Everyone learns the songs differently.

I am a firm believer in public education. But, it does have it's share of flaws. I think public school does a great job teaching 30 kids at a time. It's lousy at teaching 1. I love that public school takes on all comers. As long as you've got a pulse and are in the school's boundaries, we'll take you. This open door policy creates a great diverse population of kids, and all of them learn differently. That great lesson you've planned is only going to be great to a part of the kids. Everyone learns the material differently.

This struck me while playing in a band. We were preparing for a gig. We needed to learn about 30 songs to fill 3 sets. Even though we were about the same age, listened to the same music, we all had our own methods to learn the songs.

Our bass player had to hear the song. He needed to have a copy of each song to hear it over and over again so he could learn it.

The lead guitarist needed the tabs. Tabs are a note for note transcription of the song.

I (rhythm guitar) needed the songs in chordpro. This showed how the chords changed when compared to the lyrics.

The singer lyrics. She needed the lyrics in large font. She just said 1 2 3 4 and started belting it out, and never missed a note.

The drummer was a seasoned pro. He'd ask me questions I did not know (like Does this swing?), and then just go for it.

Half of us did great learning in a group. They'd learn the song while we practiced it.

The rest had to go home and spend some time alone with the piece. We'd return to the next practice ready to roll.

Time spent with band members taught me a lot about learning styles, mainly that there are a lot out there. I also learned that it took all of us some time to figure out which learning style suited us best. Once we figured out our learning style we were off and running.

In school we assume too much about learning styles. We think all kids learn the way we did, or the method described in the curriculum guide, or the prepackaged program purchased by the school system. The classroom teacher needs to begin looking at the students as individuals in a group. Band members if you will. Each has their own method of learning the material. We learn the same material, just in a different style.

In a band I could learn using other methods. It was helpful if I had a better ear, or learned to read tab. But I was not an efficient learner. So I fell behind the others.

From this experience, I learned that it is good efficient teaching if students are taught to identify their learning style. It is good if teacher learn to differentiate instruction according to the learners in the class. It is good if teachers introduce new learning styles to the students. They may not be efficient at first, but could open another avenue to learning.

Bad Practice=Good Gig Good Practice=Bad Gig

I am a firm believer that you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your correct actions playing in a band I found Rule #3 to ring true. We would have practices that were awesome. After a few of these we would feel good and overly confident. We would then hit the gig, have a train wreck mid song and then we would stand there and look at each other and wonder what happened.

No one would have an answer.

When you play out, play live or do anything, you are going to make mistakes. Perfection is not meant for this world. The best we can do for ourselves and our kids is to prepare them for less than perfection. Prep for mistakes.

It is better to prepare for mistakes in practice, not at the gig. You make the mistakes, adjust, move on. If done properly no one but the band notices. In practice we could stop, laugh hysterically, analyze, learn and do over in privacy.

Later as we improved we would build in mistakes to keep us on our toes. We'd do a metal song as a ballad, a country song as a reggae song or punk. We'd switch instruments. Anything to cause a mistake would make us stronger.

Being a family band (everyone had or is having kids) our practices were constantly interrupted with phones ringing, juice box requests, diaper changes and video failures. We could finish any song with babes on hips. At the gig, nothing threw us. Rowdy or inattentive crowd were nothing like what we faced at practice.

At school many expect perfection from the get go. We believe our lesson was so great, students will perform perfectly from the start. How many of us picked up an instrument, golf club, tennis racquet and played like Clapton, Woods, or McEnroe?? None. The learning curve in Math, Science, Social Studies and English is just as steep.

The class needs to mimic the practice session. Students need to play, make errors, get instruction and assess and do it again and again to get close to perfection. Classrooms need to be a place to try and fail. We must get kids prepared for the test, and life like a band practice.