More Things You Love to Hear…
Six-year old Hayley played her piece for me with excellent implementation of the various dynamic markings. I was astounded, particularly because I knew that her parents had recently given away her piano in order to move and so she’s been practicing on a low-end keyboard until they get another piano. I asked her how she managed to play with such wonderful dynamics even though she couldn’t practice them during the week. She replied, “Well, when I’m practicing I just think about them so that I play them right when I come here.” I think I was speechless. Can some of my highschool students with perfectly functioning pianos please take a lesson from this amazing 6-year old? 
February 20th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Love it! Good for you.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
One of my adult students drew up a dynamics and instructions map for Canon in D today. It was a seperate piece of paper on which she simply wrote down, in order, all the dynamic markings and italian instructions (maestoso, rit., etc.)
This is a formal way to do what your student did, think about and practice dynamics as a tool for seeing the arc of the whole piece. Hope this helps someone!
February 21st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wow, that’s a great idea, Nathan! I’ve never thought of doing anything like that before. Thanks for sharing it.