Weekend Repertoire: Schumann’s Arabeske

As my son went up to bed tonight (at the time of writing this post…yes I write a lot of these in advance – as a mama you’ve got to take the time when it’s available!), he called down the stairs, “Mommy, play me some music!” Which really warmed my heart because he doesn’t often say things like that. He usually tries to pull me away from the piano instead of requesting it. I played through a few pieces, and then picked up Schumann’s Arabeske, a piece I have loved ever since hearing it for the very first time, and one that I performed at my sophomore recital in college. As I played the familiar notes it was almost like seeing an old friend after many years. There really is something so beautiful and transcendent about this piece, the harmonies and the colors that simply rekindles my love of music and the piano.

If you are not familiar with this amazing piece, please take a few minutes and watch this amazing video of Horowitz’s performance of it in Carnegie Hall. Pay close attention at 5:58 – this little “benediction” is just heavenly. Who else is just amazingly grateful for music after hearing this piece?

We have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered our Ear Training Pro giveaway! I am excited to announce our winner!

Congratulations to:

Shauna Leavitt from Keys to Notes

Shauna Leavitt said…
I took your ear training survey the other day and it was quite revealing of how little time I spend teaching my student about ear training. This would be an excellent tool for students and teachers to ensure that this skill isn’t being neglected.
13/4/11 8:57 AM Shauna, please contact me with your email address, so the Ear Training Pro people can get your account all set up. Congratulations!

Last day to enter giveaway!

Our EarTrainingPro giveaway ends tonight at 11:59 PM (CST). If you have not already entered to win a FREE account on EarTrainingPro.com, hurry over here and enter! This is a fabulous resource for any music studio that you do not want to miss out on! The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Famous Pianists: Emil Gilels

I am excited to introduce a new feature, Famous Pianists, on The Teaching Studio! 
In college, during a master class one evening, our professor asked us each to take a piece of paper and write down all of the famous pianists we could think of. He gave us probably five minutes or so, and in those five minutes I came up with {embarrassingly} hardly anything. I don’t think that I was the only one who {sadly} was not familiar with many famous pianists, but I was the lucky one chosen to read my list aloud 🙂 
That experience definitely made me think, and gave me the desire to really get to know the great pianists out there. While I have definitely learned about and become familiar with many great and legendary pianists since that day, I still feel that my knowledge is greatly lacking in that area (is there anyone who feels this same way?). As pianists and teachers, we must be familiar with the legendary pianists and the great pianists of our own day, for there is so much to learn from their performances and technique. We need to familiarize our students with these famous pianists as well – in fact, there is a great article in the Clavier Companion about using DVD’s and YouTube videos of historical performances in our teaching.
So, with that said, I will be posting a feature about a famous pianist every couple of weeks or so, in the hopes that I (and my readers, as well!) will become much more familiar with these important pianists! I am so excited! I will be getting a lot of my information from the wonderful book by Harold Schonberg, The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present, and will also be sharing some great videos of performances. I hope you enjoy!

Today’s pianist: Emil Gilels

Born: October 19, 1916 in Odessa, Ukraine (which may be why I chose to begin with him, as we share the same birthday!)

Died: October 14, 1985 in Moscow, Russia

About the man: Gilels won the first All-Union Contest of Musicians and Performers in 1933 at the age of 17, and then attended the Moscow Conservatory. Known as “The Little Giant,” he was hailed as a “master pianist” after his first appearance in the West in 1955.

Characteristics of his playing: His playing was strong, clear, objective, steady, logical, unaffected. Schonberg calls him “a thinking man’s pianist.” He, as well as other Russian pianists of his time, concentrated on “tone, on phrase, on the cantabile quality of the instrument.” (Schonberg, 464.) His technique was brilliant.

Repertoire: Gilels played a “steady diet” of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Brahms. I love his recordings of Rachminoff; Schonberg mentions his “incredible octaves” in Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody.

Videos


Musical Easter Egg Hunt

I am so glad to be a part of this wonderful online network of piano teaching bloggers, because I am so grateful for all of the wonderful ideas you all share!

This morning I was reading this post on Heidi’s Piano Studio, and decided to use her great idea and adapt it for my preschool student who came later this morning. (Thanks, Heidi!!)

I got out my stash of colorful craft foam (seriously, it is the best stuff!), some paper, a pen, some tape, and an egg-shaped cookie cutter…

…and made these fun Easter egg preschool flashcards!
I included things that we have learned during lessons in the past little while, including things such as:

  • rhythms to clap, including rests
  • line notes vs. space notes
  • steps and skips
  • treble clef and bass clef
  • the staff
  • finger numbers
  • high notes & low notes on the staff
  • Presto and Adagio
I hid them around the room, and my student had lots of fun hunting for eggs and then identifying the things on the back! My three-year-old son got his turn after my student left, and he loved it as well!

