I don’t know about you but I am SO excited for fall! There is something about this crisp, beautiful season that is giving me hope of getting through this crazy year…looking forward to the holiday season, enjoying the beautiful changing leaves and spending time with loved ones.
Along with the traditional sights and smells of the autumn season, I LOVE listening to gorgeous music that was inspired by autumn. I would love it if you check out my Shades of Sound: Autumn book! I loved choosing the music, researching the wonderful composers and drawing the beautiful coloring pages that are paired with each piece. It was a labor of love, and my hope is that these books can help some of your students come to love and appreciate classical music. Let me show you some sneak peeks of this book!
Of the seventeen composers featured in this book, five of them are women. I LOVED learning about Imogen Holst. She was the daughter of composer Gustav Holst and was such a fascinating and talented person. Students will get to color the above picture of autumn leaves while listening to her gorgeous “Fall of the Leaf” – a suite for solo cello.
Students of all ages will love coloring the pictures while listening to the music. The reason why this curriculum works so well is that it uses all four learning modes. Students read to learn about the composers and the history of the pieces, and they write down their observations and what they like about the piece. They use aural learning as they listen to the music, visual learning as they see the coloring pages, and kinesthetic learning as they color the pictures.
Today I am excited to tell you about a new collaboration that The Playful Piano has with the NoteQuest app!
NoteQuest has just released a brand new huge update which includes the new NoteFit for Sightreading, which as a teacher I am SO excited about! I have been using NoteFit with my own children for the past couple of weeks and it is an incredibly helpful tool. It is like a set of digital sight reading flashcards that gradually progresses in difficulty and tracks the students’ progress by unlocking badges. For every day of sight reading practice students can unlock a badge – when they earn 5 badges within a 7-day period they get to unlock their choice of printable prizes! Included in the selection of prizes are several coloring pages and activity sheets created by yours truly!
When you are learning how to play the piano, consistent practice is super important. But what should that daily practice time consist of? Here are 7 Elements of Effective Piano Practice. These are things that should be a part of your daily practice routine to help you become a well-rounded pianist with a good understanding of music. (And stay tuned after the 7 things for a free download!)
#1: Warm-Up
Technical work is an important aspect of piano practice and is a great way to warm up. Here are some suggestions of things you can do to improve your technique and to warm-up each day: scales, arpeggios, chords, Muscle Builders, Hanon exercises, etudes and other technical studies. Your piano teacher can help teach you proper technique, including curved fingers, firm fingertips, flexible wrists and more. Always remember that all technical work should have a musical purpose!
#2: Sight Read
To sight read is the ability to sit down and play a piece of music that you have never seen or played before. This is something that many people would love to be able to do, and the end goal of many piano students! So how do you learn how to sight read? By sight reading….a lot! Sight reading something every single day is the best way to get good at sight reading. You should do a little sight reading during each practice session.
What should you sight read? Find piano books or other music that is a little bit below your current ability level. Your piano teacher can help you find good sight reading material to use. I also highly recommend Piano Safari Sight Reading Cards, as well as the Note Quest app which has an excellent sight reading section called NoteFit.
#3: At-Level Music
If you are taking piano lessons you probably have some sort of method book that you are working through. It is important to work on repertoire that is not too easy and not too hard. These are pieces that you can learn fairly quickly and that will help you progress and learn.
#4: Challenge Pieces
You should always be working on what I call a “challenge piece.” A challenge piece is a piece which is harder than your method book pieces – something that will stretch your abilities and help you to improve. Your teacher will be able to find some great challenge pieces for you. Challenge pieces can be really fun, exciting and motivating, and they can really pull you up to the next level. Sometimes your challenge piece may be a difficult recital piece you are working on. Or it may be something that you are working on memorizing.
#5: Creative Skills
As you learn to read music and play the piano well, you should be sure to not neglect this important area of music learning: the creative skills! When was the last time you sat down and tried to figure out a piece of music by ear? Or composed your own piece? Or just goofed around on the piano and improvised some music? Piano should be not just something where you only learn to replicate the works of others, but it should also be a creative outlet. Playing lead sheets or fakebooks is another great creative skill – learning all of the chords and creating your own accompaniment to a well-known tune just by following the chord names. Composing, transposing, transcribing, arranging…all of these things will put your piano knowledge to the test and will help you create something that is all yours. Try to work on your creative piano skills a little bit each day.
#6: Theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. Understanding keys, chords, scales and more is paramount to becoming a well-rounded musician. You should find ways to learn about music theory and to consistently work on it. Maybe your teacher will assign you a theory book or other theory worksheets to fill out. There are also a lot of music theory apps that you can get that will teach you music theory in a fun way. Understanding music theory will help you understand the pieces you are playing and will be really important when you try to memorize a piece.
