Lesson Delivery
Assigning Practice & Homework
The real progress for your student mostly happens in the days IN BETWEEN lessons, so what you send them on their way with largely defines how well they're going to do and how fast they're going to make progress. So here we'll define what to do and what not to do when you're assigning what to practice until you meet with the student again.
Jason Aaron Wood
Lesson instructor:
Professional guitarist, teacher & music education entrepreneur. Teaching since 2008.
Assigning Practice & Homework
When it comes time to send the student on their way until next time, PLEASE do not just hand them something and say "here, practice this until next time" and leave them to their own devices.
This is a terrible disservice that far too many guitar teachers do to their students. Which also gives you a great advantage as their competitor when you don't do that.
Instead, here's what to do:
Don't leave it up to them to figure out what practicing should look or sound like. Show them right in the lesson. Show them how to do it at first, but then also show them how to practice it at home, and get them to do it a few times in the lesson. Then tell them "perfect, now that's exactly what to do when you're at home too." Zero mystery. Now they know exactly what to do.
If you used a backing track, tablature, diagrams, or anything else, make sure they have it at home too. Email it as an attachment, or email the link to where they can download it, that same day, so they have it the next day. They may feel they need that in order to practice (they may very well be right too!), and they may not practice at all if you don't send it.
Don't just assign actions — music is very much a mental activity. You're teaching them a topic, but you're also teaching them how to think in order to be able to do things they've never done, at a level they've never done them, and that requires learning how to think in ways they may have never thought before. So make sure they know what they're listening for and what to focus their attention on WHILE doing the assignments.
A chart that they can follow and go right down the list is infinitely better than just telling them "practice what we did here today" and expecting their memory of this unfamiliar topic to be as clear as yours is on the topic. Providing a visual practice chart with indications of how long they should practice each thing, and what to think about when doing each one, will help refresh their memory and keep them on track.
Remember, every time you sleep, it erases a little bit of your memory, especially for things you're just newly learning, so they're going to be foggy on the details of exactly what was said and done in the lesson in the days after the lesson.
Start off showing them how to do the basic thing, but be sure to identify what's going on technique-wise, theory-wise, and rhythmically to make that happen.
Then show them what happens if you change one or more of those things. I like to use the phrase "what if..." for this — "what if we play this as triplets instead of sixteenths?" "What if we play this in harmonic minor instead of natural minor?" "What if we do as many hammer-ons and pull-offs as possible instead of picking every note?" "What if we use palm muting for every note except the accents?"
These questions don't have concrete answers — they are really introducing problem-solving into their thought process to come up with an answer that meets the critera. And THAT will make them better musicians the more they do it.
Fostering self-sufficiency like this is giving your students what they really came to you for, and this will produce results — and with results, success stories for you to share & celebrate — much faster than the uninvested "here, practice this" approach of ages past.
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Components of a Teaching Business
Defining Your Niche & Target Student
Subscription vs. One-Off Lessons
Crafting Clear Cancellation & No-Show Policies & Providing Replacement Lessons
Advance Payment & Subscription Models
Your Teaching Website
Platform Comparison: WordPress, Patreon, & Udemy
Booking & Content Access Tools
Gear & Studio Setup
Talking On Camera
All Things Green Screen
Quick Editing & Export for Web
In-Person vs. Virtual Formats
Efficient Content Reuse
Assigning Practice & Homework
Improving Teaching Away From Lessons
Teaching Different Skill Levels
Local Outreach & Flyer Design
Online Promotion: YouTube, Social Media & Your Email List
SEO for Your Business
Teaching Philosophy & Student Connection
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