’s that time of year when many of us have just received our students’ exam results and sent out progress reports to parents. Tracking student progress is definitely an important activity, but what about our progress as teachers? Is the fact that our students are returning to us next ... Improve Your Piano Teaching through Self-Assessment

by Tim Topham

I was watching a TV program last week called “Test your brain“, a series developed by National Geographic Channel which explores how the mind works. The first episode was all about memory (interesting enough for musicians), but the second episode entitled, “You won’t believe your eyes”, really got me thinking about the effect of visual ... Voyeuristic Practice?! How watching other performers can make you a better player.

by Tim Topham

Deliberate Practice I’ve talked at length in previous posts about the importance of “Deliberate Practice”, a phrase made popular in Geoff Colvin’s brilliant book, “Talent is Overrated”, in making your limited practice time more effective. But can you actually do too much practice? We’ve all heard that “too much of anything is a bad thing” ... Deliberate Play v. Deliberate Practice

by Tim Topham

There comes a time when every pianist has to learn the art of playing louder with one hand than the other in order to bring out a melody, but what’s the best way of teaching this vital skill? You can find pieces that introduce this idea as early as the first method books – often ... Using GHOSTING to balance the hands

by Tim Topham

I recently had the opportunity to take a group of my students to watch a master class at Melbourne’s Xavier College where a colleague had arranged for the acclaimed London-based teacher and performer Julian Jacobsen, to work with six of his students and those from local schools. The main thing I got from this experience ... The best practice: nothing at all

by Tim Topham

One of the hardest things about effective, deliberate practice is knowing when to stop! Have you ever experienced this situation: You decide to work on a small phrase of your music, perhaps just a bar or hand position change to a tricky chord, only to find a few seconds later, you’ve already gone on and ... The hardest thing about practice is…not playing on!