Quick Start
Helps individuals quickly learn how to use Excellence in Music. Click on the category that best fits your situation.
Quick Start for the Independent Student (Youth or Adult)
1. Get an Excellence in Music: The Magic of Inner Hearing Workbook, Vol. 1 (or the volume you want to complete) on Amazon.com. (Tip: start with Volume 1, no matter what your experience. Those who try to start with a later volume, rarely succeed.)
2. Get the link that provides free access to the lessons.
3. Open the workbook to the inside cover. There you will see a list of lessons.
4. As you read the inside cover, you notice the first lesson in Volume 1 is “The Five Dollar Job.” Listen to it.
_X_The Five Dollar Job
___Read and do pages 1-6 in the workbook
5. Once you complete a lesson, put a check mark next to it, and then go to the next lesson. Continue working through each lesson in a similar manner until all the lessons are completed.
6. That’s it. It is that easy.
Hints for Greater Success
1. Set a goal when you would like to complete the first volume, and all seven volumes. Write that goal in the place provided at the top of the front inside cover. Keep the commitments you make to yourself. It builds character.
2. Work through at least one or two lessons a week. If you want to get through the course more quickly, do more each week.
3. Plan ahead! Do your Excellence in Music the same time each day, or the same time each week.
4. Work for 100% mastery of each lesson. Why? If a student goes to the next lesson, and they don’t understand the previous lesson at 100% mastery, then the work is going to get more and more difficult until it is too hard, and chances are that student may quit. Those who work for 100% mastery nearly always continue.
a. Think for a moment: if you had a problem with your kidney and needed help, would you rather go to a doctor that mastered 70% his study of kidneys, or one that had 100% mastery of the subject of kidneys?
b. A student may be able to get an A in math with 90% mastery. But, musicians are expected to have 100% mastery. Think again: if you were making a recording (or performing) and only played 90% of the notes correctly, you would be making a mistake about every 1-2 seconds. Even your mother would have trouble enjoying your performance at that low level of mastery. A student of music must work for 100% mastery.
c. Answer books are available for each volume by writing to info@musicwonderfulmusic.com
Congratulations! You are a rare breed that is self-motivated enough to begin a journey of this magnitude. You will not regret it. As you work through each volume, you will begin hearing music and viewing life in different ways. It will be like putting on glasses for the first time. Your musical vision and understanding will come into better focus. Best wishes on your journey!
Need help? Don’t hesitate to email us.
Quick Start for the Private Music Teacher
1. Get an Excellence in Music: The Magic of Inner Hearing Workbook, Vol. 1 (or the volume you want to complete) on Amazon.com. (Tip: start with Volume 1, no matter what your experience. Those who try to start with a later volume, rarely succeed.)
2. Get the link that provides free access to the lessons.
3. Have them open the workbook to the inside cover. There they will see a list of lessons.
4. As you read the inside cover, you notice the first lesson in Volume 1 is “The Five Dollar Job.”
_X_The Five Dollar Job
___Read and do pages 1-6 in the workbook
5. Once they complete a lesson, have them put a check mark next to it, and then go to the next lesson. Continue working through each lesson in a similar manner until all the lessons are completed.
6. That’s it! It is that easy.
Hints for Greater Success
1. You do not have to work through the course yourself for your students to be successful. However, you may find that it helps. The more you use the course, the easier it is going to be to motivate your students to complete the course. There is a lot of instruction on the recorded lessons that are not in the workbook.
2. Remember the tomato principle! I had a friend who farmed 2000 acres of tomatoes. When harvest came, he found that if he hired a person to watch his tomato pickers, the speed of harvest nearly doubled. When the ”watcher” was gone, the speed of harvest would immediately slow down. The watcher did not have to say anything or do anything else other than watch. The same is true with Excellence in Music. Students can do the course independently, but generally, the work will stop unless you take a minute each lesson to check the progress and make sure they are completing it at 100% mastery. In the long run, it doesn’t take time, it actually saves time. Watch them. Encourage them.
3. Have your student progress through at least one or two lessons a week. If they want to get through the course more quickly, do more each week.
4. Work for 100% mastery of each lesson. Why? If a student goes to the next lesson, and they don’t understand the previous lesson at 100% mastery, then the work is going to get more and more difficult until it is too hard, and chances are that student will quit. Those who work for 100% mastery nearly always continue.
a. Think for a moment: if you had a problem with your kidney, would you rather go to a doctor that mastered 70% of his kidney studies, or one that had 100% mastery?
b. A student may be able to get an A in math with 90% mastery. But, musicians are expected to have 100% mastery. Think again: if you were making a recording (or performing) and only played 90% of the notes correctly, you would be making a mistake about every 1-2 seconds. Even your mother would have trouble enjoying your performance at that low level of mastery. A student of music must work for 100% mastery.
c. Answer books are available for each volume by writing to info@musicwonderfulmusic.com.
