Day in the life of a music teacher

People often think that teaching music must be so easy. You just give the lesson and that’s it. Nothing more really goes into it. Or does it? Well, you might be surprised! In this post, we share some of things teachers do in their “spare time”.

Admin, admin, admin

Admin always seems to take up a lot more time than you imagine. As music teachers, some of the admin tasks we have to do on a regular basis includes marking attendance, responding to parent queries, planning student objectives and goals etc, checking exam enrolment dates and syllabus.

Professional development

It is important to be constantly improving the way we teach to give students a better experience and for them to learn their skills in an easier way and better! So it is crucial for music teachers to engage in professional development. Nowadays, this often looks like having to take an online course or perhaps attending workshops in-person.

Researching repertoire & resources

To be honest, there are some pieces that we have taught so many times that it does get boring after a while. Or maybe we’re realising that a student doesn’t like any of the music that we have. In this case, we spend a lot of time researching repertoire. We go on Youtube to listen to reviews and excerpts, we might go to the music shop and browse for hours books of music we’ve never owned. All because we want YOU to enjoy the music!

Learning new repertoire

It also goes without saying that for the most part, we still practise ourselves on our instruments and might often learn the pieces that you are learning. This is so we can experience for ourselves what it is like to learn it and to notice in advance what are some tricky passages in the piece.

Lesson planning

And of course, we would not be teachers if we did not spend at least some time planning our lessons! We might plan some large objective such as learning a new piece or taking an exam, and we also plan the actual lesson. Other than just go through the homework from last lesson, what games can we play? What new technique or exercise will be covered? How will we teach it? What resources will be needed? The lesson planning helps us keep our lessons interesting and ensures your child is always progressing.

So here are some of the things us teachers do outside of our regular teaching hours. Did any of these surprise you?!