Monthly Archives: September 2011

Quotes from the First Week Back to Lessons

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Or…Things You Love to Hear Your Students Say. :-) Here’s a snippet of what I’ve heard this week:

“I think I’ve gotten better over the summer. I’m trying to make sure I practice one and half to two hours a day.” ~16 year old boy

“I think this year is going to be really fun!” ~11 year old boy

“I kind of had trouble with the rhythm, so let’s clap it first.” ~5 year old girl

“I’m really excited! This is a lot more creative than my other piano lessons.” ~15 year old girl

“[She learned] 25 new songs on her piano over the summer.” ~about a 7 year old girl

“Oh yeah, we’re coming back for that!” ~9 year old girl whose family is moving and continuing lessons via Skype (in reference to the big studio Christmas recital when we were discussing upcoming events)

Wow, I love my students! (And this is why I think it’s good to take time off; we are all so refreshed and ready for another year of working hard together to become better musicians!)

And this Year’s Practice Incentive Theme Is…

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An Italian Intrigue: Musical Adventures in Heart, Mind, and Strength

Last month I had the amazing experience of spending three weeks in Italy! I decided to do double duty and use the trip to do reconnaissance work for this year’s theme. It was a ton of fun and now I’m excited to take my students along with me for a journey through the country! Along the way they’ll be racking up Complication Coins, trying to identify the hideout of the Mystery Musician, traveling covertly at times to get double earnings, completing Italian language lessons, and  learning to play the piano beautifully, excellently, and naturally.


I made the official announcement at the September Surprise! last Thursday. To start off the event I gave each student a strip of paper with several measures from a familiar tune. They had to try to find all the other students who had excerpts from the same tune. Once they all found each other they laid out the measures in order and then did something to get my attention. After all the groups were formed each one took a turn humming, whistling, or otherwise vocalizing their tune for the rest of us and then telling us what the name of it was.


After a round of students played their prepared “surprise” selections, I had the groups from the introductory activity re-form and spend time working together to come up with a musical way of playing their pieces. Every member of the group had to be involved in some musical capacity in the performance. I had a box of rhythm instruments and a xylophone available for them to use in addition to the piano. This group did a lovely job with their rendition of “Ode to Joy.”


“Jesus Loves Me” was the perfect selection for this group that included quite a few young and/or beginning students. I was really impressed at how well they all kept the beat together on their instruments!

Whistling, playing piano, and a few rhythm instruments made “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sound great!


This group ended up being all girls. They had the tune “Greensleeves” and did a beautiful job playing and singing it together – harmony and all!

The evening was a great reunion after our month off and we’re all super excited about the year ahead!

New Recital Repertoire! – Guest Post by Adam Bendorf

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If you are looking for new recital repertoire this fall, consider Christine Donkin’s new collections, Sunny Days and Peace Country.  These wonderful pieces are a delight to the ears and are very playable for students.

Sunny Days

These intermediate pieces correspond nicely with Faber’s Piano Adventures level 3B or with Alfred’s Premier Course level 4.

For a lively piece, try Peace Country Hoedown.  Spunky rhythms with a classic American folk-song sound definitely make this an audience favorite.

The Sleeping Starfish captures a more beautiful and dreamy aura with thin-textured notes sustained high on the keyboard.

Peace Country

For advanced students, try Donkin’s Peace Country album.  These pieces feature modern harmonies, often within sequencing patterns.

 

Sunny Days and Peace Country are both available for instant download from Alberti Publishing.  Use discount code CDA625 and receive 40% off the regular price until the end of September!

 

Who is Christine Donkin?

