Weekend Repertoire: Barber Excursion No. 3

March 10, 2012 Jennifer Boster

At my weekly library excursion last weekend (we call it “Wafflelibraryfriday” at our house – each Friday we try to cook waffles and visit the library – fun tradition!) I decided to pick up a few classical CD’s to peruse. I am a lover of many types of music, but somehow I always come back to classical.

I picked up a CD of Barber’s Excursions, and apparently I was not familiar with Excursion No. 3, because it was a new, beautiful discovery for me! The gorgeous harmonies and beautiful flowing melody drew me in, and then I was pleasantly surprised by the fun, syncopated rhythms. I think I may need to add this to my “Repertoire Wish List!” Take a listen!

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New Printable: Beginning Muscle Builders Booklet

March 6, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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I am super excited about this new printable! Today I want to share with you my technique program for my young beginners.

One of the downfalls of many beginning method books is that students are often confined to learning only a few hand positions. They get really good at playing in C or G position, and then when trickier keys like E or B Major are introduced (finally), students are usually not as confident.

I like to get my beginning students playing in many different keys all over the keyboard as soon as possible. I want them to be familiar with how these different positions (which include sharps and flats) feel, and I want them to learn that just because there are flats or sharps, it doesn’t mean it is hard.

I also want my students to learn chords as soon as possible and be confident spelling and playing many different chords – this is an awesome help in learning practically all of their pieces, and also lends to opportunities to teach harmonization and other creative keyboard skills.

This little booklet guides young students through learning all of the white-key major five-finger positions, including scales, arpeggios and chords.

Each key consists of the following:

a colorful “picture scale” to show which keys to play and the names of the notes
reminders on good piano technique
various hands-alone practice directions for five-finger scales
instructions on how to play arpeggios and chords, including technique tips & a fun way to remember the difference between arpeggios and chords (you wouldn’t believe how many of my students mix the two up!)
a chord-spelling review to help students remember the notes in each chord

Each item has a little circle next to it that can either be filled in or checked off (or better yet, use a fun little sticker!) when the student has completed the assignment. I usually draw a circle around the printed circle of each assigned item for the week, and we pass it off with a sticker the following week.

The colorful circles on the picture scales are just the right size for a standard round sticker (these ones fit great and are super cute – a fun incentive for youngsters!) – and after the student has learned the scale, I love to put stickers on the three notes used in an arpeggio and chord. It is a great visual reminder!

I often add other assignments to the ones in the booklet, such as playing any of the scales or arpeggios in a technique you’d like to work on (staccato or legato, for example). I have also taught students about the damper pedal (by opening up the piano and showing them how it all works), and then we have fun playing our 4-octave arpeggios with the damper pedal for a fun and “fancy” sound. Some of my students tend to scoot on the bench a lot, so I also used this as a way to practice leaning to reach the high or low notes.

Another wonderful thing you can do once the student has learned a few of the keys is to have them practice some simple transposition. Take a song that can be played in a five-finger pattern from their method book (for instance, one that is written in C position) and have them transpose to any other key that they have learned! A great song for this is “Ode to Joy,” by the way!

I have been so pleased with the progress of my young students as they have worked their way through this booklet and learned so many different scales and chords. I hope you can get some good use out of it in your studio as well!

I like to print this in booklet format, which you will have to choose in the “Print” settings. Be sure to select the double-sided booklet option – then all you need to do is fold it all in half for a fun little technique booklet. You may download the booklet here, and you can also find it on my “Printables & Downloads” page. Enjoy!

Find Muscle Builder Book Level 2 here, and Muscle Builder Book Level 3 here!

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Recognizing Sharp Signs

March 6, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Teaching Tip #3: Recognizing Sharp Signs

Well I warned you that some of these tips would be random. And quite simple. When teaching young students about sharps and flats, a great way to teach them to recognize a sharp sign is that it looks like a tic-tac-toe game. There you have it. Happy Tuesday to all!

New Printable: Student Notes & Records

March 5, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Let’s just get this out in the open: I am not a very organized person!

I have never been good at keeping track of student records. I have realized that I am very right-brained, and anyone who knows me well knows that organization (not to mention laundry…) is not one of my strong points! (Who’s with me?)

