Do you, your children, or members of your congregation want to learn the foundational music skills and knowledge necessary to participate in worship throughout your lives?
We want to help.
Practicing Musician has put together a team of worship pastors to develop an authentic worship music curriculum specially designed to teach beginning players how to play the instrument of their choice from the ground up and become a part of their worship team.
Courses in the curriculum: vocals | guitar | keyboards | bass guitar | drum kit
Affordable
Each annual subscription you pre-purchase for yourself, your children, or aspiring musicians that you sponsor is $900 and includes 48 weekly private lessons, and quarterly subscriptions are $250 and include 12. That’s 1/3 the price of traditional private lessons! Our teachers have flexible schedules and share your values and goals.
Pay it Forward
We will incorporate the online multimedia worship music curriculum into our easy-to-use learning management system. All curricular materials will be provided to everyone for free, forever. In other words, your purchase will include all learning materials except an instrument and equipment. And by helping create a free curriculum, you pay it forward to families who cannot afford private lessons to use at their own pace and on their own time.
Standards-Aligned
Our worship music curricula’s scope and sequence development were overseen by the leaders of the teams that wrote the National Core Arts Standards and Model Cornerstone Assessments. This means you can rest assured that homeschooled students will receive an education aligned with the K-12 music standards.
You don’t have to sacrifice quality for affordability when it comes to you and your loved one's music education.
You don’t have to sacrifice quality for affordability when it comes to music education.
Practicing Musician provides a pathway to learning music
How micro tutoring works.
Summary of Foundational Learning Theories
The following is a summary of educational research on learning and teaching practice that has been founded on the most recent neurological brain-based research and applied in the Practicing Musician curriculum and micro tutoring model.
- Cognitive Load Theory: Tasks are designed to consider the extent of cognitive processing involved for learning and the relationship of new learning to prior understandings.
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- The Myth of Multi-tasking: Each micro-lesson is designed to focus on one concept or skill at a time and develop it across multiple micro-lessons and experiences within each lesson to accelerate the conversion of short-term memory to long-term memory.
- Increased Saliency Theory: Curricular content and micro tutoring sessions are intentionally designed to be obvious for students as to what is to be learned and why it is important to learn it.
- Brain-based learning theory: Lessons are designed to recycle learning that occurs in multiple ways while increasing difficulty, complexity, and contextual application.
- Spaced practice: is designed for thorough incremental lessons of study and restudy over time.
- Retrieval practice: Curricular content and micro tutoring sessions are designed in a spiral format, intentionally revisiting concepts and skills across learning development to guide students toward developmental milestones as they implement continual improvement.
- Interleaving: Memory reconstruction is strengthened through knowledge, concepts, and skills being retaught in various ways and in multiple contexts creating a web of interconnected memory traces.
- Elaboration: Each video lesson has intentionally designed ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions guiding the retention of knowledge, exploration of meaning, and development of conceptual connections.
- Dual coding theory: is accomplished in the technology through video modeling, verbal description, and printed notation, and in the micro tutoring sessions through verbal and typed feedback and aural assessment of performance.
- Cognitive feedback: Expert music teachers provide feedback at each micro tutoring session to guide students to set goals, take action to achieve their goals, and self-analyze their actions within the context of each goal.
For a more detailed description of the learning theories Practicing Musician is built upon, including citations, click here.
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Valerie Coolidge
“I love Practicing Musician’s method. It’s saving me so much time. Today I used it to assign what will be a semester’s worth of work for my HS students, and it only took a half hour. Oh, thank you!!”
Stanislaw Hoholuk
“I highly recommend Practicing Musician. It is professional, user-friendly, accessible, and versatile. I was also very impressed by the IT support to resolve questions and issues. And it’s free – you can’t ask for a better price!”
Mary Ellen Hodges
“Thanks to Practicing Musician, my students are leaps and bounds ahead of where they normally are at this time in the year!”
Caitlin Brock
“Having access to Practicing Musician has been one of the best things for my program.”
Reese Burgan
“I highly recommend Practicing Musician for anyone who is looking for passionate and effective musicians and teachers.”
Catherine Stadulis
“My students are always asking, “when can we use Practicing Musician again?!” because they just have such a great time with the program.”
Dr. Bret Smith
“I can’t think of a project that is more relevant to our current challenges, with as much potential impact.”
Shannon Waldo
“My students were bummed when I told them we wouldn’t use Practicing Musician on Tuesday but celebrated when they learned we’d be at it again on Thursday!“
Frequently Asked Questions
Practicing Musician’s micro tutoring model applies cutting-edge research to private lessons for beginning band and orchestra students, accelerating learning while keeping costs affordable for families. First, Practicing Musician’s expert teachers assign students comprehensive video tutorials to watch every time they practice. Doing so increases the efficiency and effectiveness of lessons because students listen to experts explain concepts, watch experts demonstrate proper technique, and hear experts perform high-quality examples of techniques and compositions during every practice session – meaning students are much more likely to practice good habits and progress quickly. Then, one of our expert instructors provides 10 minutes of highly focused and effective live feedback each week. Students who follow our model receive at least 60 minutes of weekly private instruction.
If you pay $60 for 60-minute private lessons every week for 48 weeks, your cost would be $2,880 per year per student + materials + travel expenses + travel time.
In comparison, your total cost to receive beginning micro tutoring sessions every week for 48 weeks via Practicing Musician is:
Yearly = $900 per student
Quarterly (12 lessons) = $250 per student
While Practicing Musician’s free methods provide comprehensive learning opportunities for all students free of charge, feedback via expert private instruction can greatly accelerate learning. Our expert instructors guide learning by assigning you our free content, then help you focus the skills needed to bring you to the next level of development.
An annual micro tutoring subscription includes the following:
- 48 weeks of 10-minute sessions for personalized feedback from an expert private teacher via video conference
- Weekly pre-session preparation plan from your private teacher to be done 20 minutes before each 10-minute session
- Weekly practice schedule with a personalized assignment of 30+ minutes of video tutorials that include an expert demonstration of technique and explanation of concepts, sheet music, and written assignments from the Practicing Musician curriculum
With an annual subscription, students who follow their teacher’s guidance receive 60+ minutes of lessons and feedback every week. Students will receive a much higher quality education than traditional private instruction at 1/3 the average price of a 60-minute private lesson. See our Foundational Learning Theory research for detailed information.
By pre-purchasing annual subscriptions for you, your children, or members of your church, you will also receive a FREE limited-edition “Worshiping Musician” t-shirt for each student and pay it forward by helping us create a curriculum that will be available free of charge for families who cannot afford private lessons.
1) Expert music instructors guide you or your child’s learning by assigning Practicing Musician’s free online tutorials and exercises specific to your needs.
2) You or your child learns and practices independently, re-watching each lesson as required for full comprehension at no additional charge.
3) You or your child receives feedback from their instructor during their next micro session; then the process repeats.
If a student needs more personalized feedback via contact time with their teacher, you can purchase two micro tutoring sessions per week. Doing so is still about 40% less than the price of traditional private lessons! Please note: only highly motivated students will need two micro tutoring sessions per week.
