Teaching Music to Children with ADHD

Magesh is a professional musician and educator who teaches Drum lessons and Piano lessons online. Find out more on his Lessonface profile.

In my 23-year career as an instrumental music teacher, I have taught many students with Autism, Asperger's, and ADHD.

Before my teaching career started, I worked as a session musician for some of the world's biggest pop stars like Lionel Richie, Ricky Martin, Rhianna, and Nelly Furtado. Working one-on-one with young students gave me insight into how their minds worked and how they learned. Teaching hundreds of students over two decades gave me invaluable experience tutoring students with ADHD.

In recent times, more information has come to light on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, with many important resources now available online. Being a member of several online forums on the topic, I have seen an increased number of comments from people looking for advice on teaching children with ADHD. Online publications dealing with psychology often discuss benefits of music on attentiveness and focus in people with ADHD. 

I would like to talk about my experiences working with students with ADHD. I have noticed the following key elements that made a difference to students learning music: timing, material, reading music notation, and singing music notation.

I recently started teaching an 8-year-old boy how to play the drums. I started the first lesson with some warm-up exercises, playing a few simple rhythms on the snare drum and asking the student to copy what he had heard. After that, I wrote out some basic music notation which he had no problem understanding. The next day, the boy's mother called me. There was a lot of emotion in her voice to the point where I thought something was wrong. She said “My son has ADHD and often has trouble focusing on new tasks, but he was engaged in the drum lesson with you.” Although I had taught many students with ADHD, if this boy's mother hadn’t told me this, there is no way I would have known. 

Over the next few months of teaching the boy, I noticed several factors that led to him learning something quickly and staying focused.

Timing 

When a parent tells me their child has ADHD, I always ask if there is an optimal time to schedule their lesson. From experience, if I teach them too early in the morning they may be tired which is also the case if it's too late in the afternoon. This may seem like a small detail, although it makes a massive difference in their level of concentration.

Material

I have found it is a lot easier to keep the attention of a student with ADHD if they are learning music that they thoroughly enjoy. A way to do this is to ask the student what their three favorite songs are. Once I know this, I can listen to the music and see which one has the best, funkiest and most fun beat for them to learn.

Reading Music Notation (Visual cues)

Drum music notation is basic maths. Quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes make up a considerable number of modern drum beats. I have devised a system to write down these types of notes in a grid. This works well for my students with ADHD because they can see how the musical notes connect like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s something very logical and visually appealing at the same time. After a few lessons, I can quickly assess the student's level of understanding of music notation. I will then write a beat and purposely leave out notes. It becomes a game where the student has to fill in the missing notes. I find this helps the student learn simply because they are engaged, as opposed to just reading music that is put in front of them. 

Imitation

Having a student copy a beat I have just played is a great way to keep them interested. It is done in a 'rapid fire' way where I quickly play 5 rhythms and ask them to repeat it. This takes a great deal of focus because the student has to mimic what they just heard. I have found this method amazing at improving focus.

Singing Music Notation

This is essentially 'beatboxing' where I sing the rhythm with my mouth instead of playing it on the drums. It is a lot easier for a student to do this initially because it doesn’t require coordination of the limbs. It can also be a lot of fun because singing drum beats can make even the most sophisticated-sounding person sound like a caveman. 'Boom, boom, cha, chuga, chuga, boom!'

Segmenting Lesson Time

I find that the most important factor in teaching someone with ADHD is engagement. Asking them questions, having them write things out, and copying things that I do has helped students learn things in a timely and efficient manner. Attention span is one of the biggest variants in learning, and I have found another way to help keep students interested: divide each 30-minute lesson into six 5-minute segments. With this method, the student only needs to focus on one piece of information for a short amount of time. This way there is little chance that a student's focus will wane simply because of the constant change in learning new tasks.

Through many years of trial and error, I have come up with these methods that can be beneficial for anyone teaching a child with ADHD. Although I am a music teacher, I believe these principles could easily be applied to other subjects. This system has helped me as a teacher, I hope it can now help other teacers too. 

ABOUT MAGESH As a musician I have performed with Rhianna, Lionel Richie, Ricky Martin, Chris Brown, Kimbra and Vernon Reid (Living Colour).  I was ranked one of the 'Top 20 Millinium players' by 'Drumscene magazine. I have appreared in 'Modern Drummer' (U.S.A), Rhythm (U.K), Percussion (Italy) and 'Newsbeat (Canada) magaizes.  > Book a lesson with Magesh

Magesh's lessons are rated five stars in 35 verified student reviews, like this one:

Magesh is a very patient and awesome teacher. My son loves his lessons and is eager to play and practice. Magesh's love for playing the drums comes out during the lessons and my son feeds off of it. Can't wait to see where these lessons take him.

-Latisha, review from June 23, 2021