Category: Practicing

You're on Your Own!

11/22/2017

I recently read an insightful article by Bruce Berr in the latest issue of American Music Teacher magazine about his experiences with assigning “OYO” pieces to his students. “OYO” is short for “on your own,” and these pieces are assigned to assess how well a student can practice new material without teacher assistance.

I have also found it helpful to assign independent study pieces to my students, for many of the same reasons listed in Bruce Berr’s article. I focus on instilling good practice habits in my students, but assigning these independent study pieces really helps me to know how well students are remembering and applying these practice techniques at home. Are my students really breaking a piece into small sections, or practicing hands separately, or counting carefully without being prompted?

Independent study pieces also help me to see if there are any gaps in a student’s understanding of concepts like note reading or rhythm. I might think that I have done a good job teaching a student to count eighth note patterns (for example), but sometimes the results of an independent study piece say differently! It is helpful to know which concepts need extra drilling in our weekly lessons.

The article also makes an important point about the value of building a student’s self-confidence through “OYO” pieces. It is possible for students to become so reliant upon their teachers’ guidance that they become paralyzed with indecision when presented with a new piece of music. At the elementary level, this might present itself with questions such as “where do my hands go?” or “what is that note?” At the intermediate and advanced levels, this might present itself as a lack of artistry; students might be waiting to be told by their teacher where to shape a phrase, or exactly how to pedal a section of music, instead of asking those important musical questions on their own. It is important that students learn to develop strategies for problem solving, as well as their own ideas for interpreting music artistically. Independent study pieces are a great way to help students do just that.

So how do you assign an independent study piece? Here are a few guidelines:

Choose a short piece that is slightly above a student’s sight-reading level.
Choose a piece that doesn’t introduce any new concepts or unfamiliar artistic challenges.
Remind students of the practice techniques they have learned (slow practice, section practice, hands separately practice, using the "practice cake" as a checklist) so they will have strategies to apply to this new piece at home. I also tell my students that they are allowed to look for recordings of their independent study pieces if they would like.

This is a perfect time of year to incorporate a few independent study pieces into your lessons. Perhaps you have students preparing to take an extended holiday break and you want to keep their skills sharp? Or maybe you need some “easy wins” that students can work on during the busy holiday season when their time is limited? As a bonus, there are plenty of free, public domain holiday pieces available online that would make great independent study pieces (two of my favorite websites for free public domain sheet music are G Major Music Theory and Making Music Fun).

What do you think? Will you be assigning “OYO” pieces to your students this season?

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Practice Sheet for Young Beginners

11/10/2017

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In this post, I talked about some of the challenges of teaching young beginners, and discussed the strategies I use in my lessons. Today, I would like to share a practice sheet that I have found very helpful in my lessons with young beginners.

This practice sheet is simple, but effective! I like to place it on the music rack and use it as a visual guide for the tasks we will be completing in the lesson. Students can put a check mark in the box next to each task as it is finished. If their attention wanes, I point to the tasks on the practice sheet to get us back on track.

The benefits I have found in using this practice sheet are:

It divides the lesson into short tasks, and young beginners know exactly how many tasks are left until the end of the lesson.
It provides a framework for what a practice session should look like at home. As you go through a lesson, you can fill in each portion of the practice sheet and this can be placed in a student's notebook to serve as their assignment sheet for the upcoming week.
It encourages good listening skills. I tell students that each time they show they aren't listening and following directions, I will cross off one of the three ears at the bottom of the page. At the end of the lesson, students may choose as many stickers as there are ears left on their practice page. No ears=no stickers!
It provides parents with feedback on what was covered in the lesson, and how well a student followed directions. It's like a mini-report card that parents can see at the end of each lesson!

Download your free practice sheet HERE. What do you think? Do you use something similar with your young beginners? Please leave a comment below!

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Once More, with Feeling!

8/22/2017

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"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."

-Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven, a teacher himself, is said to have given his student this sage advice. Isn't this what we strive to do as musicians: to play with passion, and truly "feel" the music?

Unfortunately, I have found that most of my students don't instinctively play "with feeling." How can we help our students to learn this skill? I think the first step is to help students understand exactly what their music is saying, so they can communicate these ideas to the listener. I like to tell my students that playing a piece of music is like telling a story without using any words. Once students understand how to communicate the thoughts and feelings behind their music, they can eventually begin to connect these ideas to their own personal experiences and emotions and start to feel the music as they play.

Here are a few ideas I use to help my students begin to communicate the ideas behind their music. It isn't always easy, but through a combination of visual imagery, descriptive adjectives, technical movements, and practice, I find that my students have fun exploring the thoughts behind their music and finding an emotional connection to their pieces.

Let the title be your guide! Many pedagogical pieces have descriptive titles to make it easy for students to understand the thoughts behind the music. Ask your students: what images does this title bring to mind? Is this piece inspired by a place, or a particular mood? What adjectives might you use to describe the music? I sometimes help students do an online image search to find a picture that fits the music and offers visual inspiration. If a student is playing a classical piece without a descriptive title, such as a minuet, it can be helpful to look at pictures of classical era art, architecture, or fashion to give students a historical framework for playing the piece expressively. For example, you might imagine someone dancing a minuet in a fancy gown. Create your own descriptive title to fit the music if you like!

