Teaching the "Boring" Stuff...

The best way to teach students the “boring” stuff is to make them care.

 Just like in other subjects, music has elements that students shy away from and avoid for various reasons.  Sometimes these things are labeled “too hard”, “unnecessary” or “boring” by students because something about these subjects keeps students from wanting to work at learning it.  The trick to getting students motivated to learn things like theory, and history is to make them relevant to your students.

 Just for example, out of context, maybe pounding out rhythms or learning about Beethoven, could seem like pointless tasks when given to a thirteen year-old who is far more concerned about themselves than a couple tricky 16^th note runs written by some dead guy who wore wigs and wrote a bunch music.  But maybe if those notes came from a passage in a song they are working on, or if the hardest song your students were performing was written by Beethoven, you could get students to care, by giving them a way to connect to the information you are giving them.

 Maybe trying to practice and play that Beethoven piece is really frustrating for your students.  Well, how would they feel if they had to write music while their mother was dying, their father had turned to alcohol, they suddenly had the responsibility of looking after their younger siblings, and all the while they were starting to go deaf?  Wouldn't that be just a little bit frustrating?  People care about things when they can relate to them and when you give reasons and explanations. Students are no different.  And if they think this music is frustrating, what would they think of the music Beethoven wrote when his heart was breaking from unrequited love?  What does it sound like to feel heartbroken? You can show them the pieces Beethoven wrote, like Moonlight Sonata, or the Pathetique Sonata.  They can hear what it sounded like in Beethoven’s head to love someone and not have that love returned.  Beethoven was composing music at a time when it was popular to let your own emotions show in your compositions.  Students can relate to these emotions and understand why the music is the way that it is written.  Being able to put the piece of music into context, would not only let the students relate and connect to the music, but it allows them to see into history, into the life of a composer, and how things were in the 1700’s.

 You could ask students to find a current piece to compare and contrast with the Beethoven one.  Perhaps a current song about frustration or unrequited love.  You can make a theory lesson out of marking the different and similar elements that conveyed emotion in the 1700’s versus the 2000’s.  You could discuss the structure of the songs, the tonality, the use of rhythm and repetition.  If your students are more advanced, you can use these pieces as practice for things like macro, micro and roman numeral analysis, and the analyses can serve to help you compare and contrast the two pieces.   There will undoubtedly be at least one element from either one or both of the songs that is new to the students that you can teach and discuss and explain the purpose of during the lesson.

Learning things like theory and history, completely out of context can be a little dry and sometimes difficult for students of all ages.  But if you are capable of making these elements and lessons relevant to your students, they will be much more willing to explore them. 

People never really get sick of asking “why?”.  Students always want to know why they should care or why they should learn something, so give them reasons.  Make the “boring” stuff relevant to them and perhaps it won’t seem so “boring” after all.