Competition Ensemble

In February, 2011, students from our studio will be given the opportunity to participate in the AFMC festival piano competition. For this competition, students play 2 pieces of music from memory before 2 judges who are piano teachers from the Birmingham area. The teacher's will comment on the students performance and give them a score. Students are scored based on age, length of study and level. Students have the opportunity to earn a gold cup trophy after several years of superior performance. Each student who participates gets a certificate as well.

This is a great opportunity for kids to challenge themselves, receive feedback from another teacher, and to be rewarded for hard work. Only students who have earned a total of 325 points by October 1 will be able to begin work towards the competition if they are interested. Students who have at least one year of experience are eligible.

I have been adding up points from lessons and classes. In classes, points have been given as a group for participation and cooperation. For lessons and classes, points are given for participation in the practice marathons, recital performance, as well as for each minute of practice recorded. Class attendance, class projects, composer reports, compositions and completion of books also earn points.

Our classes have also been competing with each other. Points are given for each class activity. The more they prepare for class at home and the more the cooperate during class, the more activities we are able to complete. It was close, but we have a class winner. The winning class will have a treat in class this week. Each individual from the winning class will also receive individual points for being a part of the winning class.

How much should we practice at home?

As we are approaching recital this is an important question that pops up. With our recital one week away, everyone should be practicing for it daily. At the very least, 2 repetitions of your piece from memory daily should be the minimum. And don't forget that most students also have other music to work on as well. Next week we will pick up with the other music that we have been working on.

However, if you have been practicing all along, this week should be just like any other week. It is much better to learn your piece for performance far in advance than a few weeks before recital. Kids older than Kindergarten should shoot for 30 minutes of practice a day for 5 days a week. The more advanced the student is, the more practice is required. With the advance of each level of piano study, comes the necessity of more practice.

Log your practice time on the website to keep tabs of how much practice is happening and when are your best and worst practice times. Keep notes on the website as to what and how you are practicing, and notate any questions you might have. I see this in between lessons and it can help me to better prepare for your lesson or class each week.

Scavenger hunt

Today in our piano classes we had scavenger hunts to practice our recital pieces and our notes on the staff.

We used the scarvenger hunt to work on 3 practice strategies for rectial in my older classes. The younger classes worked on note naming.

1. 'Start-stop' practice. For stop-start practice, have the child stop during the piece, put their hands in their lap, and then start back from that point and continue on. This works to help them to keep moving forward in their music if they happen to mess up. We always want to move forward in the performance, never go back and correct a mistake. We also worked on starting in the middle of the music. Have them start at different sections in the music to show how the music can be divided up into parts. If they get flustered on recital, they can simply start at the beginning of the next part instead of going back to the beginning. Try not to ever go back to the beginning of the music.

2. Play with your eyes closed/play on the big piano. Playing with your eyes closed is not only a fun way to repeat your peice, but it helps improve muscle memory. Playing on the big piano does the opposite. Playing on the big keyboard takes the focus off of the fingers and puts it on the notes. Ways to do this at home would include just saying the note names, or looking through the music to see how everything fits together.

3. Distraction game: little brothers and sisters are great at this game. The object of the game is to finish the piece no matter what. Sometimes for this game, I will have the student play through the peice. I will cough, rustle papers, walk around or do other distracting movements. If they can finish the peice without falling apart they get the point. However, this should be fun. If this is NOT fun for your child, and is actually stressful, do not do it. Usually the kids love this game. The point of the game is that no matter what is going on around you, keep your focus. Even if you mess up, you still get the point if you finish.

Next week, we will be doing a recorded recital practice and a recital peice puzzle.

Summer lessons

Summer is a busy time for most families! We are going to have several flexible options over the summer.

For the returning students, we have three options. We will be having jazz improvization classes at the Cherubs Clubhouse, private lessons in Inverness, and piano camp at the Cherubs Clubhouse. This summer, we will be focusing on Jazz and improvisation skills to rekindle an interest in piano, work on theory and have fun. We will also review the previous material that we have covered. It is important that we do not forget what was learned over the school year. You can choose which events and which weeks you want to attend on the piano website, https://imaginationsmusic.musicteachershelper.com/login, after you log in. The list of available classes and lessons will be on your personal home page as well as on the calendar. Summer is ala carte! You decide how many classes or lessons you want to attend and claim your spot in those classes online. You can do lessons, classes, camp or even a mixture of all three!

For new students, we will have 4 classes and/or piano camp. For the classes, you choose which classes you know you will be in town for. This way, over the summer, you aren't paying for classes that you are unable to attend. The classes will provide a fun introduction to piano to get them ready for weekly classes starting at the end of August. The schedule is listed on my main website,http://imaginationsmusic.com/summercamps.aspx. You can click the link to register there.

