The Piano Lesson…Unplugged

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Just as I was about 5 minutes from completing the 45 minute trip to my first Saturday piano lesson this past weekend I made a terrifying discovery – I had left the cord to my keyboard at home! Of course my mind began to race as I only had about 30 minutes before my lesson was to begin. I knew there was a Radio Shack nearby so I went there in hopes that I could buy a plug. I was relieved to learn that they had several different sizes of plugs. While the salesperson and I searched for a plug that would fit, someone came into the store and asked me about taking piano lessons. Needless to say I did give them information about my lessons but was cringing on the inside that their first encounter with me involved me not being prepared for my next lesson! Before I could get too frustrated about this fact, the salesperson informed me that she had tried every plug they had in the store and  none of them fit my keyboard! Oh no! Where was my panic button when I needed it?

I thanked her and quickly made a plan to utilize my iPad during the lesson to teach/review theory concepts. When I arrived at the lesson, I got my music bag out of the car and noticed my full-sized keyboard there in the passenger seat staring at me as if to say, “You are going to take me in, right?”

That’s when it hit me! When students tell me they could not practice because they were away from their piano I tell them they don’t ALWAYS need a piano or keyboard to practice. I tell them to envision the keyboard, hear the song in their head, and practice the movements their fingers must make to play the song. Aha! Now was the time for me to “practice…” – pun intended – “what I’d preached”!

A completely silent piano lesson? I had never done that before. How would my student respond to 30 minutes of silence at the keyboard?

Well, I unloaded the keyboard and put on my jazz face – it was time to improvise! I greeted my student and informed her that we would be having a “Play Like Beethoven Day”.

To refresh her memory of who Beethoven was I hummed a couple of his familiar tunes – “Fur Elise”, and the opening of his 5th Symphony. When I told her that Beethoven was deaf when he composed some of his greatest pieces she was of course surprised. So, if Beethoven could do it surely she could do it for 30 minutes.

That day my student learned that “hearing” the music inside your head is extremely helpful and important for good music playing. She also learned that she could do it. One of the biggest advantages to playing silently was the isolation of the skills necessary to play the piano. Without the “distraction” of sound, she was able to concentrate on what she was doing with her fingers and hands more intently than she had ever done before.

To help determine if she was truly hearing the music, at times I hummed the tune she was playing as I carefully watched her fingers. My student was both surprised and impressed at her own accuracy. It was quite fulfilling to see her correcting her mistakes as she played. Most of the time students neglect proper fingering in order to get to the correct note by any means necessary even at the expense of musicality. This silent situation, however, left my student with nothing to fix except her fingering!

I have to say that this Unplugged Piano Lesson was one of the best musical experiences this student and I have had together so far in our music learning journey, and it was all because of a little IMPROVISATION. Just another life skill learned from piano lessons!

Morning Inspiration – Forever Playing

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This morning my daughter informed me that she noticed I hadn’t been going to a particular student’s house anymore and she wanted to know what was going on with their lessons. (Who has these type of conversations with their 9-year-old?) She went on to ask me if they were still taking piano. I told her that they were not taking lessons right now and she was visibly upset to hear that news. In an attempt to put her at ease and reassure her that this was neither a tragedy nor an emergency, I explained to her that EVERYBODY eventually quits taking lessons just like everybody eventually stops going to school. My sweet daughter thought that was the craziest idea ever and she would not accept this as a fact!

I can tell that this is going to be a very good day!

Music Notation Made Easy

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I recently found this
visual of the grand staff on wikihow.com which is great for quickly showing kids how the Treble Clef
and Bass Clefs are related.
After looking at the picture the phrase “Ace In The
Hole” came to my mind as a way to help kids connect the two staffs.
I often find that students have a hard time learning to look at both clefs at the same time.
They also tend to forget
the name of the note on the top line of the Bass Clef. “The Ace In The Hole” phrase can also
reenforce the concept of middle C being in the middle of the two staffs, which seems to
also be a surprisingly difficult concept for students to grasp.

Source: wikihow.com via Dana on Pinterest

Piano Photo Contest Entries: You Decide!

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To celebrate completing the first month of piano lessons for this school year, I held a piano photo contest for students and families in the studio. Below you can see all the entries. Please vote for your favorite picture. The owner of the winning picture will receive a $10 Amazon gift card!

iOS with a Single App for Education (Big nod to Tony Vincent)

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This has got to be the BEST feature apple has EVER added to its products! Any teacher or parent using iPad, iPhone, or iPod with kids will LOVE it!

choirguy's avatarTechnology in Music Education

Tony Vincent posted these instructions for forcing the use of a single app in the educational (or home) environments with iOS 6, which was released today.  Read his article here.

