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Carnaval!

2/27/2017

Each year, millions of people descend upon Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to celebrate the festival of Carnaval, which marks the beginning of Lent. Carnaval is the most famous holiday in Brazil and features a week-long festival of parades and revelry.

This year, Carnaval is taking place through Wednesday, and I'd like to share my own piece inspired by the excitement of this festival! "Carnaval" is a piece for piano duet featuring Latin rhythms and percussive use of the piano.

Click HERE to see and purchase the sheet music for this piece!

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Am I Ready? A FREE Performance Checklist!

2/20/2017

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Are your students preparing for festivals and performances this spring? If so, take a look at this handy checklist I created to help my students get ready for our spring performances!

The top of the page features a readiness checklist for students preparing to play from memory; the bottom features a checklist for students preparing to play in front of an audience. Use one or both, depending on your students' needs. Each list leaves room for you to add additional tasks, in case a student needs extra work on a particular area of his or her music.

Click HERE to download your free "Am I ready?" performance checklist.

What do you think? Any tips for helping your students make sure they are performance-ready? Please leave a comment below!

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Developing Strong Note Reading Skills, Part 2

2/13/2017

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My first post on developing strong note reading skills can be found HERE.

So, you have followed the strategies I introduced in my first post, and your student is still struggling with note reading. Now what?

If you have ruled out any learning challenges (such as dyslexia) or physical challenges (such as poor eyesight), then it is time for more in-depth strategies to help your student with note reading. Some students just aren’t visual learners and require a more kinesthetic approach to reading. Other students just need a little more practice mastering the fundamentals of note reading. Either way—don’t give up! Here are my additional resources for helping your students become strong readers:

1. Faber's “I Can Read Music” series.
I have had good luck using this series of books with students that just need extra practice with note reading. Each book contains note naming puzzles, interval identification exercises, and short sight-reading activities to provide a three-pronged approach to reading. Take a look at these books HERE.

2. Manipulatives.
For students that are kinesthetic learners, manipulatives can be a wonderful way to work on note reading! A large magnetic staff board that students can touch and move notes across, or a floor staff that students can step on are both good tools to work on identifying notes and intervals. As a bonus, it gets those wiggly kinesthetic learners up off the piano bench and moving around!

3. Writing on the staff.
Have students practice drawing notes using a dry-erase board, iPad app, or pencil and paper. Encourage students that enjoy playing by ear to notate the pieces they know on the staff. Create short compositions that students can notate on staff paper. Just like in spoken language, reading and writing go hand-in-hand.

4. Incorporating rote playing in lessons.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but teaching a piece by rote, and then introducing it on the staff, can help kinesthetic students make the connection between what they feel when they play and what they see in the music. Rote playing also helps give students that struggle with note reading a way to be successful at the piano until their reading skills catch up to their playing level.

What do you think? Do you have students that have extra difficulties with note reading? I would love to hear your strategies for helping students in this area!

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Developing Strong Note Reading Skills, Part 1

2/7/2017

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“My student is having a hard time with note reading. What should I do?”

I see this question posted quite often in piano teacher discussion groups. Learning to read music truly is like learning a new language, so it is no surprise that many students struggle with note reading. However, I think any student has the potential to be a strong note reader!

Over the years, I have developed several teaching strategies that I think have helped my students tremendously in their note reading. By following these strategies, I would say that 90% of my students are excellent readers. (Part 2 of this post will focus on additional resources I use to help the small percentage of students that still struggle with note reading after using the strategies I list below!)

My strategies for developing strong note reading skills:

1. Introduce new notes on the staff well before a student will see them in a piece of music.
This is the number one strategy that I recommend for setting students up for success with note reading. It is easy for students to become overwhelmed if they are trying to both decode new notes and play them on the piano for the first time! Planning ahead and introducing notes on the staff one or two weeks before students see them for the first time in their music makes a huge difference.

2. Drill, drill, drill.
At the beginner level, we spend a lot of time at each lesson drilling notes. We name the notes in their pieces before playing, we say the notes as we play, we use iPad apps to play note naming games. Students get note naming worksheets and puzzles to do at home as part of their weekly assignment. Developing a strong foundation in note reading requires lots of repetition and review.

3. Supplement!
I find that most beginner books provide 1-2 songs using a set number of notes on the staff before adding additional notes. For many students, this is not enough reinforcement for them to learn the notes securely. Don’t be afraid to supplement with additional music—you might choose a beginning level repertoire book, or use a public domain sheet music site with beginner-level pieces. Make sure your students really “get” the notes they are using in their current pieces before assigning pieces with additional notes.

4. Work on intervallic reading.
Being a good note reader requires not only a familiarity with notes on the staff, but also an understanding of how to look for patterns between the notes. Have students “connect the dots” in their music to discover whether notes are stepping up or down; ask students to circle notes that skip and find repeated patterns in their music. Make sure elementary students understand how to spot intervals of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th and drill these using apps, flashcards, or worksheets, just like you drill the note names. You might also encourage intervallic reading by asking students to transpose their pieces to different keys—or use one of my free transposing challenge sheets, found HERE.

5. Have students read new music at every lesson.
Developing good reading skills takes practice! Beginning students should be working on new music at every lesson in order to get as much practice as possible reading notes on the staff. By providing students with lots of short-term goal pieces that can be mastered quickly, you will be building good note reading skills—and your students’ self-confidence too!

What do you think? Do you use any of these strategies with your students? Any other tips you would like to share for helping students develop strong note reading skills? Please leave a comment below!

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Free Printable: A Waltz Composition Activity!

2/3/2017

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With Valentine's Day approaching, I like to incorporate a creative activity in honor of the day. Since I have found lots of ideas online for my younger students, I decided to create a new composition activity for my older students: composing a waltz!

This activity is perfect for students that are reluctant to try composing--the melody is determined by rolling dice, so all students have to do is choose between the I and V7 chord for the bass clef. This is a great way to introduce (or review) the waltz-style accompaniment pattern, as well as introduce students to recordings of famous waltzes by Johann Strauss, Chopin, Brahms....and the list goes on!

Once students have completed their composition on the staff page that is included, there is a list of ways to take this activity to the next level. Ask students to create a special introduction or ending for their waltz, or to create a new melody using the chords they have chosen. Have students transpose their waltz to the key of G major, or change it from C major to C minor for a different sound. These options allow students to experiment within the given framework to create a composition that is truly their own.

Click HERE to download your free waltz composition activity sheets.

What do you think? Will you be doing any composition activities with your students to celebrate Valentine's Day?

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Carnaval!

Am I Ready? A FREE Performance Checklist!

Developing Strong Note Reading Skills, Part 2

Developing Strong Note Reading Skills, Part 1

Free Printable: A Waltz Composition Activity!

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