Do you want to be a better teacher? Do you want your students to make faster progress and to genuinely value their time with you? Here are three things that experienced teachers know, and that your students need.
1. Give real feedback, including criticism
The first technique that separates good teachers from merely adequate ones is a willingness to give realistic feedback, including constructive criticism. That means that if there is something a student is working on that needs improvement, a good teacher will tell them what it is and what they need to do to fix it.
A lot of people teaching jazz seem afraid of hurting students’ feelings, or believe it isn’t their place to question anyone’s playing. But that is a disservice to students. It’s pretty much precisely why a student goes to a teacher: to receive feedback that identifies problems and offers practical, actionable solutions.
A common reflex in newer and less experienced teachers is simply to praise anything and everything. A student plays something dreadful — nothing like what was required — and the teacher says “yeah, great!” But how does that help them? It doesn’t. The pretence that everything anyone plays is equally valid is both unfair and dishonest.
If you find yourself wanting to affirm a student rather than guide them, try asking yourself: “Would I give this person a gig in my own band, as they play right now?” Or: “What is the difference between what my student just played and how one of the great jazz players would have played it?” And then take your student through a series of logical steps, each building upon the ones before, that will help move them tangibly closer to that goal, be it stealing your gigs, or standing alongside the greats.
Offering criticism is not attacking the person. It’s highlighting issues in their playing and giving useful guidance for improvement. Don’t just say “that was bad” or “you need to improve”. Be explicit about what the problem is and how to fix it.
Maybe this is a particularly Australian tendency, but I don’t think so. I’ve seen it from teachers in plenty of other countries too. The goal is to find the productive middle ground between pretending there’s no problem and going full Whiplash on your students.
2. Plan your teaching
It is hard to overstate just how much lessons can be enhanced by planning what you will teach, when you’ll teach it, and how you will teach it. Planning brings focus and efficiency to teaching and learning, whether you’re teaching others or working on your own development.
Planning operates across different timescales.
Short term: good teachers have a plan for each lesson, and a sense of how each lesson builds on the last and leads into the next.
Medium term: plan a series of lessons on connected topics that build knowledge and skills cumulatively over time, working together to develop all aspects of the student’s playing. Medium-term goals might be skill-focused — “by the end of this semester the student will be able to do X” — or event-focused, such as a concert, a recital, a recording, or even an exam.
Long term: map out where each student is heading. What will they be able to do that they can’t do now, and where will they be in 12 months? In two years? In five?
Individual lessons are most effective when they move through a variety of phases. For example: a warm-up, scales, repertoire, improvisation, technique, reading, theory, and so on. You don’t need to cover all of these in every lesson but do use your medium-term planning to ensure everything is addressed over time.
Avoid the trap of doing something different and unrelated every week. A pattern familiar to many guitar students might be “bring in the tabs to a song you want to learn next week” — repeated each lesson with a different song. Too often I meet students who have been taking lessons for years but don’t know any of the notes on the guitar, don’t know any scales, and don’t really know much of anything beyond fumbling through a handful of songs. That outcome is a failure of planning. Design lessons and programs that ensure every student grows.
3. Pace your lessons well
Pacing refers to the speed at which you move through different phases and activities in a lesson. Even with great planning in place, you need to make sure you get through everything without getting sidetracked, spending too long on any single thing, or rushing through material and leaving it undone. Good pacing also means moving at a speed that is right for the student — neither too fast nor too slow.
In your planning, sketch out roughly how long each part of a lesson might need. In the actual lesson, keep monitoring your student’s progress and adjust accordingly.
A common pacing error in jazz teaching is spending too long on something because the teacher is reluctant to move ahead until the student has fully mastered each step. That is often both unrealistic and unhelpful.
One teacher I observed spent almost an entire semester on basic clapping and stomping exercises, mostly focusing on quarter notes, insisting that students couldn’t move ahead with anything until it was perfect. These were university students paying significant fees for the course. Time and rhythmic accuracy are long-term skills; they improve gradually across months and years, not in a single sustained block. The result was alienated students, collapsing enrolments, and the cancellation of the course the following year! A poor outcome for everyone, and one that stemmed directly from a combination of poor planning, poor pacing, and unrealistic expectations.
Effective pacing is knowing when to move on, even when something isn’t yet perfect. That is a skill in itself, and it’s one worth developing.
Bringing it together
Constructive feedback, thoughtful planning, and purposeful pacing: these three things can significantly improve your effectiveness as a teacher and the progress your students make. They are not complicated ideas, but they do require conscious attention, especially if you are still developing your teaching practice.
The best teachers are not just knowledgeable musicians — they are skilled at communicating, organising, and reading the room. If you want to give better music lessons, then working on these fundamentals is time well spent.
You can also watch the orginial video on this topic.
