Reflections – What Did I Do This Week?
Doing a weekly “What did I do this Week” blog has helped me reflect on my daily progress, which this week, wasn’t much. But I do think it would be a great time to reflect on why “Music By The Measures” even exists.
Its good to look in the mirror and reflect.
Years ago when I used to own a Teaching Music Studio, I would often have students ask for songs. Now that could be a song on Drums, Keyboard, Guitar, Ukulele, Bass or even some help with Vocals. See I’ve always been a “Jack of a few trades, master of none”. So when a student wants to learn “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” on drums. I’d have to search the Internet and see if there was a tab to buy, or if I was lucky a free tab (we will get to that in a minute!).
By the way if you want that song, written correctly with a 16th note feel, download it here!
Get it here!
Or get this paid version here, thats in 1/8 notes…. and not the preferred way to count it.
Finding music for 5-10 students a week isn’t that big of a problem. But it got to the point where I was teaching over 50 students, 7 days a week. That meant if every student needed a new song that week and it took me over 10 minutes a song to prep (even more if the song was wrong!) that would be over 8 hours of MUSIC PREP for the week, and sometimes it felt like I was doing that or more, OUTSIDE OF LESSONS!
Now I get it, not every teacher goes that overboard, but very quickly it was overwhelming. We got so busy that we hired someone for sheet music, and then hired someone else on top of that. So I was teaching so much that it made sense to have 2 employees turn out sheet music. Through that process we refined and created a better product, a couple years later, Nic came on and helped us revamp it even more.
That sounds like a lot of work and that I may be obsessed with sheet music, I am not. As a teacher, what I did see was that the better the sheet music was the better the lesson could go. Having that high quality sheet music left more time for the other things that were important in a lesson, like building a relationship, working on technique or just having fun! Also from a student’s perspective they got used to a look and a feel for the sheet music…. So they didn’t have to guess what chord that was, because it was written above.Or why those 1/8 notes were grouped differently before. It was a bunch of small details that added up to the big picture!
Good sheet music is one less barrier to entry
Music lessons/learning can be hard enough, why make it harder with inaccurate sheet music. Parents and students were pleased. Students got to learn the songs they wanted to. Parents saw the student walk away with a “Professional looking resource”.
You have a lot of options for sheet music!!
Free Charts
You will still find me downloading a Guitar Pro Tab to this day. More often then not I end up rewriting it or in the future asking John to write the part out for me as NO ONE has it written out correctly. I’d say almost no one but help yourself and look into it.
Wanna learn “Cool Kids” on the drums, why not pick between these 2 options and hope you get lucky!
or, know that we already did the work for you and subscribe or buy sheets “1 at a time”…
Fake books
Well their name doesn’t lie. I remember being 14 and starting guitar and buying these books for some Beatle songs I wanted to learn. It was hard to impossible! Its like we weren’t even playing the same song!
Some good paid options are out there
I’ll be the first to admit online you have a lot of good paid options. Many times though when I’d buy a chart, I’d find details missing. I find it lacking the same holistic approach we are going for, where the details matter.
So why become a member at Music By The Measures, we strive for Easy to Read, Correct and Consistent Sheet Music. And to give it to you in a way a music teacher (or self learner) can better use and engage in the process of learning.
Reflect on why we might be a good fit for you!
Become a member and get 10 tabs a month for $9.99 or 10 FULL Band Arrangements for $19.99 a month!
https://music-by-the-measures.com/subscribe/
Until the End of October enjoy 50% off of membership using MBTM50 at checkout!
Also subscribe to our Youtube channel to see how we are continuing on our sheet music journey!