What defines a successful music performance?--Bellevue School of Music

With our spring Student Recital recently concluded and lessons focused on reviewing performances, I’m reminded students need guidance to recognize their accomplishments. Understandably some inexperienced students arrive at their lesson with a gloomy face hounded by memories of nervousness and the notes that got away; they view their nerves as a weakness and their errors as failure. Nothing could be further from the truth. A student’s willingness to accept the challenges of performance is itself a tremendous achievement and the single most important prerequisite to developing their talent. The nervousness and errors are essential components a student learns to manage through experience.

Violin Student, Bellevue School of Music Spring Recital 2012

What All Teachers Should Learn from Jazz-Band Teachers

What All Teachers Should Learn from Jazz-Band Teachers

An article in Psychology Today by William Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience, Texas A&M University.

So in a nutshell, the reason jazz students do so well is because their learning environment is built around:

• Passion
• Personal ownership and accountability
• Constructivism
• Social interaction
• High Expectations
• Reward