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.