In addition, I have had numerous students come back after participating in our big annual Christmas Recital and be extra driven to learn new music and become more skilled in their playing. There’s nothing quite like watching other students perform really cool-sounding pieces well to make you want to work harder and play better the next time. And perhaps one of the most memorable expressions of this came after our 2010 Christmas Recital when my long-time student, Isabella, exclaimed to me during the reception, “Wow. I really need to kick-it-up-a-notch!” Her comment sparked an idea and last summer we launched our first-ever Kick-It-Up-a-Notch! summer piano intensive. Just last week at her lesson she was talking about the incredible progress she made from the 2010 Christmas recital to the 2011 Christmas recital and remarked that Kick-It-Up-a-Notch! was a huge turning point for her.

As I think back on the whole process for Isabella, it’s really neat to see how one thing spurs on another, all contributing to a student’s motivation and development as a musician. You never know what great experience or event will spark the drive to do better in your child or student, so make the most of whatever opportunities you have! And, as Jason points out in another of his tips, “if you stick with it, they will get something out of it and almost surely begin to truly enjoy what they have learned.”

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!

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?!

• In the spring, use year-end questionnaires to collect input on what they liked best and least about the theme, what things they’d like to focus on the next year, and specific theme ideas.
• Spend a couple months thinking and praying about what to do. Periodically pull out the student questionnaires and review them.
• When August rolls around, make arrangements to go to the home of a friend with a swimming pool. Make sure it’s someone who is stocked with a comfortable raft. Lay out on said raft for a couple of hours and contemplate all sorts of wild and crazy ideas that might inspire and motivate students.
• If you hit on an idea that seems like a keeper, quickly exit the pool, dry off, grab a pen and paper, and start scribbling furiously before the idea disappears. A home that also supplies lounge chairs is of primary consideration for this portion of the planning.
• Spend the next week letting the idea develop and ferment, jotting down additional thoughts as they come. Be prepared to do lots of scratching out, too!
• When formulating ideas, there are two sides – the objective side and the execution side. The objective side is the consideration of what you want the students to accomplish. This is primarily musical. The execution side is the imaginative, creative approach that will captivate the students and give them an exciting reason to work toward the established objectives. This is often non-musical.
• Once the objectives, execution, and title have been decided, start scouring iStockPhoto.com (get 10 free credits when you sign up through this link!) for the perfect image(s) to capture the theme!
• Start designing the cover. I always begin with the cover because it helps me set the mood and look for the whole theme. Once the cover is ready to go, I start working on the interior pages and all the other supporting documents and studio decorations.

It’s always so much fun to see the theme come together and to build the suspense until it is revealed at our September Surprise! I’ve had students (and parents!) asking me for months what the theme is, so I know they are “chomping at the bit” to find out. Which is also why I can’t post anything else here yet about the theme – I know there are sleuths in my studio who patrol this blog just waiting for me to slip up and give away the surprise… Not happening! But I can hardly wait to tell you all about it and will do so as soon as I can!

I’ve been getting quite a few questions about this Quest for Capital practice incentive theme lately, so I thought it might be helpful to share a little bit more about how the process works.  Here are the guidelines that are included in the front of each student assignment book:

• Every student will receive $12 of studio cash at the first lesson of the year.
• Studio Stock prices will start at $2/share.
• Each week, the Studio Stock prices will fluctuate according to the following criteria:
  *  Stock with the most shares purchased = share price doubles.
  *  Stock with the least shares purchased = share price decreases by half (with no share ever falling below $1).
  *  Stocks with the middle number of shares purchased = share price remains the same.

• Each week, the student may purchase up to as many shares as he can afford. The number of shares purchased will be reflected on the Stock Options sheets. The student must complete as many of the stock options as he purchases for each Studio Stock (e.g. If a student purchases 3 Improvisation Stocks and 1 Listening Stock, he must complete 3 of the Improvisation Stock Options and 1 of the Listening Stock Options).
• A Stock Prospectus is available in the studio for each Studio Stock. The Stock Prospectus provides the necessary resources to enable the student to complete the Stock Option requirements.
• If a student does not complete the selected number of Stock Options, he will lose the money invested in that Studio Stock.
• Each week, the student may sell up to as many shares as he has accumulated in any given Studio Stock at the current share price.
• Throughout the year there will be special investment opportunities that will be made available to students for a limited time in order to give them a chance to earn additional capital.
• Studio cash is the only currency permitted for the buying and selling of Studio Stocks.

Here’s a glimpse of what it looks like “in action” in the studio:

This is a pretty involved theme, but students of all ages can be a part of it. And it has been one of the most motivating themes we’ve ever done in our studio. There’s nothing like giving the students an opportunity to be creative and then make real money from their projects!

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!

