Psychology of Music Teaching

The following presentation is something I use to teach prospective music teachers working for me. I hope it helps, informs and you enjoy! It is in the bullet point style and is generally something I use for notes when giving this presentation. If there is anything you'd like to see fleshed out in a bit more detail, please let me know in the comments and I will do my best to do it in a follow-up article!

Why do people come for guitar lessons?

• Stressed

• Forced

• Hobbyist

• Gift

• To Explore (“is it for me?”)

• Lifelong enthusiast

• Addiction to learning

• Sad (and want to be happy)

• Happy (and want to express it)

• Creative

• Academic

• Wants a paper qualification

• Lessons to help for a future career

• Passionate natural musician

So then, the next important question is:

Why do people quit guitar lessons?

• Student has - Unrealistic Expectations – want to go from Grade 1 – Vai in no time

• Student realises after “trial” period that he/she doesn't actually like/want to continue with lessons.

• Tutor wants to teach wrong style

• Tutor doesn't understand student

• Tutor forces material the student doesn't want.

• Tutor suffers from “curse of knowledge”.

I want to take some time to talk about a few children. 

Let's say you're taking care of some young children as a favor for their parents - with whom you're friends.

You let the kids go into an empty room in your house to play. The only things in the room are a ball, a box and a bucket.

After a while, you offer them some orange juice, and of the 2 children, the little girl accepts and puts the ball into the bucket on the way to the kitchen. The boy stays in the room, and moves the ball from the bucket to the box.

Now ... if at this point you were to ask the boy - "when your sister comes back, where will she look for the ball" ... you may assume he'll say "in the bucket where she left it". However ... this depends on the age and the development of the boy.

If he's about 3 or 4 years old, he'll probably say that she will look in the box, because that's where it is. He will assume that because he knows it's there, that it's known that it's there. He can't distinguish between what he knows and what others know.

Whereas, if he is 5 years old, he will likely have developed the mental filters necessary to realize that his sister will look into the bucket because that's where she put it.

The younger version of this child has what's known as the "Curse of Knowledge". The more we know the harder it is to imagine not knowing it.

Even though by 5 years old he knows that others don't necessarily know everything he knows, as adults, if we specialize in  something it's very hard to remember what it was like not knowing.

I will explain this in more detail