New website

My new website for my piano students is https://imaginationsmusic.musicteachershelper.com/. If you have not yet visited the site, go try it out and let me know what you think! I set it up not only to make billing easier, but to increase parent-teacher-student communication between lessons. This helps you to get the most value for your lessons,

From the main website, you see several options available before you sign in. One is "practice resources." Under practice resources, I have a list of free theory games that you can find on the Internet as well as other resources. Another option is "photos" where I have photos posted from some of my classes. There is also a link to this blog, where I will often write articles pertaining to piano study, performance and practice.

If you click on the log in button, this page appears, https://imaginationsmusic.musicteachershelper.com/login. Enter in the user name and password you should have received by email. Please let me know if you need me to resend your password. Some of my older students also have a user name as well as the parents. If the student is old enough to have an email address, they will also receive their lesson notes via email and be able to log in to have limited access to the site. Every email that the child receives, the parent also receives.

Once you log in, you will be on your own personal home page. Here there are several options. First you will see a listing of upcoming events that you are either registered for, or that are available for you to register for. You can click to choose your summer classes or lessons either here, or in a calendar view. If you are ever curious as to how many lessons you have left, or when classes are over, you can see it listed on your home page.

Under the "home" tab, there is a section called "file area." here you can download info about recital, studio policies, and other PDFs. If you child has had a lesson recorded, you can download it here as well.

Under "lesson" you can see your lesson history and some of the music your child has been working on. If you child has been taking for a few years, you can look here to see the progression through the literature. This is where you can track progress!

Under "practice" you can go in to log your practice time as well as what you practice. This helps me to know what to expect before I come to your child's lesson. I can view the practice time in between lessons so that I will have an idea of how much your child is working. This will help to save lesson time as well as help to make you aware of areas for improvement.

Under billing, you can check your account or even make a payment. Online payments will incur a $2.00 processing fee due to credit card fees. You also still have the option to pay by check or in cash. However, if your tuition is past due, I will require online payment. Starting in the fall, automatic invoicing will be set up through this site so that you will receive an invoice on the same day of each month. You then can choose to pay it online or in person. If you child has his own log in, they cannot access the billing area.

Please let me know what you think about the site. Try it out, and use it to help you get the most out of lessons each week. Let me know if you have any ideas for improvement or any questions. Also, be sure to tune into my blog. I often feel that I do not get to communicate enough with the parents, and so I tend to blog a lot! I have split my former blog up and now I am using this blog address only for piano and my other blog (http://imaginationsmusic.blogspot.com/) only for Kindermusik.

Frustrated?!?!

A former professor at Samford, Tracy Wiggins, once said something in a seminar that I always remembered.

I know I can't quote him exactly, but the main gist of the information made an impression. He said that if you are passionate about the music you are making and about the instrument that you play, then from time to time you will experience frustration in practice and in your lessons. This is normal from time to time and is not a sign that your child you take a break from lessons, but rather a sign that your child is intensely interested in playing to the best of his or her ability and that is a wonderful thing!

We are very close to recital time and working hard to be ready. If you child become frustrated during practice, there are several things you can do. Be sure to practice slowly, and bit by bit. Sometimes a new piece of music can be intimidating. As a teacher, I will never assign a piece of music that I know a child cannot learn at his or her level. I try to work very hard to be sure that each student is prepared for the next concept before moving on.

Some of the tactics I employ are to break the pieces down into the smallest elements. For beginning private lessons students, we might first simply sing the words together (if there are words). We would then tap or clap the rhythm. We might also go through the whole piece and say the letter names of the notes as we go. We discuss any new elements that are introduced in the music.

In classes, we introduce a new piece of music as a game. We use a board game. Each student rolls the dice and plays a short portion of the piece. This breaks it in to bite sizes pieces. The students learn from hearing their friend play the piece.

For more advanced students, we begin by listening to the piece and talking about it. We would discuss the key signature and important theoretical elements of the music. Then we would start slowly hands apart. We work short segments at a time and only move to hands together when we are ready. When we start to put hands together, we must be at the point where hands apart is very steady and rhythmically accurate. When we put hands apart, we analyze how the parts fit together.

For beginner and advanced student an important aspect of learning a new piece of music is to start by recognizing patterns. Find portions of the music that repeat. Composers are all about recycling! Usually short parts of the music are used many times. This makes it easier to learn!

If you hit a brick wall with practicing, try a new tactic. Work on theory sheets. Or visit my practice resources page for online theory games that are fun. https://imaginationsmusic.musicteachershelper.com/resources/ Another idea is to allow your child to compose his own piece. We will work on improv and composition in our summer classes. Children are naturals at this and it helps relieve some of the tension!!