#7: Listening
Something that you may not think of when you think of piano practice is LISTENING. As you work to learn piano and become a musician, listening to great music is more important than ever. You should make sure that you listen to great music at least each week. Learn about composers, learn about different instruments and musical styles. The more you listen the more you will learn, and the more you will grow to love and appreciate great music. As you listen you will learn which composers and which pieces are your favorites. You will find pieces that you just HAVE to learn. If you are serious about learning the piano you do not want to leave this element out of your piano study!
Here are some resources you can go to to find great music to listen to and to learn about composers: listen to your local classical music radio station. Find YouTube videos of pieces you are learning or would like to learn. Learn about great pianists and find their performances on YouTube. Listen to classical music podcasts and read books about composers. Open up your favorite music streaming service and start exploring famous composers, piano music, orchestral music and any other kind of music you would like to learn about. Try out my Shades of Sound listening and coloring books, which teach you about the great composers and then allow you to color while listening to their music. Always be listening to great music!
Download my free Piano Practice Routine Tracker to help you keep track of each of these important areas of piano learning. You can download and print it out and use it as a reference as you practice each day. Or, you may want your teacher to write your weekly assignments in the white spaces of each section. Or you can laminate the tracker and use a clothespin to keep track of which step you are on!
For this 4th of July I have two great resources on sale for 50% off! This sale lasts ONE DAY ONLY, July 4 2020.
The first resource in the sale is my Forte Fireworks lesson plan. This fun and engaging lesson plan is part of my Mighty Musicians Piano Camp and is geared towards 5- and 6-year-old children who have not taken piano before or who have not taken lessons for very long.
Children will enjoy learning and singing about loud and soft in music to Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks; will enjoy a fun dynamics matching game; will march in their own loud and soft instrument parade; will be introduced to John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever; will learn to play a pre-staff notation piece on the piano; will compose their own piece using forte and piano notes; will be introduced to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture; will go on a magical musical adventure to a fireworks show; and will have fun learning all about dynamics through song, play, movement, listening and art.
This music history coloring book includes a carefully-curated collection of composers and music will introduce your students to some wonderful music with an emphasis on American composers. Celebrate the Fourth of July with seventeen exciting pieces of classical music. Explore works by composers such as Copland, Ives, Barber, Brubeck, Gershwin, Debussy, Tchaikovsky and more! From musical fireworks to marching bands to American folk tunes, this collection has it all!
I’ve got a new freebie for you today! It is so important to help our students understand key signatures, including knowing the order of sharps and flats, understanding relative minor keys and remembering the rules for identifying keys with sharp or flat key signatures. Understanding the circle of 5ths is important, of course, but sometimes I think that simply drilling key signatures over and over is the best way to remember them.
I created these key signature flashcards to help students practice naming the major and minor keys associated with each key signature, and decided to give them to you as a free download! You can either print the answers on the back (make sure you use cardstock – thicker paper will make sure that you can’t see the answer through the card!), or you might want to print the answers separately and use them as a memory match game to match up the key signatures to their associated major and minor keys! You can easily use them during online lessons as well, simply hold the cards up to the screen to quiz your students.
This download also includes a Name That Key worksheet so your students can practice at home. You could even time them and see how fast they can name all of the keys.
I am a firm believer in small daily habits. When we do something small each and every day, it will become something big. I have a favorite verse of scripture that reiterates this same concept. It says “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” In his popular book Atomic Habits, James Clear says,
“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision, but as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow… The task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits
Piano is one of those things that needs to be worked on daily and consistently in order to see big progress. When I was a teenager, my piano teacher had a sign hanging on her door that said “You only have to practice on the days that you eat.” (Then in her handwriting underneath she added “or the days that end in “y.”)
She would always emphatically quote pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who talked about what happens when you miss a day of practice:
“If I miss one day….I know it. If I miss TWO days, the critics know it. If I miss THREE days, the WHOLE WORLD knows it!”
Arthur Rubinstein
(Anyone else who studied with Bonnie Winterton surely can hear her voice in their mind saying that quote with emphasis as they read it!)
I have seen this principle in my own piano practicing – practice time is scarce in this season of my life, with five young kids at home and much to do. But when I take a few minutes each day to practice I still see good results!
I have seen this principle work in my own children. We have put a greater emphasis on daily piano practice in our house lately and we are seeing such improvements in their playing!