Christine Donkin is an award-winning composer of pedagogical, choral, and instrumental music. Born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, she holds degrees from the University of Alberta and University of British Columbia, and currently lives in Ottawa. Her compositions, which have been performed in such locations as the Moscow Conservatory, Exeter Cathedral, and Carnegie Hall, have earned prizes and recognition in national and international competitions, and are available from several publishers including Frederick Harris Music, Graphite Publishing, Treble Clef Music Press, Recital Music, C. Alan Publications, and Alberti Publishing. Nine of Christine’s pedagogical piano pieces can be found in the acclaimed Celebration Series Perspectives, and her folk tune arrangements for voice and piano will be included in the next Royal Conservatory of Music Voice Syllabus. In addition to her work as a composer, Christine is also active as an instructor, adjudicator, clinician, and co-creator of Tonic Tutor, an online game resource for music teachers and students.

Alberti Publishing is our newest advertiser here on Music Matters Blog and we are grateful for their support of the online music education community! If you are interested in finding out more about how you can promote your company, event, or product, just send me an e-mail and I’ll let you know about our advertising packages.

Breakdancing…to Bach?!

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Who would have thought that the music of one of the greatest composers of all time could serve as the backdrop for a troupe of breakdancers from Berlin?! I confess, I’ve kind of had a thing for breakdancing ever since I was first introduced to it by a group of Hmong teenagers when I was working at a camp for urban kids just north of LA. The way Flying Steps has interwoven Bach’s art of the 18th century with a contemporary art form is pretty incredible. I think it can serve as an inspiration for all of us to think more creatively in our approach to music and how we share it with others.

HT: Classical Archives

Monday Mailbag – Three Simple Questions to Help You Figure Out What to Charge for Lessons

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My question is about prices/tuition. I moved to the east coast three years ago and have had a hard time figuring out what the going rates are for piano lessons.  I am an MTNA member, have played the piano for 30+ years, and taught for about 20 years, but I’m just not sure what to charge. Do you have any suggestions?

Eve though I’m not located on the east coast, I think there are several guiding principles you can use to help determine what to charge. Perhaps the best approach is to ask yourself these three questions:

  • How much do I want/need to make? – I do most of my budgeting on a monthly basis, so I know how much I need to make per month in order to meet my expenses and other budget line items. Everyone’s needs are different and that’s the beauty of setting prices in a free market society. You can set up your business structure and cash flow according to what works best for you.
  • What type of clientele do I want to attract? – And, consequently, how much will they pay for lessons? One could have a very successful business offering private lessons in-home to wealthy retired, but active, people who would love to play that gorgeous grand piano sitting in their living room (my financial adviser is always trying to talk me into doing this!). That teacher could charge a premium for their services. Conversely, you could have a successful business offering in-studio lessons to predominantly one income families with multiple children who value a well-rounded music education (which happens to be my current model). Therefore, I charge a lower rate than the above scenario would allow, thus keeping lessons affordable for these families.
  • How do I provide excellent value for my clients in a way that promotes the professional nature of my business? – You do not want to sacrifice your business image in the name of cheaper prices. You have to charge enough and in a way that helps the families value what is being offered and make it a priority. For this reason, I charge a flat monthly rate (never a per lesson rate – I don’t even have a clue what one lesson would cost) and do not offer make-up lessons. When I switched to this payment structure quite a few years ago, I saw a huge improvement in lesson attendance, practice consistency, and the level of importance that lessons took in my studio families. I think charging per month or semester is one of the best decisions a studio teacher can make finance-wise.

I know there are lots of other factors involved in determining what to charge, but these three fundamental considerations have probably been the most helpful to me in establishing and running my studio. If you have other suggestions, though, please feel free to share! How do you determine what to charge for lessons?

Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!

September Surprise is Tonight!

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All year long we anticipate and prepare for this occasion. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of overkill, but the September Surprise! is definitely a highlight in our studio. Since I take off the whole month of August for brainstorming and planning our theme, selecting new repertoire, and traveling (more of that than the others this year!), I haven’t seen any of my students for over a month. The September Surprise! is my clever way of conning them into continuing to practice hard even when they’re not taking regular lessons fun way of welcoming everyone back and gearing up for an exciting new year of hard work!