Increase Your Effectiveness and Profits as a Private Music Teacher Using Excellence In Music
We live in a technological age in which we can duplicate DVD’s, books, cars, just about anything very quickly, including yourself. To duplicate yourself—to create two or more of you has some definite advantages. Can you imagine a giant 3D printer, a button is pushed. Ppphft. Out pops another you! As you know, technology hasn’t come that far. When I talk about duplicating yourself, I’m talking about duplicating yourself as a teacher. [In this discussion a piano teacher is referred to, but it can be any kind of private music teacher.]
Let me explain.
To duplicate yourself, you teach two students at the same time. You teach one student at the piano, while teaching a second student in another room or different part of the same room. With the second student, though, you teach with a device that has access to the internet (or download the lessons on your device, or have your student/parent download it on their device so it is available on CD or your hard drive). At the end of 30 minutes, the students switch places.
Duplicating yourself this way has many advantages.
1. It enables you to give twice as much instruction.
2. It enables you to repeat and review without ever opening your mouth.
3. You can go into more detail and spend more time on music history composers, music literature, theory, harmony, sight singing, ear training, music literature, and many other areas that you didn’t have time to do before you duplicated yourself.
4. Your students will understand more and be better educated and better motivated. You will probably like that. So will their parents.
You only need four things to duplicate yourself. You probably have them already.
1. A device that is accessible to the internet (or download it to a CD or hard drive earlier if internet access is sketchy).
2. A place for the second student to listen to the lessons. This can be another room, another area of the room you teach in, a large closet dedicated to listening. Anyplace.
3. A time. Let your students/parents know their lesson will be 30 minutes longer. If you teach a 30-minute lesson, change them to an hour lesson. If you teach a 45 minute lesson, change it to an hour and 15 minutes.
4. An Excellence In Music: The Magic of Inner Hearing Workbook that guides your students through the lessons. The lessons start at the very beginning and work their way through college level harmony, history, theory, etc.
Here comes a most intriguing part. After you have obtained the first four things to duplicate yourself, you will want to restructure your fees. You are now teaching the student and extra 30 minutes. Most parents don’t mind paying more if they get more (and you will definitely be giving more!) And you deserve to be paid more, but give your parents a bargain. When you tell them that you are going to teach pretty Betty Beau Beautiful for an extra half hour they are going to expect to have to pay twice as much for twice as much time. Imagine how pleased they will be when you tell them that instead of doubling your current rate, you are only going to charge an extra $3-5 per lesson.
Let’s say you charged your students an extra $5 per lesson for the extra half hour and the near-college level music education you are going to give them. Let’s also say you had 10 students. Charging an extra $5 per lesson is only $50 extra per week. But in a month, it is $200. In a year, it is an extra $1,100. The investment in this program is nothing. Music Wonderful Music offers the lessons free of charge so anyone can access a rich music education.
You can have your students order their own workbooks online, or order them yourself. If you order them yourself, you can give it to them at your cost, or charge a little more, as a bookstore would. Remember, you are giving them more: a near college level music education, when combined with your expert teaching.
It sounds easy, and it is. The most challenging part, I have found, for teachers is to be consistent. Consistency/commitment in teaching is just as important to your success as consistency/commitment in coming to their lesson each week is for your students.
1. Make sure each student does at least one lesson each week (many finish a lesson early and start another one before their half hour is finished.)
2. Make sure they complete each lesson at 100% mastery.
3. Keep it enjoyable. Ask them what they are learning. Help them through the tough parts. There is no need to rush through the lessons if a student needs to re-do one. It is a journey, not a sprint, and since we are life-long learners, it is a journey with no end. The prize doesn’t go to the person that goes the furthest, but the person that keeps moving forward day by day.
We are here to help you succeed. If you have any questions you can’t find the answers to, send us an email at info@musicwonderfulmusic.com.
Quick Start for the Classroom Music Teacher (Grades 4-12, High School, College, AP Music Theory)
1. Get an Excellence in Music: The Magic of Inner Hearing Workbook, Vol. 1 (or the volume you want to complete) on Amazon.com. (Tip: start with Volume 1, no matter what your experience. Those who try to start with a later volume, rarely succeed.)
2. Get the link that provides free access to the lessons.
3. Have them open the workbook to the inside cover. There they will see a list of lessons.
4. As you read the inside cover, you notice the first lesson in Volume 1 is “The Five Dollar Job.”
_X_The Five Dollar Job
___Read and do pages 1-6 in the workbook
5. Once they complete a lesson, have them put a check mark next to it, and then go to the next lesson. Continue working through each lesson in a similar manner until all the lessons are completed.
6. That’s it! It is that easy.
Hints for Greater Success
1. You do not have to work through the course yourself for your students to be successful. However, you may find that it helps. The more you use the course, the easier it is going to be to motivate your students to complete the course. There is a lot of instruction on the recorded lessons that are not in the workbook. That instruction will help you succeed in facilitating your students’ success.
