TTTV035: Teaching outside the box with Lynette Barney

teaching outside the box lynette barney

teaching outside the box lynette barney

Have you ever wondered how to make your studio stand out from the rest? Every piano teacher needs to find a niche. By thinking outside the box, Lynnette has made her studio a unique experience for her students.

One of the biggest differences in Lynnette’s piano studio is the way her lessons overlap. By carefully scheduling students in 90 minute slots, all students attend a private lesson, lab time and an ensemble lesson every week.

Lynnette head shot

As if this wasn’t enough, Lynnette also brings creativity into her lessons. She uses improvisation, lead sheets and transposing to give students a well-rounded and exciting music education. Like many piano teachers, she was not taught to improvise growing up; but through a little trial and error she has found ways to teach these valuable skills to her students. Trying something new doesn’t need to be scary, if we just take one new idea at a time.

No matter what type of piano studio you run, we can all learn something from Lynnette’s positive attitude and willingness to embrace the unknown.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Unique scheduling ideas to incorporate group lessons every week
  • How to bring improvisation into your lessons
  • Ideas for music lab time
  • How to teach lead sheets to a mix of student levels
  • How mixed student level group classes inspire students
  • Lynnette’s top tips for trying new things
  • The effect the ensemble classes have on Lynnette’s retention rates
  • What Lynnette does in her beginning piano Summer camps
  • Why Lynnette incorporates solfa training into her lessons

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Thank you for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine.

Being a full-time teacher myself, I know how busy teachers are and how much time, effort and passion we put into our students. Sometimes, the last thing we want to do in our time off is listen to more piano teaching stuff! So, well done for using this time for self-improvement.

Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run. Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

What one new thing are you going to try this month?

Were you inspired to try out any of Lynette’s ideas? Have you always wanted to try improvisation, ensemble teaching or lab time?

Take Lynette’s sound advice, and tell me one outside the box idea you’re going to bring into lessons this month.

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