Devonshire Music
William

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Practice

Tips to Help You Practice

Tally the Hours and Reward Yourself
After a Certain Amount Is Obtained

To encourage myself to work on difficult things, I use a timer to see how long I work on those difficult things.

Every hour I obtain, I click a gold button (that I bought from Amazon), and it plays victory music, and then I make a tally mark on a piece of sticky note paper, to track my hours.

Once I reach 10 hours, I go to Amazon and buy myself something around $10, so it's like a dollar per hour, but you could change it to whatever you want, like make it $3 per hour, so after 10 hours of work you can buy a $30 item.

If you are a child, and don't have the money to buy yourself things, maybe you can talk to your parents.

I find this highly motivational. I go on Amazon and browse around at things I like and want to buy, and then I add it to my cart so I can look at it later, and once I've obtained my hours, I go to the shopping cart and look to see what I want to purchase with my hours worked.

Put Instrument in an Easily Accessible Location

Do you put your instrument in an easily accessible location, or do you leave it in it's case, far away in the basement?

Once I had a student who, after our lesson, she didn't take her guitar out of the case, but left it in the basement. I said no wonder she wasn't practicing, because she told me she spent most of her time in the living room upstairs,

so in order for her to practice, she would have to go all the way downstairs to the cold basement, take the guitar out of the case, and get set up with her music etc, and then play, and unfortunately thats often too much to ask for many students.

Even for me, which is why I put my instruments I want to play in the most easily accessible locations. For my guitar it's literally in arms length from my chair I'm sitting in right now.

For my piano, it's just downstairs, and when I take a break from some stuff I'm working on, I like to go get a refreshing drink, or get something to snack on, and I lets say I'm toasting some bread, or boiling some water for tea. While I'm waiting for the bread to toast or the water to boil, I will often sit down at my piano, which is right there, and play a few pieces.

Practice while you play other things. For instance, if you play video games, then do a little practice every time your character dies.

Use playing music as a way to take a break from work.

Put Instrument in Area Where You Can Actually Play It

Right now the piano I normally play is in the living room downstairs.

I couldn't practice piano, even if I wanted to, because at the end of the day people are in the living room watching TV, and my practicing would disturb them.

So the only time for me to play is earlier in the morning and afternoon, or later in the night when they've gone to bed on the other side of the house where no one can hear me play.

Obviously you want the instrument you practice on to be in a room where it can be played whenever you want.

Combine Practice and Gaming

Everytime your character dies on a game, you play something on your instrument.

This goes back to having your instrument in an easily accessible location, like right next to you while you play games.

I once had a student who was doing very well with learning guitar, and so I asked him how much practice he gets in per day,

and he said he gets around 2 to 3 hours per day!

So I asked him, how and he said he plays a lot of video games, so when his character dies on the video game, he would play something on guitar.

I used to also do this when I was younger. Everytime my character died on a fighting video game, I would have to do 10 push ups.

Tying your practice to playing games, is a great way to make your practice much more fun, and thereby get more hours of practice in.

Put on your favourite songs
and try to play along to them

Exactly as it says. Put on your favourite songs and try to play along.

It will help you develop your dexterity, your ear, your understanding of patterns and your theory.






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The Deal


Why Choose Lessons with Me?

(Make Video of Content Below)


Who Am I?:

Hello! Nice to meet you, my name is William Devonshire. :)

- I've Obtained My Grade 8 Guitar, Grade 6 Piano, and Grade 9 Theory all with the Royal Conservatory of Music.

- I Have 14 Years of Teaching Experience.

- I've Guided Hundreds of Students from Complete Beginner to Highly Advanced Levels.

- I'm a Prolific Composer, Song-Writer, and Berklee Graduate for Music Production.

- and a Professional Performing Artist, Playing Cafes, Pubs, Private Parties and Restaurants.


What I Can Teach

Instruments:
- Guitar
- Piano
- Ukulele

Topics:
- Repertoire/ Pieces
- Performance
- Sight Reading
- Technique
- Improvisation
- Theory
- Composition
- History

How Lessons Work:


1. Assess

When we first start lessons I must assess the student.

- What are their goals?
- What's their preferred instrument?
- Do they know anything about
the instrument already? etc etc.


2. Lesson

Once I've assessed the student, I will give specific resources, which I think are exactly what they need to progress.

This will be in the form of:
- Conversations with Me
- Texts
- Videos
- Pictures
- PDF Files
- Games
- Etc etc Relevent Resources

Essentially whatever it takes to help the student progress.


3. Assignment


After the student has digested the material I supplied for them in the lessons portion, I then give them an assignment which helps them better understand, further master and solidify their new found knowledge.

This might be in the form of them recording themselves playing a song for instance, and sending it to me so I can see and hear them in action and give more specific feedback.

Testimonial


Why You Need A Teacher




It's not absolutely necessary, but...

Chairs aren't absolutely necessary, but they're definitely useful and nice to have. Windows aren't absolutely necessary, but they are also quite a blessing to have the fresh air and sunlight. etc etc...

The first people who started learning music didn't need it, right? Unless the aliens taught it to them, but then again, who taught it to the aliens?

It depends on what you want to learn. If all you want to do is play a few simple chords around the campfire, and you're self disciplined, then you probably don't need a teacher for that.