2. Remember the tomato principle! I had a friend who farmed 2000 acres of tomatoes. When harvest came, he found that if he hired a person to watch his tomato pickers, the speed of harvest nearly doubled. When the ”watcher” was gone, the speed of harvest would immediately slow down. The watcher did not have to say anything or do anything else other than watch. The same is true with Excellence in Music. Students can do the course independently, but generally, the work will stop unless you take a minute each lesson to check the progress and make sure they are completing it at 100% mastery. In the long run it doesn’t take time, it actually saves time. Watch them. Encourage them.
3. Have your students progress through at least one or two lessons a week. If they want to get through the course more quickly, do more each week.
4. Work for 100% mastery of each lesson. Why? If a student goes to the next lesson, and they don’t understand the previous lesson at 100% mastery, then the work is going to get more and more difficult until it is too hard, and chances are that student may quit. Those who work for 100% mastery nearly always continue.
5. If you are a classroom teacher, you can expect to be challenged motivating your students to work. Here are some hints you may find helpful.
a. A lot of teachers motivate their students with grades and/or external punishment/rewards. That may be a good start, but eventually, a teacher has to help them choose to work (in other words help them want to do it).
b. The most effective way I have found to choose to work and practice is teaching students to Grow UP! You will find several lessons throughout the volumes that teach students what it means to grow up. They will learn how to define adult/mature behavior. Students love this. Listening to those lessons will help you review some strategies for helping students choose to succeed/work. Resist motivating students through grades. It is the lowest level of maturity and teaching.
6. If you are a classroom teacher with many students, you will probably go nuts checking everyone’s workbook. Don’t. Don’t go nuts. Don’t check everyone’s workbook. Get help. Here is how:
a. Check everyone’s work on the first lesson or two. Look for students who…
i. Have accurate work.
ii. Have good people skills.
iii. Have good organizational skills.
iv. Have your trust.
b. Talk to those students and ask them to help you check everyone’s work. Emphasize that they are on your team: the team that is committed to helping everyone succeed at 100% accuracy.
i. Divide the class so that each “assistant teacher” has 1-5 people in their group (more than five becomes to much for them). If you have a really large class, have the assistant teachers select some “assistant assistants.”
ii.Always check your assistant teacher’s work before letting them check those in their group. Teach them to go for 100% accuracy. If they make a mistake, don’t grade them down. Re-teach them so they learn the concept they missed, and then have them re-do the work until they can do it at 100% accuracy. Remember: our goal is not to teach curriculum. Our goal is to teach people. We teach people how to succeed. They will learn the curriculum on their own.
iii. Students who complete all 7 volumes and then take the AP music theory exam almost always say the same thing: “I wish I had paid more attention to the sight singing as I went through the volumes.” They realize that sight singing is the key to developing inner hearing. Go through the sight singing page in each lesson together as a class, once or twice. Have your assistant teachers check the sight singing, too, before passing a student off on the lesson.
iv. Students who complete all volumes of Excellence in Music with 100% mastery, do very well on the AP Music Theory Exam.
v. Some students in your music classes may not be able to match a pitch. I have had music classes where most of my students could not match a pitch. Be patient. It will come for most people. It may take a week, a month, a year or more. Don’t grade them down for something they cannot do. I have found if I have them continue to work through the workbooks, they gradually get it. Sometimes it is helpful to repeat a book. Let the student decide if this would be of help to them.
vi. With this approach, most of your students will do very well. However, you will have a small minority of students who will be lazy. They have learned through years of practice how to wear their parents and teachers down. Don’t give in. This is where the art of teaching comes in and where we as teachers earn the respect and gratitude of students that have been “saved.”
vii. It is hard work, as you know, to reach the non-achieving student. Having your assistants work with the easy students gives you an opportunity to counsel with the non-achieving ones: the ones who don’t care, who don’t believe in themselves, who may be having trouble at home. We can help them succeed. Many times I have had another student work with and counsel with a student. Many times, they are more successful than I am at reaching a student. Talk to your assistant teachers, talk to the parents, and also counsel with the non-achieving student. Help them make good choices. Help them find the resources (professional counseling, food, safety) they need to succeed.
7. As the students work through the later volumes, they will become more and more independent of you. They will start taking more responsibility for themselves and their own success. It gets easier.
8. If you teach a choir/band class, it helps to designate MWF for singing/playing, and Tuesday and Thursday for Excellence in Music. This may seem like a lot at first, but after about 2 months of doing two lessons a week, your students start learning music faster because they can read music better. They will also understand music because of the depth of music history they explore. Another twist on this schedule is work with sections (brass or the bass section). While you are doing sectionals, the rest of the students can be working on their Excellence in Music.