Quest for Capital is without a doubt one of the most fun, educational, and motivating practice incentives we’ve ever done in the studio! I like to think of it as an entrepreneur-meets-music-student endeavor. In addition to investing in specific piano skills (a.k.a. Stock Options) throughout the year, students could also dream, plan, and create special Capital Improvement Projects that were showcased at The Gallery at the end of the year. The students were given a small table space and encouraged to sell their projects for a small profit, thus experiencing the excitement of integrating their music talents and knowledge with other areas of life and producing something of value in society.

The practice incentive is designed to provide a framework that will spur students on to attain greater proficiency in their skills and get their creative juices flowing as they contemplate possible project ideas. Students have already been asking me if we can do the same theme next year, or at least keep some of the same elements so that they can work on new projects. I am absolutely thrilled with the outcome of this theme and about the potential for it to be used in other music studios all over to inspire students in creative musical endeavors!

And now…for the special deal! Through the end of June, you can get $5 off the practice incentive package price when you use this coupon code: 59W3E7W2.

AND – everyone who purchases the practice incentive by the end of June will be entered in a drawing to win my complete set of studio materials – all the laminated studio cash, the wall banners, and the stock folders on the wall! Just select the Quest for Capital theme on the Resources page and checkout, and you will be entered in the drawing. The winner will be chosen at noon (CST) on Friday, July 1, using a random number generator.

My students and I have been eagerly anticipating this day all year long! Tonight is the culmination of our year of Quest for Capital! Tonight is…The Gallery!

I think of tonight’s event as a sort of entrepreneurship-meets-music-student endeavor. Part of my vision was to give students a framework to work within to develop creative projects that relate to music in some way. Yes, we want to become excellent pianists, but it’s also important for us to see music in the context of the world around us. All of life should be cohesive and integrated. We shouldn’t fragment and segment the pieces of our lives into separate corners, but rather find ways to interlock them (like a puzzle) so that they form a beautiful whole.

Ultimately, I believe that Jesus Christ is the one by whom everything is held together in life (see Colossians 1). He gives meaning and purpose to every worthy pursuit. Within our lives, though, there are so many possibilities for us and our students to integrate music with other areas. That’s what I hope each of my students has gleaned and continues to remember from their preparations for tonight. I also wanted them to experience how exciting it is to be a producer and not merely a consumer in our society. And there are lots of other things that I hope this year’s practice incentive theme has accomplished as well …but for now, here’s a list of the projects that will be on display at The Gallery:

• A Year of Praise with Psalm 150 Calendar
• Capturing God’s Creation Musical Slideshow
• From His Heart to Mine CD
• In Our Valleys Music Book
• Musical Art – “Castle”
• Musical Keychains
• Musical Treats
• Piano Bracelet
• Piano Masterpiece Pencil Drawing
• Quotable Mug Raffle Drawing
• Set of Customizable Musical Postcards
• Students’ Classics CD
• Sunflowers in the Rain Sheet Music
• The Abandoned Amusement Park Sheet Music
• The Magnificently Amazing Music Book Holder
• The MuZine
• The Space Book

“Part of the key to being successful in Tetris is learning how to spot patterns quickly and knowing what to do with them.”

and

“When I am truly playing the game, I succeed, and that, my friends, is addictive.”

I also appreciated this comment from Bob Woody:

“I think the main advantage of video games is the immediate feedback they provide. The goal is clear and the player knows, in real time, how well they’re doing.”

These kinds of discussions are fascinating to me because I love trying to understand what motivates my students and how to tap into that to help them achieve success as musicians. The thought of practicing being addictive, though, is a new one for me! It’s one thing to know what constitutes effective practice (which most of my students do when queried), but it’s a whole different thing to actually implement effective practice strategies (which most of my students don’t). The video game developers have figured out how to keep kids tethered to their screens for hours at a time, and I’m with Erica when it comes to figuring out how to employ similar elements to have them racing to the piano for as much quality practice time as they can get! This will take some thought, but I’m excited to ponder it more in the coming days and hopefully implement some related ideas into next year’s practice incentive theme.

This was the impetus behind the practice incentive that I developed for my students this year – Quest for Capital! I wanted to set their imagination free as they considered all the possible ways that involvement in music can be used to add value to society and to create marketable products. Those who develop an entrepreneurial mindset will always be able to find a way to use their resources and skills to earn money and contribute to the economy.

I recently ran across a helpful post on the So You Want to Teach blog called, Top 10 Ways to Make a Living While Making Music. For those who love music and want to make a living at it, there are lots of opportunities available! Sometimes you just have to think “outside the box.” These sorts of topics remind me of The Savvy Musician by David Cutler, one of the best and most inspiring books I’ve read on all the possibilities that exist for musicians who are willing to think creatively and try innovative ideas. This is the kind of thing that music students of the 21st Century need to be hearing and learning about!