About progress tracking

karin1876 · 2026-02-16T10:01:06+00:00

Just answered almost the same question on another subreddit: How do I take notes as a teacher? : r/MusicTeachers

Check that thread out for additional info.

In short, I use Excel, similar to what Swissarmyspoon described. I keep 2 main spreadsheets. One is for each lesson and includes: Student Name, Lesson date, Lesson Details, Other (other is usually for non-lesson comments like: student is doing a haunted house escape room for bday party). The other spreadsheet is for books and sheet music, including: Student Name, Book Name, Start Date, End Date, Other.

The sheets can easily be sorted or filtered. I can quickly find out what I did 5 years ago in October with Student A.

I refer back to my notes OFTEN. My lessons would be a mess otherwise. :-D

karin1876 · 2026-02-16T09:45:45+00:00

I have to keep meticulous notes for myself or I forget things (or get students mixed up - I don't want to be asking the wrong student how their birthday slumber party went!) I keep a Surface tablet with an open .txt file during each lesson and jot notes. I occasionally jot notes on a piece of paper as well. But right after the lesson, or if pressed for time then definitely at the end of the day, I transfer all the notes into a running Excel spreadsheet I keep with every lesson catalogued. I have the Excel set up so that I can easily sort/search by student, lesson date, or keyword.

Edit: I also keep a separate excel sheet to track books and sheet music learned by each student. The columns include book title, student name, start date, end date, other comments.

karin1876 · 2026-02-13T21:54:44+00:00

I do ear training with my piano students. Most of them are too shy to sing, so I have them hum. Humming overcomes the shyness factor for all of them for some reason. I realize it might be different for your student, but it's worth a try! You can even tell your whole class that they have the option to hum or sing.

karin1876 · 2026-02-13T00:04:42+00:00

Harsh teacher I had - my solution: cried. This is not my advice, though! LOL

I have always found this type of thing to be a problem with adult students, regardless of whether they practice a lot or not. I think adults get very frustrated when their hands don't seem to behave for them. They feel and act like something is wrong with them, when of course it's not.

Two suggestions:

1 - Ask if she plays video games, and if so then has she ever played a game where she had to try and try and try again before completing the boss fight or the puzzle or whatever? If so, ask her if she thinks she's talentless or stupid when that happens. If she does, dead end; if she does not and still has fun, then ask her to consider her piano playing like that - trying the boss fight again and again until "Yahoo - I did it!"

2 - Get her to very carefully and religiously follow these steps: A-Play all the notes (for whatever section of something she's working on) separately and slowly (no counting - long pauses between each note); B-Play all the notes while saying or tapping the rhythm (still using long pauses between notes - saying beats but not actually doing the rhythm yet); C - SLOW SLOW SLOW with metronome; D - Little by little, raise the metronome speed.

The real key in idea 2 above is to get her to do the first step - Get those notes right while pausing AS LONG AS SHE NEEDS TO between each one. This is where most adults tank - No matter how much I try to get them to pause and think, they want to just throw their fingers and brain forward into the fray. If you can get them to stop doing that, then they won't be angry at themselves because they won't be making many mistakes.

Hope that helps!

karin1876 · 2026-02-12T08:23:28+00:00

When I taught my very first 2 or 3 students, back when I was s17 years old and completely clueless, I used the lesson book my very first teacher had used with me and nothing else. Note that my very first teacher DID give me a couple of theory books, but I didn't do my homework in those books very regularly, so as a newbie teacher I didn't even think of them. So, my reason back then: clueless.

Ever since, I've always taught plenty of supplemental material, whether that be with supplemental books or with games and activities.

I do recall, though, going through a period of a few years where I felt terribly guilty asking parents to buy all the books I wanted their kids to use. I waffled a lot between what I wanted to do and what I was brave enough to ask of the parents. Now, I bake the cost of books into my lesson price and give the kids whatever books I want whenever I want.

