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
Our innovative private lesson model is the most efficient and effective on the market. It’s also the most affordable at $900 for 48 weekly private lessons or $250 for 12. That’s 1/3 the price of traditional private lessons, which cost $60/hour on average! 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 individuals 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 private lessons 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.”
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.”
Reese Burgan
“I highly recommend Practicing Musician for anyone who is looking for passionate and effective musicians and teachers.”
Dr. Frederick Burrack
“We’ve been waiting for a technological adaptation of the Model Cornerstone Assessments since the re-envisioning of the National Core Arts Standards in 2014. Practicing Musician has provided a viable and useful solution.”
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
The initial partnership covers the 250th anniversary celebration and curriculum launch (2026). However, curriculum lifespan is 10+ years, meaning your brand visibility extends far beyond the anniversary year. Multi-year partnerships can be structured with enhanced benefits.
Yes — all video lessons, sheet music, assignments, and assessments for all 15 instruments are completely free. The only paid option is if you choose to add optional private one-on-one lessons.
Not at all. Practicing Musician offers free and paid parent training so you can confidently support your child’s learning — even if you’ve never played an instrument yourself.
Optional one-on-one private lessons with expert teachers are available at about 1/3 the cost of traditional lessons ($90/month for 4 sessions). Teachers assign tutorials, track progress, and provide targeted feedback — so lessons are efficient and effective, not billable filler time.
Through short expert video tutorials your child can rewatch as many times as needed, paired with sheet music, exercises, assignments, and assessments — all inside the Practicing Musician platform. It’s self-paced, so your child works on their schedule.
The curriculum takes students from absolute zero to confident musician in a structured sequence:
- Getting started — instrument selection, rent vs. buy, assembly, proper hold, care & cleaning
- Technique 101 — posture, breathing, embouchure, producing sound, practice habits
- Rhythm 101 — beats, notes, rests, timing, reading sheet music
- Pitch 101 — notes, melody basics, reading music
- Song Library 1 — applying skills to real beginner songs
- Pitch 102, Scales 101, Rhythm 102 — intermediate music theory
- Song Library 2 — expanded repertoire
- Pitch 103, Rhythm 103, Dynamics 101 — advanced nuance, expression, and control
Every lesson builds on the last — it’s a true A to Z music education.
Quickly! After the setup basics, lessons move into producing clear sounds, proper posture, breathing technique (critical for wind instruments), and embouchure. From there students move through Rhythm 101, Pitch 101, and a beginner Song Library — so they’re playing real music very early in the curriculum.
