Practicing Musician’s mission is to make music education accessible for every single student. This article explores how our lesson plans are structured to make that possible.
Practicing Musician’s lesson plans are designed to be used as supplemental instruction in tandem with the current predominant K-12 teaching tools: method books. Standard of Excellence, Essential Elements, Accent on Achievement, and other predominant titles follow the same general outline. And so does Practicing Musician.
We are proud to report that every K-12 music director who has their students use Practicing Musician reports narrowed achievement gaps between students who can afford a private teacher and students who cannot.
How Our Lesson Plans Are Structured
Our lesson plans are divided into seven distinct categories of content: instruments, courses, chapters, lessons, practices, song libraries, and songs. Here’s how each one works:
Instruments refer to the specific instrument or, in the case of percussion, grouping of instruments, that a student wants to learn. Practicing Musician currently offers structured lesson plans across 15 instruments, covering the full range of K-12 band and orchestra. Beginning band and orchestral students can learn everything they need to know about acquiring, assembling, cleaning, and maintaining their instrument, as well as basic posture and playing technique, before they even walk into class on day 1, absolutely free, no credit card required.
Educators and parents have discovered that class time effectiveness is maximized when students engage with our free content beforehand. Band and orchestral directors spend only a day or two reviewing the information before focusing on the part students truly care about — learning how to play music.
Courses refer to a grouping of chapters that systematically build upon each other. Each course reflects the same general outline as a year of method book instruction, ensuring seamless integration with your existing curriculum.
Chapters focus on a single concept — acquiring equipment, technique, rhythm, pitch, or scales, among others. Each chapter provides the necessary lessons and practices as a foundation to build upon in subsequent chapters, and prepares the student to play sheet music included in our song libraries.
Lessons cover a single topic. For example, note names on the lines of the treble clef staff are taught in a different lesson than note names in the spaces. There are between 6–25 lessons per chapter.
Practices are etudes incorporated into our feedback application and systematically organized into our lesson plans. Practices are directly related to the music theory concepts taught in the chapter’s lessons. There are between 6–40 practices per chapter.
Song Libraries are collections of songs that are skill specific — giving students music to play that matches exactly where they are in their learning progression.
Songs are… well, there’s not much to say about this category. However, it’s a real pleasure to watch a student’s face light up after they learn how to play a new song.
Designed for Efficient Learning
After a lesson finishes, the next lesson, practice, or song loads automatically. After a practice or song is completed, the student simply clicks either “Results” to view their feedback and play again, or “Next” to continue. This reduces user interaction time and increases actual learning time, keeping students focused and moving forward.
Free for Every Student
Practicing Musician’s full lesson library; 3,500+ video tutorials across 15 instruments, is completely free for students, teachers, and at-home learners. No subscriptions, no per-instrument fees, no grant applications required. Just sign up and start learning.
Teachers get their own dashboard to assign lessons and monitor student progress across their entire class, so you always know exactly where each student is and what they need next.
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