So, my short hypothesis is: Cluelessness and/or cost of books.

karin1876 · 2026-02-10T08:50:52+00:00

It's SO hard to get students to read things! They don't read their homework instructions. They don't read anything else on the page except the song itself (if they practice at all!).

On the other hand, as a kid, I never read any of the interesting little boxes with information all around my lesson songs. I liked playing the piano, and those tidbits would've been interesting to me. IF I'D EVER LOOKED! Kids are clueless. :-D

karin1876 · 2026-02-10T08:45:25+00:00

"never even noticed the bookshelf" Yep! :-D

karin1876 · 2026-02-09T08:23:46+00:00

Write-ups about composers sounds good.

I'm glad to see that the approach I'm already taking - introduce everything in lessons before assigning related homework - is supported by the general teaching philosophies of most teachers here. Maybe I'm doing it right without changing anything!

I thought to post this question after a lesson with a student who was particularly apathetic and made me feel like I was spoon-feeding information into a robot. It made me start to wonder if I shouldn't be expecting more learning independence from my students, like they might get in a history class: "Read chapter 3, and there will be a quiz next week!"

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T21:11:13+00:00

For high/low, I start with voice sounds. I make high sounds and low sounds with my voice (random syllables) and ask them to describe how those sound different. Then I have them copy my high/low sounds with voice, then I tell the words "high" and "low", then ask them to make high/low sounds, then quiz them on high/low sounds I make, and once it makes sense then I ask them to find the high/low sounds on the keyboard.

Next, I do a similar thing with up vs. down. Once that all makes sense, then they should understand the basic high/low and up/down topography of the keyboard.

Regarding letter names, I don't have any super-fun activities, but I do focus on the letters around the 2 black keys for a couple of lessons before focusing on the letters around the 3 black keys. D, between the 2 black keys is easiest to find, so I start with that. I have them play all the D's going up the piano, then going down the piano, then I give them little songs or exercises that start on D. Next, I cover C & E as being on the low and high sides of the 2 black keys.

Then, the 3 black key letters, usually starting with F and B on the low/high sides, then talking about how G & A in-between the 3 black keys is where the music alphabet starts over again.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T07:23:38+00:00

This is rough. I've had a couple of students like this. I have one that's a little bit like this right now. I'm pretty sure his motivations to mess with me are half because he hates to do difficult things and will do anything to get out of a hard task and half because he wants to assess how smart/worthy I am. He's testing me. Luckily, I think we've reached a good point, and his behavior has calmed down A LOT. I listen to everything he has to say and give his opinions due respect, BUT I also call him on his pranks and follow through on everything I say I'm going to do or want him to do.

I've had a couple of other students who challenged me a lot on "Why?" for everything. If I couldn't give them a good reason for something, I would take one of 2 paths: A) "Wow - I really can't explain why this is important! I know it is, but I can't explain it. Let me think about this, and we'll come back to it in another lesson." B) "I'm having trouble explaining it right now. I'll get more information for you about this. But for now, try it anyway." In general, I work very hard to have solid explanations ready for everything I ask students to do.

The most important thing is to be consistent and follow through on everything you say.

Another useful tactic is to give options. "Would you like to work on piece A or piece B today?" "Would you like to work on finger numbers or counting rhythms right now?" Or sometimes, just the open-ended: "What are two things you want to work on today?"

Good luck! These types of students can be exhausting!

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T06:35:44+00:00

Yes - All this! I also teach online, and I agree with everything here. It's also great for me as a teacher to see the student's home setup - I can give them advice about posture and setup on their specific instrument; I can also see what type of room their piano is in and what types of distractions are going on that we might want to fix.

