December 30, 2025: Tuesday Upbeat
Teachers: Happy Tuesday and Happy New Year!
Helping Students Track Assignments & Practice Plans: Our Studio Way
We use three tools & strategies to help students track their assignments and plan their practice: page tabs, stickers, and penciled-in notes on their music.
We generally do not use assignment books or online documents. However, if a student requests an assignment book or journal, please encourage them to bring it, and they should be the one writing in the book or journal, with your guidance.
Page Tabs
As students are developing their repertoire of music, we put a sticky tab on the first page of each piece or song they are learning. These page tabs should be cumulative - increasing in number - and remain on the pages for a very long time, until the pieces are one day dropped. Our goal is that students always have 5 to 10+ pieces of music they are working on, maintaining, and improving.
Stickers
Stickers should be placed on the music when they play a piece of music from memory for the first time. When they do this, put a sticker on the first page of the music (and give the student a prize ticket). Then everyone will know this piece has been learned and memorized, and should now be maintained and improved over time, and performed multiple times at recitals, Forum, and for family and friends. (We do not "pass" pieces - we play them ongoing for a long time, and build our repertoire of memorized music.)
A second and third sticker (and prize ticket) can be given when the student sings the lyrics (while playing when possible), and when the student sings the solfege. So the student can potentially earn three stickers and three prize tickets per piece.
Penciled-in Notes
Write suggestions and helpful comments on the music itself. General instructions can be written at the top or bottom of a page, and specific notes can be written anywhere on the music. Our studio preference is pencil.
Remember, we do not ask students if they practiced. However, we still help them practice, we help them learn how to practice effectively, and we practice with them in their lessons (this way they know what to do at home, because they have done it many times in their lessons - and you have made notes, suggestions, and reminders in their music).
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Have a magical Tuesday, a musical week, and enjoy happy, healthy and tension-free teaching and learning with your students.
Happy New Year!
Thank you,
Dennis Frayne
"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)
www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com
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