Make it relatable

When deciding what music to teach and what musical examples to use in a classroom or private instruction setting I often try to make the examples relatable to the students in some way.

Some teachers may choose examples that students haven’t experienced or won’t be familiar with. That’s useful too, but some part of the education process needs to be relatable to the students.

If the students can’t relate to it, then they won’t be interested in learning about it.

On the other hand though, if students can relate to the material then they’ll likely be more excited to learn about it.

So choose some examples that are relatable.

Ask your students what they’d want to learn. Most musical topics can be taught through many different musical genres. Very few musical ideas require a specific genre to be taught through them.

Unless of course you’re teaching the history of a genre or the techniques used in one genre.

But the majority of ideas in music and music appreciation can be taught through many different styles of music.

Choose a style of music that’s relatable to the students.

It’ll likely keep their attention for longer than some random genre they don’t know about.

ISJ