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Tim Topham

Bio:

Tim Topham is an internationally-renowned music educator, piano teacher, writer and presenter.

Tim has 20+ years of experience in education, having taught in the United Kingdom and a number of states of Australia in subjects as varied as music, outdoor education, PE, mathematics and IT.

Through his blog at timtopham.com, Tim regularly inspires over 8000 teachers across the globe with his imaginative teaching tips and ideas.

Key Take Aways:

As a teacher, it is your duty to find out what kind of music will actually help your students to connect with music on their own terms
Continually be trying new things in music lessons. You don’t have to do everything you hear or read about, but keep trying to implement new concepts and continue on with the things that are working well for you
A common misconception is that every little detail of music should be adhered to. This is often not the case when teaching pop music
If a student comes to a lesson and wants to play something, it is important to step back and find out what aspect of the song really stands out to them, and then you can teach them that. Sometimes it’s little more than a motif or riff
Because the majority of music written these days is entirely chord-based, it makes sense to take this approach to learning piano, and especially learning pop songs
When you’re first starting to build a following online, provide quality, relevant, and free content
Don’t ignore analytics if you’re trying to build a following. Notice what’s working, and do more of that
Don’t neglect to collect your fan’s email address immediately as soon as you start to build your audience
The best way to collect your fan’s email address is to give away something for free in exchange for the email