Choose the technique you need to create the sound you want. Once students have described the type of sound they want based on the title, discuss what technique you would need to create that sound. Do we need a sneaky sound, as if we are tiptoeing across the keys? Do we need a smooth elegant sound, as if we are gliding across the dance floor? Do we need a bold sound, requiring the use of arm weight? Maybe we need all of these sounds at different points in the piece! Help students to decide which technique is most appropriate at different points in the music.

Mark the music! Now it is time to match our ideas to the music. Mark the score with descriptive adjectives or sentences that describe the story we are telling as we play. Use stickers or different colors to help students visualize the sound they would like to create at different points in the piece. Write in the technical movements students will need to practice to create the sounds they want.

Get into character. The final step in communicating our piece effectively is to remember to get into character and practice truly performing a piece. Take a moment to visualize the story and, like an actor or actress, get into character and communicate this story to the audience. From the first note to the very last note, we want our audience to be able to understand exactly what we are trying to say without words. To paraphrase Beethoven, don't worry about the wrong notes--just play with feeling!

What do you think? Do you have any tips to help students "feel the music"? Please leave a comment below!

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My 5 Favorite Practice Techniques

7/26/2017

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One of my goals as a teacher is to help my students learn how to help themselves! Since most of the work of learning the piano happens outside of their weekly lessons, I want students to have a full "toolbox" of practice techniques they can use at home to help with whatever practice problems may arise.

Below are my top 5 favorite general practice techniques--the ones I find myself using over and over with my students. I hope they can be helpful tools for your students, too!

1. Eat the cake!
I have blogged previously about my "practice cake" method here. In a nutshell, the practice cake is a visual reminder to help students look for the different layers of information found in their music and learn ways to practice each one. This can be a great way to get students accustomed to goal-oriented practice sessions. For example, one practice session can focus on practicing the rhythm of a piece in several ways: counting and clapping, tapping both hands, counting out loud, using the metronome, etc. Another session could focus on dynamics: finding each marking in the music, mapping out the dynamic "high point" of the piece, practicing sections with quick dynamic changes, etc. I find that practicing with a purpose keeps the brain engaged and makes practice sessions more productive--and more interesting!

2. Post-it practice
If students are having problems with a particular area of a piece, I pull out the post-its! Using post-it notes, we cover everything in that section except for the tricky bit. This helps students to really focus in on exactly what is tripping them up. After playing this section several times, we move the post-it back a measure and play again. We keep playing, and moving the post-it note, until the problem section is mastered.

3. Backwards practice
Do you have students that master the beginning of a piece, while the ending remains shaky? Enter the backwards practicing technique! "Backwards practice" doesn't mean we literally play the notes backwards; rather, we choose a small section near the end of a piece to practice, then work our way backwards adding one or two measures at a time. This can combine really well with the post-it technique mentioned above!

4. Starting over practice
This technique works really well for students that have trouble playing a piece fluidly without mistakes. Starting from the beginning of the piece, we mark several "goalposts" in the music. Students must start from the beginning of the piece and play without mistakes until they reach the first goalpost. If they make a mistake, they must stop and start from the beginning. We work this way on each section until students can successfully play the entire piece without mistakes. This may seem counter-intuitive, since this is the opposite of what we do when we perform! However, I have found that starting over practice really helps students to slow down and think ahead, because they know if they miss a note they must start over! It also prevents mistakes from becoming part of their muscle memory, because students are interrupting the "wrong" movement and starting over from the beginning.

5. Performance practice
The opposite of starting over practice, performance practice means we keep going, no matter what! I ask students to get into character and perform a piece from start to finish, just as they would if they were at a recital. Sometimes we can get so caught up in practicing that we forget that the end goal of any piece is to truly perform it--and this takes its own special type of practice to do well!

What do you think? Any favorite practice techniques you use with your students? Please share in the comments!

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On Sight Reading, Part Two

5/8/2017

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In my last blog post, I talked about the top three skills I think are most important to being a good sight reader.

Just like any skill, sight reading gets better with practice! Today, I will share a few ways I help my students practice their sight reading.

There’s an app for that! Apps are a fun way to practice sight reading. A few of my favorites:

Piano Maestro: with fun backing tracks and scrolling music, this app is great for helping students keep their eyes moving ahead in the music, keeping a steady beat, and playing without stopping.
SightRead4Piano by Wessar: this app is designed for students preparing for the sight reading portion of exams such as those offered by the ABRSM. My favorite thing about this app is that as students sight read each piece at the piano, the measures in the music disappear--meaning no going back!
Tenuto: although this app is meant for theory practice and not sight reading, I find the "interval identification" and "chord identification" exercises very helpful to work on "chunking." I place my iPad on the music rack and have students see how quickly they can play each interval or chord as it appears on the screen.

Short Term Goal Pieces. I like to keep students sight reading as much as possible by assigning them lots of short term goal pieces, so they are trying out new repertoire (and flexing their sight reading muscles) at every lesson. Students should be able to master these pieces in just a week or two. As a bonus, these short term goals are great for boosting a student’s self-confidence!

Just Duet! Duets are a fun way to work on sight reading. I like to have students sight read duets and trios at our monthly group classes (see my "Free Stuff" page for links to my free ensemble pieces.) Sight reading is much more fun when you practice with a friend (or two)!

What do you think? How do you help your students practice their sight reading? Please share in the comments below!

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You're on Your Own!

Practice Sheet for Young Beginners

Once More, with Feeling!

My 5 Favorite Practice Techniques

On Sight Reading, Part Two

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