I have seen this work in my piano students! We have been doing a Practice Streak Contest in my studio and as they have tried harder to not miss a day of practice I have seen great progress in their playing.
As piano teachers, we NEED to emphasize the importance of DAILY PRACTICE to our piano students and to their parents. Parents are so important in this equation – if they can help ensure that their child is practicing at home consistently – not just 2 or 3 times per week, but EVERY DAY, even if just for a little while, their child will make BIG progress.
In Atomic Habits, the author James Clear talks about Four Laws of Behavior Change. In order to create a habit (such as daily piano practice), you must make the behavior obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying. As I read this book there were SO many applications for piano practice! I want to share what I learned from the book about these Four Laws of Behavior Change and how they can apply to piano practice.
Make it obvious: Habits are initiated by cues, especially cues of location and time. Is the piano in a room or an area of the house that is frequently seen and visible? Are the student’s books nearby and visible? Does the student have a set time to practice the piano each day? These are things that make practicing obvious and will help to create a daily practice habit.
Make it attractive: Behaviors that get us approval, respect and praise are “attractive” to us. It is easier to create a habit that is a normal behavior of the people around us, or if it is something that the people around you value. What is the musical culture of the student’s family? Do the parents value music? Parents and families can influence your student’s desire to become good at piano. Similarly, a positive studio culture and healthy studio camaraderie can help influence your students to practice more.
Make it easy: When you reduce the friction associated with a behavior, you are more likely to do it. As humans we follow the Law of Least Effort – whatever takes the least effort to do, we will do. It is important to create a piano practice environment that will make practice easy.
Make it satisfying: To get a habit to stick, you need to feel immediately successful after doing that behavior; one of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress. A great way to achieve this is a simple habit tracker. Marking an X or filling in a box helps to measure your progress and helps you to feel successful. Don’t break the chain….if you do miss a day, don’t miss twice, just start over and try and keep your habit streak alive.
Today I’d like to share a freebie with you that can help your students develop a daily practice habit. This Practice Streak Tracker gives your students a system for tracking their daily practice. It provides a visual record of their progress and will help them to get a great practice streak going! When used in conjunction with a studio-wide Practice Streak Challenge, it will work even better!
The Practice Streak Tracker is a great thing for students to keep in their piano binder, on the wall near their piano or somewhere where they will see it every single day. Each day that they practice they mark the square for that day on their chart. They can either mark it with an X, color in the square or they can even write numbers in the squares to keep track of how many days in a row they have practiced. This is a great visual reminder of their success, and motivation to keep going! Your whole studio could participate in a Practice Streak Challenge where you see who can practice the most days in a row without missing a day.
We have a lot of piano music at our house. I have all of my teaching materials and method books, tons of piano literature books by all of the great composers, pedagogy books and more. And my four oldest kids each have piano books they are using currently. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with it all! I thought it would be fun to share how we store our music currently.
I have all of my piano music and lots of my piano pedagogy and music history books in this cabinet from Ikea. I love it! I keep lots of method books and sheet music in the drawers, as well as flashcards, boomwhackers and other piano teaching resources.
With four of my kids learning piano and my husband and me both playing the piano a lot, we have a lot of music that we get out frequently! It’s a constant struggle to figure out where to put it all. Here is what has been working for us the past little while!
Each of the kids has a piano bag where they keep all of their books and music that we are working on currently. I have a bag too – maybe I should get my husband one? He keeps his music in one of the cabinet drawers. We keep all of the piano bags in this great big canvas basket near the piano. Sometimes my kids remember to put their bags away
I love that the bags all fit perfectly in this basket and that they are easy to grab.
I also have tons of magazine holders and bins full of method books, organ music, church choir music and piano pedagogy materials lining the tops of my Ikea bookshelves on the other side of the room. It works. (And did I mention that our family loves books??)
How do YOU organize all of your piano music and piano teaching materials?
Today I want to share a great piano practice trick that I like to use when learning a piece with a lot of fast notes.
First I must mention the importance of choosing a good fingering, and playing the section with the SAME FINGERING EACH TIME. As we learn a piece of music we should be using several different learning modes to really engage with the piece and learn it well (this is especially true when memorizing a piece of music). The easiest type of learning is through muscle memory – when you play a passage enough times in a row, your fingers just sort of automatically learn where to go next. This can be really helpful, but it’s important to remember to not ONLY rely on this type of learning. When you use the same fingering every time, it allows your fingers to learn the passage more quickly and more accurately.
I like to write in my fingerings, especially on tricky sections – it ensures I use the same fingers every time and helps me to engage and learn the section using some analytical thinking, or the “read and write” learning mode.
