Evidence of Practicing Smartly
When I began my fall semester a few weeks ago, I told my students that they could each earn their own Erasable Highlighter to use in their home practice time if they demonstrated that they were practicing well at home. I then sent home a list of ways that I would be able to tell that they were indeed ”practicing smartly” as I called it. I was wondering if you all would help me add to this list other things that you look for to tell if your students are practicing smartly?
How does my teacher know I am “practicing smartly?”
- I will be able to play my piece like I have been asked (Counting out loud, Correct notes, Musically, etc.)
- My music will be marked up in the places I had trouble during the week (Circles around missed notes; Circles around overlooked details like staccatos, dynamics; Counts written in when I’ve had trouble, etc.
- I will be able to play my piece or a part of my piece with few or no mistakes.
- I will be able to play my piece musically because I will be paying attention to the details. (Or adding musical details of my own that make sense.)
- I will write short notes in my practice journal about my goals and what I did that day.
What else would you add?
Read MoreCertificate of Artistry
Last year, I wanted to encourage my students to play more musically. I made some “Caught Ya Makin’ Music” cards to give to them every time they played one of their pieces musically. It was really amazing to see how most of them were motivated by these cards. At the beginning of the year, I did an incentive program that included $5 of composer bucks to be awarded for every card they earned. But, after our incentive program stopped mid-year, many of them asked me to continue giving out the cards without any composer bucks. By the end of the year, I was so pleased that they all seemed to be more conscious of what it takes to play musically and tended toward more musical playing even without the cards.
This year, I am not doing an incentive contest per se, but my main goal this year is again to help them play more musically. I believe that if they learn to do this and it becomes a natural, automatic way of playing, they will enjoy music more and continue lessons longer. Of course, all the other foundational parts of learning music are still important, but this is again our emphasis for the year.
I am doing a lecture in February and April on how to motivate students to play more musically and will be sharing some of the more practical ideas periodically this year on the blog. The first resource I wanted to make available is the Certificate of Artistry that I designed for my students this year. This is a more official looking award and should be more motivating for my older students than the Caught Ya Makin’ Music Cards were.
One of the nice things about these is that they are easy to collect since they are small and can easily fit in a notebook pocket or taped to an assignment sheet. Print these on parchment paper (card stock) for best results. You can put a little star sticker on the star emblem on each certificate. Since I have more gold star stickers than purple, red, or green, I am going to tell my students that they have to earn 4 gold star certificates before they can choose a purple, red, or green star.
I hope you can use these in your studio!
Read MorePreparing for Fall: The Easy Button
For quite some time, I have been hearing about how useful that Staples Easy Button has been in teacher’s studios. Unfortunately, we do not have a Staples in my hometown, so I didn’t give it much thought until the Easy Button again came up in a recent Facebook discussion on teacher’s favorite teaching aids.
So, I asked a relative of mine to pick one up and am looking forward to using it my studio for the fall. This is how I’ve heard that teachers are using it:
1. The student finds a particular passage difficult, so the teacher breaks it down into manageable parts to practice.
2. After the student has practiced and can perform a section perfectly 3 times in a row, they get to hit the Easy Button which says, “That was easy!”
Seems simple, I know. But, I’ve only heard great things about it! The item is only $4.99 and can be ordered online as well as purchased in the store.
Do you have an Easy Button? I’d love to hear how you are using it!
Read MoreGetting Your Kids to Practice
Marci Pittman, an Independent Music Teacher from California, recently informed the teachers on the Yahoo Piano Teacher forum about a great article called “Getting Your Kids to Practice.” This article contains some wonderful tips for parents to use in assisting their students with home piano practice. Here are just a few practical suggestions from this article:
- Tie the length of practice to a goal rather than a clock. [Things like: "I will get the first 2 lines of music with perfect notes, rhythm, dynamics and with no stops."]
- Video record a practice session and let them watch it. [I would just video one piece perhaps and then let them critique it, pretending to be a judge]
- Roll a die for the number of repetitions. A 1 means roll again, and a 6 means the parent can choose any number from 2-5.
- Buy a practice candle. Light the candle and keep it burning while your child is practicing. Blow it out at the end of each session. When the candle is burned down to the bottom, the child earns a pre-determined prize.
- Practice left until just before bed is a battle waiting to happen.