We will be playing interactive games, listening to each other play their surprise selections, and, of course, announcing the theme for the year! I’m quite proud of myself for not slipping up and letting out anything about this year’s theme, so it will be a complete surprise to all the students. :-) And tomorrow, I will let you all in on it too! If you’ve got a theme for this year, I’d love to hear about it. Maybe we can even compile a list of themes/practice incentives that teachers are doing all around the world. Wouldn’t that be fun?!

Loads of Free Music Theory Worksheets!

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One of my students’ moms sent me a link to Free Music Theory Worksheets page of the  gmajormusictheory.org website. I know I’ve been there before, but it’s obviously been a while as they have added a ton of free printable worksheets! Since I rarely use theory books in my teaching, I’m always on the lookout for great spots like this where I can easily navigate to a particular concept and print out a correlating worksheet to give a student. This will be a perfect addition to my list of go-to places!

Review and Giveaway of The Adventures of Fearless Fortissimo by Andrea and Trevor Dow

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As someone who has never been a fan of most comic strips, I wasn’t sure what I would think of this unique set of books by Andrea and Trevor Dow – The Adventures of Fearless Fortissimo. And, as long as I’m confessing, I’ll admit that I didn’t even care for the books the first time I played through them. But I’m glad I decided to give them another chance. I realized that I just hadn’t put myself enough inside the mind of a 10-year old boy before playing through them!

As is obvious from the book cover and the website verbiage, the whole thrust of this series is toward boys. And what do boys like? Loud, fast, repetitive patterns, right? Thankfully the books offer more variety than that, but you do have to think of each of the pieces more as mood music or the soundtrack to a movie in order to connect with them musically. It also helps incredibly to listen to Andrea playing excerpts of the pieces:

Each episode of the series contains the same pieces written at three different levels: Early Elementary, Elementary, and Intermediate. The Piano Music for Boys crew has kindly offered to giveaway one set of Episode one to a Music Matters Blog reader. Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be drawn using a random number generator at noon (CST) on Thursday, September 15.

Monday Mailbag – How to Cure Students of the Incessant Compulsion to Repeat Measures Until All the Mistakes Are Fixed

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What do you do with a student who replays measures again and again? I can see that he is thinking through each measure and wants to correct a rhythm or note mistake, but it’s as if he’s in his own world making it right. Help!

I assume you’re looking for an answer something other than “scream and pull my hair out”?! :-)

This type of an approach is detrimental on so many counts. I can’t think of any reason why one should play a piece this way. In fact, here are the various approaches I can come up with for playing a piece of music:

  • First read-through. You are primarily sight-reading. The most important thing is to grasp the overall tenor and flow of the piece. Try to maintain a steady pulse and capture the mood.
  • Practice. Identify the most challenging spots, determine what elements contribute to the difficulty, and use specific strategies to make those areas musically and technically strong.
  • Performance. You have to make it sound like you know what you’re doing and convince the listener that you are doing it well. Whatever you do, don’t stop. Keep going and play convincingly.
  • Improvisation. Anything goes. Just play and have fun. Incorporate any mistakes into your piece and pretend like you meant to do that. :-)

Perhaps try establishing a list like this for your student and have him decide how he wants to approach playing the piece. It sounds like he’s almost always in practice mode, but he’s doing it ineffectively because it’s not improving. Consider using resources like Philip Johnston’s books or The Piano Student’s Guide to Effective Practicing by Nancy O’Neill Breth to to help him acquire better practice tools.

It’s also probable that he doesn’t realize how bad it sounds when he plays with so much stopping, correcting, and repeating. Try either imitating him and having him listen to you, or audio/video record him and let him listen to it for himself. Using the Personal Performance Evaluation Free Worksheet might be a good way to facilitate this.

Any other suggestions? How do you work with students who are insistent on stopping and fixing mistakes while they are playing?

Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!