After we found all of the eggs, we lined up the rhythm eggs and tried clapping them in different orders, and playing notes on the piano in the correct rhythm.

I love that with a little creativity, you can turn a boring old flashcard exercise into a fun, memorable learning activity!

Ear Training Survey Results

Thanks to all who took our survey last week about ear training and piano lessons. It looks like many agree that ear training skills are pretty important for piano students to have. I hope that the results will at least get you thinking about ways to improve ear training in your own studio (because it has definitely helped me to think about it more as well!). Here are the results! I especially love the input given on question #4.

Now, don’t forget to enter our GIVEAWAY to win a free account on EarTrainingPro.com! You definitely do not want to miss out on this opportunity – this is a wonderful way to easily incorporate ear training into your studio. You have four days left to enter!

Weekend Repertoire: Ravel’s Prelude

I am excited to re-introduce my Weekend Repertoire feature here on the Teaching Studio! As pianists and teachers, shouldn’t we always be discovering and re-discovering repertoire to teach our students and to broaden our knowledge of the piano works of great composers?

Today’s piece: Prelude by Ravel, written in 1913
Level: Early Advanced
Teaches: expression, advanced phrasing techniques, crossing of hands
Listen: there are three recordings of this piece available to download or listen to at pianosociety.com

This week’s piece I discovered just yesterday while sight reading through some wonderful pieces by Ravel. In fact, I would highly recommend this great collection of Ravel’s piano pieces (which includes the Prelude as well as eleven other piano masterpieces). According to Hinson, they “represent some of Ravel’s finest contributions to the pianist’s art.” I had never heard this short, simple prelude before but I immediately loved its simplicity, its beautiful haunting harmonies, and the interplay between the right and left hand lines.

Preview of music from everynote.com

Although very simple and relatively easy to learn, this 27-measure piece requires much use of expression, as well as great attention to detail in shaping the phrases and bringing out the melody, particularly when the hands cross over one another.

According to the notes by Hinson in my book, this piece was composed in 1913 as a sight-reading piece for the Paris Conservatory to use in their piano competitions. Hinson says this about the piece, “The Prelude involves some interlocking of the hands and contains a few unexpected harmonies. Its gentle lyricism, relaxed tempo and interesting inner voices affirm Ravel’s gifts as a superb miniaturist.”

In my studio I put a lot of emphasis on musicality and artistry, and I am so excited to use this piece with some of my more advanced students to teach advanced phrasing and expression. I hope you enjoy discovering this wonderful little piece!

Other online ear training resources…

In researching about ear training, I found a bunch of free online trainers and other resources, and thought I’d share what I came up with! Let me know if you know of others to add to the list.

http://good-ear.com/
http://www.ossmann.com/bigears/
http://www.trainear.com/
http://www.musictheory.net/
http://www.musicalmind.org/
http://www.learn2hear.org/
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory43.htm

If you have not already taken our short ear training survey, head on over here to take it!
If you haven’t yet entered our GIVEAWAY this week, make sure you don’t miss that as well!

Review & Giveaway!: Ear Training Pro

Today I am excited to review a new online ear training resource – EarTrainingPro.com. This new website is an excellent resource for any music studio (and has been a great asset in my own studio over the past few weeks!) It contains over fifty different ear training exercises that students can practice on your studio computer, or at home (depending on which plan you sign up for).

The exercises on this website are in six different categories: Intervals, Pitch Perception, Chords, Relative Pitch, Scales, and Transcription. Exercises are also each categorized as Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced Level.

When beginning each exercise, there is a brief instruction page explaining what the exercise is. Many of these instruction pages include a brief listening example. For example, on the Major Chords Second Inversion exercise, students can listen to the difference between a root position chord, a first inversion chord and a second inversion chord, as well as a comparison between three different chords which all have C as their bottom note before they begin the exercise (see below).

I love this feature, and actually wish that ALL of the exercise instruction pages were as thorough as this one (although many of them are!). Some of the exercises will give a listening example of just one type of interval, and then quiz you on all of the major scale intervals.

The exercises consist of usually ten examples to listen to and identify. After the ten are complete, you are able to see how many you got correct, as well as which ones you got wrong. It will also tell you what your answer was and what the correct answer should have been, and you can listen to the example again.