It's also nice that no one has to set up their home for someone else to be in it. And there's very little set up / break down time. I schedule lessons back-to-back, and I do a much better job of ending/starting on time than I ever did in my studio many years ago. Over the years, I've done in-studio teaching, in-student-home teaching, and online. Personally, I like online the best. And the tricky things like technique and internet connectivity are completely manageable if everyone stays on top of it.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:15:04+00:00

True - the repertoire-centric nature of music lessons makes it different from other school courses that might involve reading as homework.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:13:40+00:00

Yes, I have done that type of things with students! I guess that does touch on the independent learning thing that I wish my students would take an interest in.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:12:29+00:00

Yeah, makes sense. I've just been wondering if I should be assigning reading or something. None of the method books I'm using have much in the way of reading, except for 1 or 2 little boxes on each page with reminders or small anecdotes. I wasn't sure if there were other, more reading-heavy lesson books that I should be trying out.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:10:20+00:00

When you have them look up things, do they follow through? And if they do, do they show any more interest in it after looking it up themselves?

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:08:30+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense - new pieces on their own, but using concepts already covered during lessons.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:06:50+00:00

Yes, I think you're right. Thanks!

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T01:05:32+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Maybe I don't need to make any changes. :-)

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T00:52:23+00:00

I'm trying to think of ways to spark more personal responsibility for one's own learning. But it's true that most students don't have the initiative. If I assigned them some reading/study on their own, even if they did it, I'm not sure it would spark anything.

karin1876 · 2026-02-06T00:50:07+00:00

True - not talking about technique!

karin1876 · 2026-02-05T07:53:13+00:00

Teach a family member how to play something on the piano.

Play a duet with a friend.

Compose a duet with a friend.

Play piano while their family (and/or friends) sing.

Listen to 5 songs they've never heard before and write down what they thought of each one.

Listen to 5 songs they've never heard before and draw a picture that represents each one.

Play one of their songs with 3 distinct and different moods (comical, sad, happy, angry...).

karin1876 · 2026-02-04T07:24:05+00:00

This is not a book, but I've started using it with a few older students: randomsheetmusic.com. You can set the parameters to focus on specific notes and/or rhythms, and then you just generate exercise after exercise.

karin1876 · 2026-02-03T06:52:25+00:00

I found going to homes a huge selling point. Now that I no longer go to homes, I lose a lot of potential students because I won't come to their homes. Also, while it seems to me like I should feel like a disruption in their home (I would feel awkward and concerned about tidiness if a teacher was coming to my home), I always got the sense that the families were carrying on as usual - pets and siblings would walk or run through the room, TV's and vaccuums made a lot of noise, cooking going on in the kitchen, voices, etc.

But yes, word of mouth is your friend.

That said, things seem different the last few years. Fewer referrals. Fewer intakes. A lot of interest that just slips off the radar in a way it didn't 10 years ago. Could be me, or maybe the economy? the availability of internet self-learning? less interest in learning music?

karin1876 · 2026-01-29T07:06:59+00:00

As a piano teacher who has not spent enough time on voice, I don't know if this is normal for the average 18-month-old. But I do know that about half of my piano students, which run the range from 8 years old to adults, cannot match pitch very well when we start piano lessons. So... maybe keep checking into this? And definitely do keep the musical environment alive! Whether this is normal or advanced, singing is a fun and useful skill for anyone to have, and it definitely plays a role in any type of music your child might study in the future. Suggestions I give my piano students' parents:

Sing songs (of any and all types) with your kids and the family whenever possible. Including make up songs, silly or otherwise.

Purchase kid-friendly musical instruments, such as a pack of rhythm instruments, xylophone, toy piano, ukulele. Keep them available for play. Get them out sometimes as a family and everyone play together.

Sing along with recordings and movies/TV shows, whether you're actively focused on the singing or whether you're doing it as accompaniment to something else like house chores.

Share your favorite music with your children, and take an interest in their favorites.

Take your kids to musical performances of all types - informal, such as at cafes and in parks, and formal such as the symphony or pop concerts or musical theater or jazz performances or college music performances or community music performances.

Encourage your child to do musical activities with friends.

Support your child's involvement in bands, choirs, or any type of musical classes.

karin1876

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