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Making Musicians: A Teacher's Guide to Emotionally Intelligent Music Instruction
Allison Wilkinson has quickly become one of the most sought-after clinicians on the subjects of brain science and music psychology. Drawing from her own teaching and extensive research, she presents a groundbreaking new approach to music education in Making Musicians.
Based on the essential premise that all humans are musicians, this book presents educators with a clear and useful guide to Emotionally Intelligent Music Instruction (EIMI), a method that makes music learning a positive experience for all students.
The book is divided into five distinct
What Makes a MusicianMusic and the BrainThe Structures of LearningApplied Music Psychology to Music EducationBringing Others on BoardEach section helps teachers better understand the connections between music, the brain, and psychology, and gives teachers practical suggestions for applying these concepts in their own instruction.
Making Musicians concludes with an EIMI case study of teacher Charlee Eaves. “EIMI gave me the gift of knowing how to care for my students and reminded me of what the true priority is. Joy is the priority, not correctness or shame. It has been life changing.”
Research, experience, empathy, and joy make this book a must-have for every music educator seeking to truly connect with and instill a love for music in students.
Allison Wilkinson is the CEO and founder of the I Am School of Music and the Making Musicians Training Program. A veteran teacher with more than 15,000 hours of direct teaching and many more in research, Allison teaches the tools of applied music psychology to music educators around the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between.
Based on the essential premise that all humans are musicians, this book presents educators with a clear and useful guide to Emotionally Intelligent Music Instruction (EIMI), a method that makes music learning a positive experience for all students.
The book is divided into five distinct
What Makes a MusicianMusic and the BrainThe Structures of LearningApplied Music Psychology to Music EducationBringing Others on BoardEach section helps teachers better understand the connections between music, the brain, and psychology, and gives teachers practical suggestions for applying these concepts in their own instruction.
Making Musicians concludes with an EIMI case study of teacher Charlee Eaves. “EIMI gave me the gift of knowing how to care for my students and reminded me of what the true priority is. Joy is the priority, not correctness or shame. It has been life changing.”
Research, experience, empathy, and joy make this book a must-have for every music educator seeking to truly connect with and instill a love for music in students.
Allison Wilkinson is the CEO and founder of the I Am School of Music and the Making Musicians Training Program. A veteran teacher with more than 15,000 hours of direct teaching and many more in research, Allison teaches the tools of applied music psychology to music educators around the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between.
457 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 26, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 18, 2025
I really did like this book, and would probably rate it more at 3.5 stars. My main issue with it is that at multiple times throughout the chapters, it felt more like an advertisement for the author’s teacher training program; she sells “coaching” for teachers online, and I’m always critical of “coaching” programs. She makes it out to be a whole new way of thinking about teaching, but I’m not convinced it is. Emotionally intelligent teaching IS different than most music teachers have taught and learned to teach throughout history, but it also seems a whole lot like common sense. She refers multiple times to stressed brains not being able to process information and therefore not able to learn, which is pretty simple.
My second main issue is that she simplifies the neuroscience parts to “midbrain, forebrain, hindbrain”.
I DO appreciate the references to neuroscience and how she uses it to explain the connections of how learning music and playing music uses different parts of the brain, I just think it’s far too simplified. Yes, the audience are music teachers and pre-service music teachers who probably have little to no neuroscience (or even psychology), but if you DO have some background knowledge, it feels like not enough.
The last issue I have is with the whole gardening metaphor she employs for the last third of the book. She constantly refers to “planting the seed, prepping the soil, and harvesting” which I just found weird. She uses a LOT of metaphors to get the same points across, which might work well for some people, but I just got bored of.
What I DO like is the reflective prompts at the end of every chapter and suggestions on how to apply emotionally intelligent teaching to music. It’s a really good reminder to think of the joys of music making and sharing it with kids, and why I wanted to go into music education to begin with.
My second main issue is that she simplifies the neuroscience parts to “midbrain, forebrain, hindbrain”.
I DO appreciate the references to neuroscience and how she uses it to explain the connections of how learning music and playing music uses different parts of the brain, I just think it’s far too simplified. Yes, the audience are music teachers and pre-service music teachers who probably have little to no neuroscience (or even psychology), but if you DO have some background knowledge, it feels like not enough.
The last issue I have is with the whole gardening metaphor she employs for the last third of the book. She constantly refers to “planting the seed, prepping the soil, and harvesting” which I just found weird. She uses a LOT of metaphors to get the same points across, which might work well for some people, but I just got bored of.
What I DO like is the reflective prompts at the end of every chapter and suggestions on how to apply emotionally intelligent teaching to music. It’s a really good reminder to think of the joys of music making and sharing it with kids, and why I wanted to go into music education to begin with.
August 16, 2026
Wow, lots of really great gems and advice to help me become the music teacher I want to be! I underlined just about half the book. I appreciated that this approach aligned with things that I have already been doing--which both validated me as a teacher and helped me label concepts and determine why I was doing things a certain way (and also to think if I should be doing them). Of course, there were a lot of completely new ideas for me to think about as well--I'm excited to experiment with them!
July 6, 2025
I really love the way the author approaches music instruction. Though there were parts specific to a private studio, I can see applications for my general music classroom everywhere.
May 12, 2026
Good information but extremely repetitive
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews