The Fastest Way to Learn a Musical Instrument Guaranteed

In your Musician’s Practice Planner, in addition to the weekly practice plan, it’s important for music students to write down their reward and their risk for meeting the practice goals for the week.  This is an excellent way to create motivation and forward momentum in achieving goals for music lessons and performances. Here’s how it [...]

There is a lot of advice for music students to get the most from their music lessons in the Music Lessons blog archive here on the Molto Music site.  Today’s post adds one more tip: Always leave today’s music lesson with your next lesson scheduled. For many students, lessons are scheduled weekly at exactly the [...]

Making sure students know the exact expectations of their music teachers is one of the top priorities at music lessons.  If a student leaves the lesson unclear on what to do at home, disaster can strike.  At best, their practicing will be unfocused and maybe even nonexistent.  The worst case scenario is they actually practice something [...]

In last week’s post on pricing when you buy musical instruments, I mentioned that you need to negotiate when you purchase instruments and accessories.  It’s important to think of the retail price in a music store the same way you’d think of the sticker price of a new car: an imaginary number that has nothing [...]

Today’s post is specifically aimed at people new to the world of buying musical instruments and accessories.  If you’re purchasing your first instrument, or you’re a parent of a child about to start music lessons, there’s something you need to know about the purchase process: The price is highly negotiable. Many people walk into a [...]

Music students often set themselves up for feelings of failure when they tackle a new task.  They think the task will be easy, and, when they find out that it’s actually quite challenging, they question their own abilities rather than rationally looking at the difficulty of the task itself. Here’s a perfect example: transcribing.  For anyone unfamiliar [...]

Today’s post is short and to the point: Never miss a music lesson without contacting your music teacher! To be successful in this world, you’ve got to show up.  When you can’t show up, you’ve got to let people know. Music lessons, and all one-on-one coaching situations, are about much more than the specific skills [...]

Do you know what you want to get out of your music lessons?  The key to success is finding the right teacher for your needs.  You need a music teacher who will help you achieve your goals and who has experience with students of your age, ability, and mindset. If you know what you are [...]

To make music lessons successful, music teachers and music students need to truly understand each other.  They need to make sure their goals are in sync, and that a plan is in place to propel the student forward toward those goals. As a student, you need to have goals for your lessons, and you need [...]

Music recitals are rituals for young musicians learning to play a musical instrument.  These performances are usually seen by music lesson teachers as opportunities to perform music in public for the first time and to show off the skills that have been developed by the music students. Sometimes, however, students don’t want to participate in a recital, [...]