But I like to go one step further. On especially thorny passages I will take a colored pencil or highlighter and highlight every single note that will be played by my thumb. This adds a really helpful visual cue to my learning and helps me to nail those fingerings. If I can get my thumb landing on the correct notes each time, everything else seems to fall into place. The thumb is the pivot point on your hand as you play scales and arpeggios, and so landing your thumb at the right time makes a world of difference as you navigate a tricky passage.
Here is a section of Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata in which I have highlighted all of the thumb notes. Once I did this, this passage went SO much smoother!
I encourage you to try this practice technique with your piano students and with your own practicing. I also encourage you to find ways to use several different modes of learning and several different practice tricks on the same passages in your music. Using kinesthetic (muscle memory), aural, visual and analytical memory (not just muscle memory alone) will really help you engage with the music and learn your pieces faster.
I recently read an excellent NPR article about introducing children to classical music. I have observed many of the same things as the author of the article – that young children love classical music! To them it is fun and exciting, not boring and stuffy like many people believe. When my oldest daughter was two years old her favorite song to listen to was the finale to Stravinsky’s Firebird. She used to wave her arms in the air to “conduct” it as we listened to it over and over and over in the car. Some other family favorites have been Hans Christian Lumbye’s Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop and Smetana’s Moldau.
As we guide our piano students in their musical education and their music appreciation journey, let us unabashedly introduce them to great classical music. Let us show them how wonderful and exciting it is, and show them how much joy it gives us in our lives, knowing that they are as capable as any adult in appreciating it.
“The music belongs to children just as much as it belongs to “us” — the ones with the years of listening experience, who have already absorbed current conventions of concert-going practice (don’t applaud between movements, obey the dress code, etc.), and who might well have had years of formal training. Classical music isn’t a museum piece to be looked at and not touched, as it were.”
I love learning about composers and discovering new music – whether it’s actually new or just new to me. As a pianist and musician I don’t think there is anything more motivating and inspiring than listening to great music. In college I had a piano literature professor who assigned us a huge semester-long listening project in which I spent hours listening to piano literature, writing about it and compiling huge binders full of my listening responses. This really sparked an interest in me in listening and in discovering new pieces and new composers, and I have enjoyed doing so ever since.
Often I will find a great piano piece in my listening that just drives me to find the sheet music and sit down and play the piece. As I have seen this motivation in my own playing, I see it in my piano students as well. When we discover a piece on our own that we love, we are much more motivated to practice it. There is more joy, more intrinsic motivation that propels us to learn a piece. This is why I am so passionate about encouraging piano teachers to implement listening into their students’ piano curriculum. There is nothing more motivating! If we have no appreciation for music, no love of listening and discovering pieces, where is our motivation to practice?
I want to start sharing little discoveries from my own listening in the hopes that I can help inspire others to explore the vast and amazing world of classical music. Most of these I find browsing through Apple Music (isn’t music streaming the best??). Other times I will read about a composer I am unfamiliar with and go searching out their music.
Today I want to share two works by two seemingly unrelated composers – living Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and American composer Amy Beach.
Arvo Pärt’s Summa for Strings
I have been listening to a lot of Arvo Pärt’s music lately – his music has such an ethereal, calming quality to it. Composed in 1977, his Summa (originally written as an a cappella vocal work based on the Latin Credo, then later scored for other instruments such as this version for strings) was composed using a compositional style that Pärt created called tintinnabulation. Inspired by chant music from the Medieval period, tintinnabuli is characterized by music in two voices where one voice moves in a stepwise motion and the other voice plays inversions of the tonic chord, creating a bell-like sound made up of a sonorous mass of overtones.
Pärt describedtintinnabuli in this way:
Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. . . . The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation.
Amy Beach’s Quartet for Strings in One Movement, Op. 89
As I listened to Summa I couldn’t help but hear so many similarities to this Amy Beach string quartet. Beach was an incredibly gifted pianist and composer who really paved the way for women in America to be taken seriously as composers. Beach completed her Quartet for Strings in One Movement in 1929. This highly chromatic work is lyrical and haunting and has so many gorgeous moments, and even hints of impressionism. Beach was also inspired by folk tunes of Native Americans, Alaskan Inuits and other native cultures; some of this quartet was based off of Alaskan Inuit melodies.
Take a listen to this gorgeous quartet – and notice around the two-minute mark how similar it is to Arvo Pärt’s Summa – such similar harmonies and intervals!
This piece by Amy Beach is featured in my Shades of Sound: Women Composers coloring book! Learn more about her life, then listen to several of her works while coloring a picture to go with each. The book also features 18 other women composers from throughout history.
