I’ve been self-employed as a Piano Teacher since 2015 (over 10 years at time of writing this.) I have made plenty of mistakes along the way, but there are always opportunities to learn from teaching mistakes and to improve your pedagogy for the next time you teach that music concept.
Do you think laying all my cards on the table will help you learn from my mistakes?
Let’s give it a try.
Pull up a chair, and let’s get into the first time I failed at teaching music theory.
My first ever “proper” job
Let me set the scene for you, the year is 2008-ish, and I have my first ever paying “proper” job. It was teaching music theory to other music students. I learnt a lot about being a teacher doing this job. (And bonus – it helped to reinforce my own theory knowledge prior to University.)
It was a basic set up: we all sat around a big table, students came armed with their ABRSM theory book (there were a mix of grades being studied) and myself and another teacher would go around the table helping anyone stuck, and teaching new concepts as needed. It was not how I would have chosen to teach, but I was young and didn’t have the confidence to suggest anything else to my manager.
Most of the students were children younger than me (I was in my late teens at the time) and they were studying theory alongside instrument lessons. The instruments were varied, but tended to be standard orchestral instruments: flute, violin, cello, piano etc.
A real wake up call came when I was teaching a lady who took drum lessons. She needed to pass Grade 5 theory in order to continue with her post-grade 5 drum exams.
I vividly remember having to teach her music theory concepts that didn’t apply to the drums she played!
I had to work out how to teach concepts like harmony and cadences to someone whose instrument does not make them! And there was no Piano available to me, so I couldn’t show her how the music theory worked in practice, or what these concepts would sound like. It felt like we were both being set up to fail!
Spoiler alert: she didn’t fail the exam.
We struggled through – it was a baptism of fire for me as an inexperienced teacher, and the abstract nature of some parts of music theory didn’t become much less of a struggle for her.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a proper failure in the end. But I didn’t feel like a good teacher. And by the end of my time in the job, I really didn’t like teaching music theory by having students sit at a table with everyone filling in ABRSM theory workbooks.
3 Ways Teaching Table-Bound Theory is Failing Students
There were 3 main things we were doing that led to a bad approach to teaching music theory.
#1. It separates the abstract from the practical
Remember, I was young when I worked at this job, which meant I really didn’t have the ability to make suggestions for how to improve the student experience. But ironically, the books all of our students would use was called Theory in Practice! But the teaching method that had been imposed on us all was anything but practical.
Music theory is an abstract set of symbols, ideas and rules – a language – that becomes concrete and practical once we apply it to a musical instrument. The reason we tend to take music theory exams is so that we can take higher level practical grades. So why do we separate the two strands?
The Solution: Instead of teaching theory at a table, I teach it at the piano. I teach a concept, demonstrate it on the piano, then my student tries playing it and then they write it down. This combines the abstract and the concrete. (Bonus is that it also combines different styles of learning too!)
#2. Forgetting that music is sound!
Writing answers into a workbook without hearing what they sound like is bonkers to me now. Yes, I know when we take written or digital theory grades that we don’t have the luxury of hearing our answers, but when a student is first learning something I think it is so important to combine sight and sound.
The Solution: Integrating teaching sound and sight by writing down what you play, or playing what you see. In a theory context this could mean playing extracts to demonstrate cadences, or trying to read rhythms when they have been beamed incorrectly. Learning hands on helps make sense of things, of why we beam notes together in a specific way, why it’s called an interrupted cadence etc.
#3. It’s boring!
I was a couple of years ahead of the students I was teaching. So I had not long gone through all of these books myself. I was eager to learn, and actually enjoyed theory. But I still found it a dry way of learning, and I can remember struggling to get my head around things like harmonic and melodic scales, or what modes were. If I had been able to hear them, it would have reinforced the concept.
The Solution: I developed my own way of teaching theory. Sometimes I do use worksheets – writing things down helps us to remember things, as well as giving a reference to go back to. But teaching theory practically primarily is really important to my pedagogy. And mix in some fun worksheets like colouring and puzzles = happy students!
Unlock Hands-On Theory in Your Teaching
I have now made it my mission to banish boring theory from my Piano lessons. You can make it yours too!
Take the next step in integrating the practical and theoretical strands of music in your lessons. Join The Piano Teacher’s Music Vault for your new go-to resource for engaging, effective materials.
Keep your eyes peeled for our launch details—The Vault is opening in November 2025! Find out more here.