- Get an assigned number of repetitions for each practice spot in a piece from your teacher; students are typically more willing to do things for their teacher.
- Know when to suspend a practice session and walk away. Never argue with your child; it simply brings you down to the same level as the child. Walk away and try again later.
- Give your child choices…not about whether to practice, the time, or place…but anything else that might help them feel like they have some control of their practice. [What they want to do first, what section they want to spot practice first, what day they want to do their theory, what practice games they want to play or devise on their own...]
- Offer specific, genuine praise. [Did the piece have energy? Did the dynamics make it interesting? Were they able to play the line with no stops? Was the melody louder than the accompaniment? Was the rhythm/counting spot on? Be specific in your praise!]
Read more great ideas from Getting Your Kids to Practice.
Read MoreApril MTNA eJournal Available
The April MTNA eJournal is available online now. You can read these articles without registering here although you may not be able to hear and see the enhanced media (sound files, video files) unless you register. In this edition you will find two interesting articles:
The Musicians Guide to the Brain: From Perception to Performance by Lois Svard.
This is the 2nd article in the series: The Musicians Guide to the Brain. While this excellent article is targeted at performance and teaching, there are many wonderful applications to composing. Svard explains how proficiency of an instrument or technique is formed in the brain and how practice habits are formed and how they can be broken. I found that many of the explanations applied directly to developing proficiency in composing. Svard is currently at work on a book on neuropedagogy that will explore how recent discoveries in neuroscience can help musicians in their work in the teaching studio, the practice room, and on the concert stage.
Changes in Performance Style: Before the Era of Recordings by Malcom Bilson. Bilson claims,
While it is abundantly clear that musical performance 100 years ago was vastly different from what is heard today, it is my opinion that the most important changes in musical performance occurred across the 19th century before recording began around 1900.
This is a very interesting edition. I think you will find many applications to your teaching and composing.
If you would like to submit a scholarly article to be considered for publication in the journal, the editorial committee would like to hear from you:
Read MoreAn editorial committee has been appointed and is working with questions and observations about format and process that have arisen during this first full year of publication. We are working to refine the vision and to build a quality corpus of articles that will set the level and tone that we hope the e- Journal will embody. We are grappling with the most meaningful ways of implementing peerreview to lend credibility and weight to the writings selected for publication. We aim to attract substantive, cutting-edge thought, research, writing and philosophy in the field of music teaching and learning.
Even more than that, we want to receive your best article submissions. We aim to make the e-Journal a publication of substance, prestige and high quality. We need you to help us achieve that goal.
Becoming a Faster Sight Reader (by Kevin Costley)
I have asked Kevin Costley, and exclusive FJH composer, to write a guest post for this blog. He has graciously agreed and chose to write about this important topic:
Composing Made Me a Faster Sight-reader
Sight-reading has always been very difficult for me. I didn’t have the opportunity to take piano lessons until the summer after sixth grade. Teachers would turn me down because I played by ear. Therefore, I missed that earlier ‘window of time’ where students usually learn to sight-read. I eventually worked on advanced piano works and earned a graduate degree in music; however, I was still a slow sight-reader.
I made a startling discovery. Once I began to write music and write it on a regular basis, my sight-reading skills began to slowly get better. I even learned to locate ledger line notes much more quickly.
As an educator and university professor in the field of education, I have always been fascinated with the subject of “information processing.” There are many ways people process information. In my classes, I often talk about various subjects that other professors have already covered. I do this for a reason. There are vital subjects and topics that students need to know well before becoming a licensed teacher. All of our professors present the topic with accurate information; however, we all individually process the topic differently and have a different slant on the topic. Therefore, after hearing several different angles on the same topic, students are able to process the information better and store that information in their long-term memory.
This is all to say that there are several ways to process information to become a faster sight reader. Writing music is another information processing process in learning how to read more quickly, in that you as the writer have to find the notes you hear and notate those notes on staff paper. The next time you read and play these very same notes in a published piano piece, you should be able to sight-read through a piece on your level much more quickly. However, this skill takes much practice and time to develop.
Write more. Try to write 8 to 16 measures of music every day and then go to the piano and play what you wrote. Little by little, I think you will see that you will become a much faster sight-reader with new piano music.
Kevin Costley
See the Interview with Kevin Costley about composing on this blog!
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