LessonMate Setup
We will send you a teacher login, please reset your password once logged in.
Lessonmate is a fantastic tool for late cancellations, you simply video record your lesson and send it through the app and the student is then notified through email
Click Here to watch a short video on how to use this software
Here is how you can log in: https://www.lessonmate.org/
If a student isn’t appearing on your student list, please upload the video to “Amazing Student”, this is a generic account we use until a custom account is created. Make sure to include the student’s first and last name in the notes so we know where to direct it as we have multiple students with the same first names. Students might be missing from your account for one of these reasons:
A) The student has given their 30-day notice, so their LM account has been deactivated (due to our limited license capacity).
B) There’s an admin error where the account was created but not correctly linked to your account.There’s no need to text me or request it be added, as We'll review and address this upon receiving the "amazing student" Lessonmate email.
Also, if you’re away sick or on holiday and a student requests a LM, I don’t expect the substitute teacher to prepare one. You can create it later when you have time. The only exception to this is if the substitute has been working with the student for more than one lesson.
Any issues with Lessonmate direct them to our general text line.
LessonMate Pro Tips & Best Practices from Carol Cowie
We usually treat lesson mates as stand alone lessons, not as a continuation of regular lessons. This is because students, especially if they’re away or busy or sick, often don’t get the chance to look at the video before their next in-person lesson, and you end up duplicating the lesson in person, which is very inefficient. Instead, I pick a specific topic, and break it into 2 10-minute videos (approx), and let them know that this is something they can look at and work at in their own time.
Examples:
- a short study piece - something that’s easy for them and will take them a week or less to learn. Usually I look something up on Tomplay and send the PDF along with the lesson. This is something which is just to add to their repertoire, and which won’t require lesson time for them to learn. In the videos I will do a couple of playthroughs, then send a left hand video, and a right hand video. I’ll point out any areas of potential challenge, and do a review of timing, chord structure, and fingering. It’s really important for this piece to be easy for the student and to not contain any musical concepts that they haven’t already come across.
- a new scale - something like G major, D major etc. I explain the key signature, and the fingering, showing 1 octave, 2 octaves, 3 octaves etc. Then I’ll show the tonic triad & inversions (broken pattern and solid pattern). If we have covered minor scales, I’ll show the relative minor in all its forms (natural, harmonic, melodic) but this depends on the level of the student.
- ear test work - intervals are a really easy video lesson. Again this depends on the students, but even very young beginners can begin to sing and recognize major 2nds and major 3rds. You can also test major/minor/diminished chords, and do rhythmic exercises for clapback. There are lots of ear test books in the printing room that I use as a guide, and which are labelled according to the level of difficulty of the exercises.
- lead sheet/chording - I’ll include this as a PDF - usually a song that I think the student will like (depending on the key as I usually suggest playing along on Spotify to the actual song, so if it’s a difficult key I’ll look for something easier - usually C, G D or F major for piano). I find one without too many difficult chords (depending on the level of the student) - usually just I, IV and V or perhaps ii.
- song or piece analysis. I’ll pick something from Spotify - usually a classical piece but it could be anything, and ask questions based on instrumentation, voicing, what are the melody lines etc. I find a surprising amount of students don’t know the difference between what the instruments in an ensemble or orchestra sound like. I’ll include a bit of music history too. For example if it’s a piece by Mozart I’ll talk a little bit about his life and what the surrounding world was like.