How in the world do I fit in more stuff?

I have been thinking lately about the need to fit in more elements into my lesson. Then I saw the Faber videos in another thread and realized that there are even more elements that I really need to be focusing on. Theory for one. Not just in a passing way, but really exploring the theory being employed in the song. Also improvisation.

I already feel like I am trying to squeeze in listening to their three songs, a technical exercise and a scale or two and then introducing new material all in a thirty minute lesson. How do I fit in ear training, theory and improvisation?

How do you structure your lessons?

You're doing all you can in a 30-minute lesson, Ben. Don't beat yourself up. My advice is to slowly ditch those lessons, in favor of 45-minute lessons.

But that's impractical advice for now. You could devote an occasional lesson to the other stuff, like improv, just to vary the teaching routine for you and your student. Maybe once a month or so.

I made the decision to only offer 30 min lessons to my primer students. It just isn't enough time to get through everything we need to do!

With slow students who do very little work, 30 minutes is an eternity. I watch the seconds tick off and pray for an end, each week.

For average students who do a bit more work, 30 minutes is just fine. Sure, I could accomplish more with more time, but I would be doing it, not them. They are not really hungry.

For those more involved, more work, more passion, 45 minutes or 60 would be SO much better.

For the ones who really love music, who come in full of energy, questions, passion, I could easily keep going for hours.

But we don't get to pick, because often the most dedicated students have parents who a) do not have much money and b) will not make piano lessons a top priority. There are other parents who would pay us to teach an hour or more per week just because they have cash to burn, and it's fine in their minds to pay us to work with their kids even if we are expected to do the work for them.

Life is not fair. We do the best we can do in the time we have, and we have to be content with that.

It's HARD...

Along the lines of what Peter said, you can have a different "theme" each week with students like improv, history, studying different styles that the student may have never heard, etc. Unless the parent can afford 45 minute lessons, this is the only alternative. You can, of course, let the parent know this so they can keep that in mind and you never know they may come back and say "I think we can do the 45 minute lessons."

Most of my students work on 2 pieces at a time. One is for sight reading where they had to have new songs each week. The other is for playing and to expand their playing ability. Whatever songs they are working on is the lesson I give them. If the song is in the key of G, we do the G scale, G chord inversions, any articulations I see, or markings, maybe talk about the chord structure. I will talk about the composer if possible. If I have a student that has a specific goal in mind, like improvising, I may put everything else aside and work on that. To incorporate things like improvising, into regular lessons I may put aside one whole lesson to get the student started and then spend 5 or 10 minutes every other lesson.

I hope that helps

Lessons at the Faber institute are 45-60 minutes long. Randy and the piano teaching staff there are geniuses, but even they can't fit it all into 30 minutes.

Also, at the Faber Institute, students in the early elementaty levels (MFPA, Primer, & Level 1) all have 2 lessons per week - which gives more time. Randall also states that if you're just doing 30 minute weekly lessons to only use the Piano Adventures Technique, Lesson, & Theory books. You may not be able to use the Perfomance book. I'm sure that true with other methods as well.