Senior Seminar on Music Pedagogy, PERF 330-01

Professor: Dr. Berr

Lesson Planning
Here are the categories of activities that tend to show up in most lessons for pre-college
music students:

Skills & Drills

(scales, arpeggios, ear-training, etc.)

New pieces

Review pieces

not in all lessons:

Written work

Sightplaying

The content of each of these categories tends to be driven by the fact that new musical concepts
need:

Preparation
Presentation
Reinforcement
Therefore, see the next page for how Musical Concepts tend to map onto Lesson Planning . . .

Skills & Drills

(scales, arpeggios, etc.)

New pieces

Review pieces

Written work

Sightplaying

Preparation and/or Reinforcement

With a new concept:
Presentation
Without any new concepts: Reinforcement

Reinforcement

Reinforcement
(the ultimate) Reinforcement

New pieces with a new concept can also occasionally be used for Preparation if the concept is
simple and attainable within a few minutes (thus, not requiring extensive out-of-piece
Preparation).

Implications
Teachers need to plan lessons to do effective proactive teaching.
Teachers need copies of all of the materials and music theyre teaching.
Teachers need to know what new concepts theyre going to be teaching soon,
so that there can be adequate time and activities to prepare that new concept.
Preparation and Presentation are special, since most of a students assignment
consists of Reinforcementtherefore, a teacher needs to give much thought
to how to do them effectively.
The more numerous and diverse that the activities are that reinforce a new concept,
the more securely the concept will be recognized and learned by the student.