Cultivating confidence
If you've never taught creativity before, start small and have fun
In the PianoCreativity survey I ask “what’s the most difficult thing about including creativity in lessons?” and one of the most common responses is about lack of confidence.
I know how you feel because I used to feel the same way. When I first started teaching, I was nervous approximately 99% of the time. Now I love it.
Here are two tiny but powerful bits of advice that will help you move from nervousness to confidence:
#1 Start small
Remember that all beautiful things grow from a tiny seed. Don’t get distracted by big goals. Just try to include a short improvisation or composition activity in one lesson soon. It doesn’t need to go perfectly. Reflect on it later and think about what you might do the same/differently next time.
Here are a couple of wonderful resources to get you started:
Alison Mathews’ book Doodles gives lots of tiny opportunities for creativity
Randall Faber’s Scale and Chord book 1 creates easy opportunities for student improvisation when learning pentascales
#2 Have fun
We adults tend to forget that kids learn best through play. Mess around. Allow yourself to play “wrong” notes and laugh about how weird they sound. If your student does something that sounds completely crazy, laugh about it with them. This sounds counterproductive, but I can assure you it is absolutely transformational.
Even better, your students will leave the lesson thinking “that was fun, I’m looking forward to next week”. I have an extremely high student retention rate—once I’ve agreed to teach a child, they almost always stay with me until they leave for university—and I’m fairly sure it is because I am willing have fun with them.
If you’ve not yet filled out the survey, please do. There are just 3 questions, it will take a maximum of 5 minutes, and it will help me make the site more useful to you.