7 Essential Qualities Every Music Teacher Should Have
Music is a universal language – it helps us express our thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Teaching music is a joy and every music teacher would agree to that. After all, there’s no better satisfaction than teaching someone the ability to express with music!
But, how do you make sure your lessons are reaching the right ear?
Can you adopt some techniques to significantly improve your music lessons and improve as a music teacher?
Whether you teach guitar, piano, drums, or any type of music instrument – here are 7 essential qualities every music teacher must have to improve retention, increase engagement and make better progress with their students.
Read on to find out now!
1. Strong Aural Ability
This is only one of those fundamental music skills pupils are taught in college by which they are permitted to determine musical elements like the tune, pitch, chords, rhythm, intervals and tone by listening.
As a music teacher, your ears should have the ability to distinguish music. Only when you have a strong ear, you can easily pass on that knowledge to your students.
Ear training is an essential component to teaching and learning music, and is part of music theory at college level.
Thus, you must teach your students to count music, understand tunes, recognize music intervals, identify chords and develop a sense of rhythm.
You can do that by making them sing scales as they practice a musical instrument. Plus, there are many apps to help you train ear and identify music quickly.
2. Sight Reading
As a music teacher or instructor, simply knowing how to play music won’t be enough. You must also learn how to read music.
Sight reading is a technique using which you can read music notations and play along with the written notation or pitches. This is an important aspect for classical musicians, especially if you play in an orchestra or want to teach students who have the same goal.
Learning to sight read music will also boost your confidence as a music teacher. It will give you a holistic ability of teaching and playing that you can pass on to your pupils.
Music is a language – so if you can speak and understand it, you must also learn how to write and read it!
3. Strong Finger Technique
This is a skill if you're supposed to play with musical instruments you want to teach. There are finger placement techniques to each chord that you strike any key or string you perform with.
Developing good finger technique, hand independence and finger strength are essential aspects for every musician. If you teach music, it is a must to understand and master these aspects.
Finger technique also involves teaching your students the right finger to strike a key or a string. This will help them avoid hand strain and develop muscle memory as they learn to play a musical instrument.
Encourage your students to practice exercises to build a strong technique and finger independence as they progress.
4. Absolute or Perfect Pitch
This is an ability that allows an individual to create or determine a sound or a song about some element.
Perfect pitch can be used in combination with ear training, and you can use this skill to teach your students easily.
With an absolute pitch, by hearing a chord or a note, you can recognize and name each. Additionally, it lets you sing in perfection. It will save you mental efforts and time while identifying notes to a song.
Don’t worry if you are not born with a perfect pitch, here is a useful post on how to train your ear to recognize music pitches, intervals and notes better.
Not everyone has absolute pitch, if you can develop this skill as a music teacher, it will help you stand out from the crowd of other teachers.
5. Effective Communication
Effective communication is the key to communicating your concepts successfully.
While teaching music, a good teacher should pay attention to their students and understand if they are facing any issues.
Some students, especially young kids might have difficulty in explaining their problems so the teacher must probe them effectively.
Also, as much as music theory is important, a good music teacher should put more emphasis on the practical art of playing music. Less words, more music should be the mantra.
When the time for feedback and performance review comes, you should keep your communication and messaging short and crisp.
So, while it's crucial to have the ability to communicate point and theories, it's also essential to be effective at concisely doing this to save time, efforts and energy.
Communicating effectively with multiple students can be a challenge for some teachers. If you have many students, you can also consider using an app for teachers that can manage reminders and communication updates automatically for you.
6. Identifying Issues Quickly
Not every student is equal – some may show rapid signs of growth while some can slowdown their pace as you teach music.
Students who are losing interest are more likely to avoid lessons, make excuses and show signs of frustration - these are all signs you must identify early on.
As a music teacher, you must learn how to identify issues quickly. The sooner you can identify a problem or a concern with a student, the faster you can help them get over it.
It could be about their playing technique or their overall attitude towards learning music, the key is to observe signs from early on and ask for feedback. If a particular pupil isn’t very receptive, you can also get in touch with their parent/guardian to assess their performance.
The capability of identifying issues quickly will also help you to be a better music teacher and help your establish trust with students.
7. Belief in your students
All pupils learn at different paces and in a variety of manners. This may signify you need to repeat matters whereas another may grasp the point you're making.
Music teachers need to have the ability to be strict and also have the patience to deal with students.
Teachers need to believe that with study and all the hard work, music can be learnt by everyone.
Your students will learn better if they sense that a relationship developing whether that is through humor, showing you care about their development. It will help them embrace their talents and shortcomings effectively – which will give you a clear picture of their progress and growth.
As music teachers, it is important to believe in every ability or promise a student shows. Even if they don’t, they still deserve your faith and trust as your pupils.
Final Words
Teaching is one of the most rewarding and satisfying profession in the world – as a music teacher, your impact will help spread the joy of music to more ears.
So, who is a good music teacher, you might ask? One who has both talent as well as technique and the above qualities with them.
So, as you progress along your journey of teaching music, make sure to keep the above aspects in mind and make the most out of every lesson you teach.
If you are a music teacher in Delhi-NCR who is looking for students, we recommend you to register with MillonCenters – an online platform that connects learners with teachers and centers near them. Join us now and be found online easily.
Happy Teaching!