The more you want to learn, the more a good teacher is beneficial.

It's like any human discovery. Through the tens of thousands of years of human evolution, people have struggled to make discoveries. It would be crazy of us to disregard all they discovered, just so we can go through all the trouble they went through, to rediscover what they already discovered.

Same with music, it's better to stand on the shoulders of the discoveries of countless lives before us, so we can go even further than they could've.


Alternatives to a Teacher:

- YouTube
- Method Books
- Yousician

The problem with these ways:

The problem with these ways though is they tend to be ONE WAY.

It's a great tool to help teach the fundamentals, but its quite one directional and doesnt do everything and therefore doesnt replace a teacher lets look more into why.

The computer doesnt listen to you and watch how you play like a teacher who's been teaching for 13 years, and playing for 22 years, and give you personalized feedback.

You cant ask the computer questions and get personalized feedback (yet).

I’ve taught many YouTube learners, people that tried it for a few years. They all can play a few famous intros, but have no idea how to count, where the notes on the fretboard are, theory concepts etc..

Also a teacher teaches how to use new music learning tech to your benefit. The teacher can encompass all the technologies, whereas the technologies neither encompass all of the other technologies, nor the teacher.

A teacher can be more subtle and flexible in their approach, whereas technologies can be rigid.

The RIGHT teacher will see your likes, listen to your aspirations, offer inspiration in different directions, and spot/correct subtle things that can hurt your playing. You will make more progress, and develop fewer bad habits.

I'm not against online by any means, and am self taught to a degree, but have had a lifetime of learning music, from many experts as well.

Teachers can see and hear things that computers cant... yet...
They're... listening.... to... us...!



Is there a better way to learn
then a personalized and qualified mentor?

If money wasn't an issue and you had the choice to learn alone or with a expert teacher/ mentor, then what would you prefer?

If you had the choice between a robot, a book, or a seasoned, personalized and qualified mentor what would you choose?

The benefits of having a teacher are immeasurable as compared to self-directed studies. Is this not self evident?

You dont just want a teacher you want a GREAT teacher.

I've taught hundreds and hundreds of students for 14 (written in 2023) years now. I'd have to be an ostrich not to notice a pattern of success. Heck I wouldn't have been able to teach so long, and so many happy students. I'dve been fired if they werent getting results.

Isn't it important to have have a mentor in anything you wish to excel at?! Or are you happy to take lessons from a pickle?! Is that what you want?! A pickle for a teacher?!


Great Players tend to Have Great Teachers:

I know a guy who has a masters degree in music, been playing professionally for 30 years. Has his own book out.... and HE STILL STUDIES with masters from different genres.

Bach, (considered to be one of the greatest composers who ever lived) then a young man of twenty, walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilometres (250 miles), and stayed nearly three months to hear the Abendmusik, meet the pre-eminent Lübeck organist, hear him play, and, as Bach explained, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art".

Yes on your own is cheaper (not necessarily in terms of the time you might spend messing about), and you do what you can do with what you have, but are you telling me that if the musician you most look up to offered to give you weekly lessons for free you wouldnt take it?


Teachers give structure

Theres no such thing as not having a teacher.
You're always learning from someone

Even Jimi Hendrix, though many know him as self taught, learnt from people throughout his life. Different band members or guys he knew who knew stuff, they would show him this or that, and he was able to collect it all in little lessons from them here and there.


Save time, save money, and save yourself
from the frustration, confusion, and self doubt
that comes from learning alone.

Time is money, and it generally takes more time to learn alone than with a teacher, for obvious reasons.

Have you ever seen those kids who can play music better than you can? Do you think most of them reached that level on their own?

Wouldn't it be nice to have someone who knows your goals, and will tell you if you're actually on the right path to them, as opposed to you just stumbling around confused and frustrated wasting time?

Imagine putting time and effort into learning and practicing something that will eventually turn out to be wrong. And then you will struggle to unlearn it and then RElearn it properly.

Now instead imagine almost giving up on something important, but your teacher, knowing how important it is, encourages you to continue. You didnt even know it was important, or you deemed it "too hard", and were ready to just give up.

Would you rather poke around for hours on the internet looking for what you should do next, confused, frustrated, and distracted, or just have someone hear your goals, and hear how you play, and offer you direct and immediate personalized information, in small chunked actionable steps, all while holding you accountable?

It’s about productivity and knowledge. For productivity- you could spend 30 minutes trying to find something to haphazardly learn on YouTube. Then another 30 minutes to learn it. In that hour you could have been practicing exercises that will move you forward, being more productive with your time.

An expert teacher can get you from A to Z generally quicker, and more efficiently, then doing it alone.

A few years with a teacher can go a long way. In some cases you can save yourself years.

One can spend YEARS trying to figure out something on their own, that a teacher could have corrected in ONE LESSON!

You dont wanna tell people your self taught for five years, and be worse than someone that's played for one year with a teacher.

Save countless hrs doing unproductive guitaring.

Expert teachers are also aware of a lot of inexpensive, or free technology, and resources that can supplement and amplify your success.

I dont plan on teaching my students forever, I plan on empowering them to take their learning into their own hands more.

Teachers can use technology but tech cant use teachers... dun dun dun! Or can they!?