Do You Even Listen To Music?

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While teaching piano lessons to young children I have learned that one VERY IMPORTANT question to ask parents who inquire about lessons is , “Do you listen to music yourself?” Another equally important question is “Do you listen to music with your child/children?”

I am often amazed and disappointed at how many kids start taking piano lessons and do not consistently intentionally listen to music or have music played in the home. How can you get excited about playing music if you never even hear music? The most rewarding music making experiences come from being able to play familiar songs. That requires having songs that are familiar to the student. When a student can come to the lesson and say, I’d like to learn how to play this or that song, or I heard a song over the weekend that I really like, then the lesson can get really fun really fast! And of course if the student is practicing music that others in the family enjoy, it definitely makes the practicing more bearable. So in addition to finger exercises and piano pieces, I often make listening to music part of my students’ weekly things to do for piano. There are many great resources for finding music to listen to. Here are a few:

Go skating!! You will hear hit songs back to back while enjoying skating.

Go to the movies!! Again, you will hear hit songs and also classical music sometimes. You will hear orchestral works and piano music.

Go to church!! A choir might sing, or praise team, or even a famous guest artist. And of course you can see musicians perform live!

Go to a concert!!

Go to a musical!!

Go to your basement, or wherever you keep your old music collection. Have your kid / student listen to some of these. You will be surprised at how much they enjoy it. If you have especially skeptical kids, just pop some carefully selected songs in your CD player or ipod. Look for titles that have been remixed and your kids will be so shocked that the music they thought was new is really old!

Of course you can always simply turn on the radio!

Whatever you do, by all means expose your child to some music everyday!

Don’t Practice, Play A Game!

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I know very few kids (if any) that get excited to practice, but I know a lot of kids (almost all) that get excited about playing games. That gave me the idea to change my assignment sheet from piano homework to My Weekly Practice Games. Using this sheet the student gets to choose which game or games they’d like to play during the week and circles them. The teacher can also choose specific games as well. All that’s left to do is to write the name of the song you want them to use for the game. There is also a space where the student / parent can check off each day. You can download a copy by clicking here or clicking the image above.

Boys and Piano

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Finding songs that interest my boys in piano is very difficult. Thankfully, by the time they reach 12 or so they sometimes have words to describe the type of music they want to play. Such was the case with one of my students recently. He has been learning to play Fur Elise (at his request a full 2 years after I first suggested it to him). As he had been getting very good at playing it I figure I should start preparing for what the next song would be. So I simply asked him what he would like to play. He told me that the only songs he liked right now are Fur Elise and The Snake Charmer. Then he thought about it and said, “I like them because they are mysterious. I like anything that is spooky and/or mysterious.”

It was like a secret code had been revealed to me. Certainly I could find spooky and mysterious.

So, this week I presented him with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. He happily played this short arrangement from www.gmajormusictheory.org

Another hit with the boys in my studio this week was the Perry The Platypus theme from Phineas and Ferb. We adults know this tune as the theme from Peter Gunn or The Blues Brothers.

Other winners are usually

The Pink Panther

We Will Rock You

Star Wars Theme

Spring Break Music Travel

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Family vacations and day trips are great opportunities to explore each other’s interests. For musical families or families with anybody who is musical this can mean adding an additional adventure to an already planned trip. That’s what we did on our most recent trip. Although not everyone in my family is musical we all enjoyed it. We didn’t have to take a huge chunk of time out of our vacation to do it either. It was just another memory making moment in time. So, families, make the most of this Spring Break and visit a music related display, concert, or anything else musical you can think of!!! You never know what it could lead to.

Don’t Do It!

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When shown a picture of a quarter rest one of my younger students said, “It means don’t do it”.

Of course what she was trying to say is that you shouldn’t play when you see it. I love the way kids see the world!

Easter Egg Surprises

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Here is a quick activity that can be used in the piano lesson or as a piano assignment to be done at home! To use it in the piano lesson, you will need 12 plastic eggs, a sharpie or other permanent marker, and some candy. On each egg draw a staff, add a treble clef or bass clef and draw a note. I used treble clef space notes since my students have been working on these lately. I also made one egg for each space note as a quarter note, half note, and whole note since some kids struggle to grasp the concept that ANY note can be a quarter note, half note, or whole note. You can have students hunt for the eggs around your studio or randomly pick one from an egg carton or Easter basket. If they can correctly identify the note and its value, they get to open the egg and keep the prize inside!

As an at home assignment, kids can draw the notes themselves and write the letter name on the back. A special prize can be given for completing this assignment.

What’s In The Box?

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This beautiful box was a gift to my studio from one of my piano families. When I got it I thought, “wow so many possibilities”. In fact so many ideas about how to use it in the studio ran through my mind that I still don’t know exactly what I’ll use it for. All I know is that I want it to be something everyone in the studio can use and look forward to. Maybe it will be a mystery box where I keep spontaneous awards for miscellaneous accomplishments during the lesson. Or maybe it will be a suggestion box. Or maybe it will be a surprise activity box that the students get to do at the beginning or end of each lesson! Hmmm. Can you help me out with more suggestions?

Nice Things Parents Do

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 The other day I had my son waiting in the studio to answer the door while I ran and grabbed something that I’d forgotten for the next lesson.  Shortly afterwards he came to tell me that 2 students had arrived. As I was only expecting one student I was a little confused. When I walked in, there was a parent and her daughter with gifts for the studio! The piece in the photo above is an especially wonderful visual for my studio right now since everybody is working on their CD projects. I am so thankful to Amy and Abby for thinking of me in this way! And this is just one of the gifts they bought. Tomorrow I’ll be posting another pic of a fabulous gift they bought and asking for your ideas on how to use it in the studio!

NBC’s The Voice – Preschool Style!

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Today my 3 year old music class was in a singing mood. Two of the boys in particular wanted to sing. After the first boy sang, the second boy said I can do it! And the next thing I knew the two of them were in a singing battle and critiquing each other in between. This has NEVER happened in my class before and it gave me the idea to abandon the planned activity for the day and convert the class into an episode of The Voice. We have a large mat in our classroom where the children usually sit for circle time. We used this for the boxing ring like the one from the TV Show. Kids volunteered two at a time to step into the ring and sing. The rest of the class played the audience and showered the singers with applause after every round. Everybody was eager for their turn. I captured video of each performance and the kids looked forward to watching the videos afterwards. To top it off, one kid gave out pretend trophies to each performer!

What and awesome day!