Little and often
Whether you’re still studying at school, working full time, or just a busy parent, making time for music lessons can be a challenge. Find a time in your schedule that you can commit to each week, book it into your diary, and stick to it.
One lesson a week for 30 minutes is perfect.
In a good music lesson you will be shown new techniques and ideas, and effective ways to practise them. Most of us have pretty short attention spans and would find it difficult to absorb more than half an hour of new ideas each week, so lessons of an hour or more can mean we forget things as soon as they’re shown to us.
Having lessons more than a week apart can also mean we forget stuff – a week between lessons is exactly long enough to practise something new until we’ve learnt it and we’re ready for something new.
Quality over quantity
Talk to your music school about what you want to cover in your music lessons. Don’t try to learn too many new things at once – it’s much better to cover just one or two ideas and techniques in each lesson and make sure you understand them really well. Just imagine trying to learn every blues scale in just one guitar lesson!
Your music teacher will give you notes or a sheet of music to take home after your lesson. Try to also take notes of your own that will help you to remember the most important things to practise.
When you write things down yourself you remember them better.
Practise makes perfect
Even the best music teacher in the world can’t help you to learn your instrument in 30 minutes. If you can, practise what you’ve just learned as soon as you get home from your music lesson, and then practise every day for just 15-20 minutes.
If you don’t practise, you won’t get better.
By practising every day your brain and fingers don’t have a chance to forget what you’re trying to get them to learn. This is much better than saving all your practising up for the weekends.
So, to get the most out of your music lessons
Be sure to commit to at least one music lesson once a week
Try shorter lessons which are more effective than long lessons
Don’t try to learn too many new things at once, mastery takes time!
Take notes, and use them!
Practise, practise and practise. When it comes to music, practice really does make perfect.
If you’re looking to pick up a new instrument or get better at something you already play, get in touch to book your first lesson with Rock Scholars.