This is a wonderful addition, particularly for using iPads in music education.

Imagine this: you have four iPads that you can use with your students, which you wish to load with a PDF Music Reader, as well as to link audio files within that app, so that your students can do sectionals.  How do you make sure that your students stay on task and in the app you want them to stay in?  Guided Access.

This would also be ideal so that you could use the iPad in testing.

Fan-tast-ic.

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DIY Music Theory Manipulatives!

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I found this bucket of dominoes on a recent trip to Tuesday Morning for around $5! If your local store doesn’t have it you can get it on Amazon.com for $14.99. The bucket comes with 250 blank dominoes in 5 different colors. I am using the dominoes to help piano students learn to spell scales and build chords.

Using a sharpie, I wrote the letters of the music alphabet on individual dominoes. Then I drew sharps and flats on the dominoes as well. You will notice that I chose to use orange for all the sharps and blue for all the flats. There are more than enough dominoes to make a complete set of each of the 12 major scales without even using all of them. I ended up having a whole set of red dominoes left over to use for something else. I might use one side for numbers 1-7 and the other side for Roman Numerals to help students learn the scale degrees.

It took me about an hour to draw all the letter names and symbols, so if you’ve got an hour to spare now for this project it could save you several hours in the future because you can surely use this for teaching lots of theory concepts. An added bonus is that it is self – containing. The bucket easily stores all the pieces in one place!

A Staff Made Of Noodles!

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I was inspired to create a 3-D life-sized musical staff after watching an episode of Quaver’s Marvelous World. I’m not crafty at all, but this is the result.

To make it I used:

5 swimming noodles purchased at Wal-Mart

4 plastic mini-basketballs purchased at Dollar Tree

2 Wooden Dowels purchased at Home Depot

Craft Paper

Tape

Now, all I have to do is figure out a way to make it free-standing!

The Musical Power of A Clothespin

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Here is a simple tool you can use to help young piano students develop stronger fingers and increase their fine motor skills. Yes, the basic clothespin can do this! I dressed mine up so that it wouldn’t look so basic. All I did was color each clothespin with a marker and add a music symbol embellishment. You can easily find these at craft stores.

Students can use these Finger Builders to squeeze with each of their fingers and the thumb. Be sure to demonstrate to students how to squeeze with their fingertip and without letting their finger collapse. This will help promote a round hand shape to use at the piano.

Another fun way to use these Finger Builders is to have the student pretend that the Finger Builder is a crocodile looking for food. Have them use it to “eat” small objects around the studio.

Most Interesting Ways To Play The Piano

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This morning while reading Tim Topham’s post on The Most Unusual Places To Record Piano I was reminded of Brian Culbertson playing the piano backwards at a recent concert I attended. It was one of those moments you replay constantly in your mind. Fortunately I was able to find this video on YouTube. It has created some great discussions with my students about the importance of knowing your way around the keyboard and about entertaining your audience with your performance.

 

 

Let Them Have The Spotlight

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Violin

When my son signed up for orchestra at his school a couple of years ago I learned a valuable lesson as a parent. It is a lesson that I believe that piano playing parents who have enrolled their children in piano lessons can benefit from as well. So here it is…

Violin was my son’s instrument of choice that year. He was very excited when we got home from the music store with his brand new violin. I was excited too! I had never played a violin before, but knowing that music is in the musician and not in the instrument, I decided to try playing a simple tune on it. Before my son could get in the house good, I was playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on his violin. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect technique wise, but it was recognizable. I was proud of myself for being able to demonstrate that an instrument is merely a tool in a musician’s hands much like a pen is a tool in a writer’s hands. It doesn’t matter what kind of pen the writer uses – he can still write with it. Just as I was about to pat myself on the back for my musical genius (lol), I looked up to find that my son was less than impressed. In fact, he was upset.

Why was he upset, you may ask? The violin was supposed to be HIS thing, not MY thing! He wanted to impress me with his ability to play the violin and to show me that he could do something that I could not. He didn’t say this to me, but I realized it just from looking at his response. From that moment on, I did not pick up his violin  – at least not when he was home! He went on to qualify for the Honor’s Orchestra by the end of the school year and I went on being grateful that I have a healthy, happy son who is able to enjoy music all on his own!

So, what am I saying to piano playing parents? Let your children take the lead when it comes to whether or not you should play the piano with or for them. Resist the urge to show them that you can play the rest of the song that they just started learning. Give them the joy of inviting you to the piano to play along or sing along, or just listen! They will be much more cooperative because they can own their musical education. Once they feel that sense of ownership, they will be glad to share in many musical experiences with you!