I love the variety of the exercises and of their difficulty levels. I can assign beginning exercises to some of my younger students, while still being able to challenge my most advanced students (and myself as well!) with the advanced levels. Here is a list of all of the available exercises:

Intervals
Major Thirds and Fifths
Beginner
Intervals – Major Scale
Beginner
Intervals – Minor Scale
Beginner
Major Intervals Up to a Perfect Fifth
Beginner
Intervals in Semitones
Intermediate
Intervals – Chromatic Scale
Intermediate
Intervals – Major Scale with Intervals Up and Down
Intermediate
Intervals – Minor Scale with Intervals Up and Down
Intermediate
Intervals – Chromatic Scale with Intervals Up and Down
Intermediate
Intervals – Minor Scale, played together
Advanced
Intervals – Major Scale, played together
Advanced
Intervals – Chromatic Scale, played together
Advanced
Pitch Perception
Higher or Lower
Beginner
Notes on a Keyboard
Beginner
Perfect Pitch Test
Advanced
Chords
Major and Minor Chords
Beginner
Chord Progressions with Triads (Major Keys)
Beginner
Chord Progressions with Triads (Minor Keys)
Beginner
Major Chords First Inversion
Intermediate
Major Chords Second Inversion
Intermediate
Suspended Second and Fourth Chords
Intermediate
Chord Progressions with First Inversion
Intermediate
Major and Minor Ninth Chords
Intermediate
Augmented and Dominant Ninth Chords
Intermediate
Chord Progressions in C Major
Intermediate
Major Broken Chords First Inversion
Intermediate
Triads – Major, Minor, Augmented and Diminished
Advanced
Chord Identification
Advanced
Ninth Chords
Advanced
Major and Minor Seventh Chords
Advanced
Diminished and Half-Diminished Seventh Chords
Advanced
Augmented and Dominant Seventh Chords
Advanced
Major and Augmented Major Seventh Chords
Advanced
Seventh Chords
Advanced
Chord Progressions with Inversions
Advanced
Relative Pitch
Relative Pitch on C Major
Beginner
Relative Pitch on C Minor
Beginner
Relative Pitch Introduction
Beginner
Relative Pitch on C Major with Intervals Up and Down
Intermediate
Relative Pitch on C Minor with Intervals Up and Down
Intermediate
Relative Pitch on the Chromatic Scale
Intermediate
Relative Pitch on Chromatic Scale with Intervals Up and Down
Advanced
Relative Pitch
Advanced
Scales
Scales – Major and Minor
Beginner
Types of Minor Scales
Intermediate
Transcription
Transcribing a Few Notes From C Major
Beginner
Transcribing notes in C Major or C Minor
Beginner
Transcribing notes in A Minor
Beginner
Transcribing Chords – Triads
Beginner
Transcribing notes in C Major or C Minor – Intermediate
Intermediate
Transcribing Chords – Seventh Chords
Intermediate
Transcribing notes in any key
Advanced
Transcribing Chords – Ninth Chords
Advanced

When signing up for this website, there are four different plan options. I LOVE that you can choose a studio plan that includes a teacher account and up to 40 attached student accounts for your studio. The students each have their own log-in information and are able to access the website from any computer. The teacher is then able to assign specific homework exercises to individual students, see which exercises they have attempted, how many times they have attempted them and what their high score is on each.

Overall, I love this website and feel that it is much easier to use and much better than other online ear trainers I have tried. I love that it keeps track of how well you have done in each exercise and how well each of your students has done (anything to help keep my studio organized and on-track curriculum-wise is a definite plus for me!). I highly recommend this website to other music teachers for use in their studios.

And here’s the exciting news – Anthony from Ear Training Pro has offered to give away a free account on EarTrainingPro.com to one lucky reader!! To be entered into the drawing, leave a comment below! For one extra entry, share a link to this giveaway via facebook, your blog, twitter, or some other website and leave me one extra comment letting me know that you did. Make sure you enter by 11:59 pm (CST) on Thursday, April 21st. Winner will be announced on Friday the 22nd! Happy ear training!

Why Ear Training?

Lately as I have been teaching, I have found myself pondering the question, “What is so important about ear training, anyway?” I mean, I know it is important. I have done all sorts of sight singing courses, learned Solfege, taken crazy dictation tests where you have to write down all of the notes of a whole chord progression, learned to recognize how an interval sounds by whether it sounds like “Here comes the bride” or “Bali Hai” from South Pacific…but as I have had students working on ear training over the past couple of months I have found myself wondering…why is it so important?

When a piano student asks why in the world they need to know how a minor sixth or a major seventh sounds, what is your answer? Do you have a good answer for them? Is there a good answer?

This is what I have been thinking about lately. And the main conclusion I have come to is this: in order to become good pianists and musicians, we need to train our ears to recognize the music we play. I think that, too often, pianists especially are much too detached from the SOUND that is actually coming out of the instrument. I find that when I tell my student to play a piece or a section again, but this time to really listen to the sound, so many things are immediately ten times better. Phrases are more musical, dynamics are more contrasting, staccatos are shorter – there is so much more music in the music! Our ears need to be trained just as our fingers do! They need to be trained to have relative pitch, to notice notes and harmonies and sounds and colors in the music. When our ears are trained to be actively involved in the music-making process, that is when we are truly able to become great musicians.

Tell me what you think! Take a minute and take this brief survey about ear training:





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