But when you run a piano studio, it’s not all about the music and the creative aspects of the piano…(darn)…you also actually need to run a business and keep track of things. Today I want to share my system I have finally come up with that works so well for me. Not only does this help me keep track of when students pay me and such, but has turned into a super simple and effective way to lesson plan!

I have learned that by doing at least a small amount of lesson planning for each lesson, lessons go smoother and are more effective, I stay more organized and on top of what my students are learning and what they need to learn next, and I save lots of time trying to remember what happened at a student’s previous lesson.

Here’s what I do:

I have a spreadsheet for my studio with a page for each student. I keep mine on the computer in Excel, but you could just as easily print it out and keep it in a binder (in fact I have included a free printable for you to use! You’re welcome.)

On this spreadsheet I keep track of:

Student name
Lesson day/time
How many lessons they have had so far during the semester
Which lessons they attended, or the dates of missed or cancelled lessons
Tuition paid (how much, when and which lessons they have paid for)
Lesson notes (this is my super simple lesson planning method. Each day after a student leaves or after I am done teaching for the evening, I sit down at the computer for about ten minutes and jot down notes from the lesson – what we went over, how they did on their practicing, things they struggled with, things they excelled at, things I want to remember, etc. This only takes a few minutes but is such an easy thing to refer back to the next week before they come to lessons again.)
Materials needed (Here I keep track of materials they need soon – new books, flashcards, etc. I also jot down things I want to print out for them or teaching materials needed the next week. I can glance quickly at this column and see what I need to prepare or order for each student for their next lesson.)

Here is an example of things I write on my student records sheet. I usually highlight the weeks they have already paid for. If I make a cancellation, or if they don’t show up to lessons, I note it in the Attended Lesson column so I know if I need to make up any lessons (when I cancelled) or if they forfeited one of their lessons for the semester (by being a no-show).

So here you go…a free printable for use in your studio if you, like me, have been on the search for a quick and easy way to keep track of things and to plan for lessons. You can also find this on the Printables & Downloads page.

Student Notes and Records

How do you lesson plan in your studio? How do you keep track of student records?

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Poll Results: When Students Forget Their Books

February 29, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Looks like most of us are pretty comfortable teaching a lesson even when our students forget their books! I think that is wonderful. The longer I teach, the more comfortable I get with this!

The “other” responses were both the same – that they have backup books in case this happens! I think that is an excellent practice and we would all be wise to have backup copies of the method books our students use – not only for when they forget their books, but to help in lesson planning.

Have a wonderful day!

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Look Inside the Piano!

February 28, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Teaching Tip #2: Look Inside the Piano!

So, this may be a silly question…

…but have your students ever seen the inside of a piano? Do they actually know how it works? Do they know that the sound is made by hammers hitting strings? Have they seen the dampers at work? Do they know how the damper pedal works? Do they really have an understanding of how cool and intricate the inside of a piano is, and what an amazing instrument this really is?

If the answer is no, then waste no more time – open up that baby and let them climb up on a chair and see it in “action” (pun intended)! Then let them play some notes or a piece or some arpeggios with the damper pedal (if they haven’t tried it already) and not only will they have lots of fun, but will also understand why it sounds the way it does.

Photo Credit:
GBHPhotoArts | CC 2.0

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Note Spelling Off of the Bench

February 27, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Sometimes, especially with the younger students and their shorter attention spans, you just need to get off the piano bench! This week in my studio we have been playing a game with my grand staff flannel board and some big, colorful fuzzy pom-poms from the craft store.

We take turns rolling a fuzzy onto the board (like bowling!) and then see if we can name the note it lands on – either by line or space, or by the actual note name if the student knows them.

After all of the fuzzies are on the board, it’s fun to try playing it on the piano and see what song we came up with!

This is also a fun way to teach note names to a student, or as a fun alternative to flashcards. I think that children learn so well by play, that the more creative teaching aids we can use in our studios, the better they will learn and the more fun they will have!

What are some fun ways you get off the bench during your piano lessons to teach concepts in creative ways?

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Teaching Tip Tuesday: Keep a Teaching Journal

February 21, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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I’d like to start a new feature here – Teaching Tip Tuesday! This will feature simple teaching tips and random ideas that I have gleaned over the years through my experiences with my students.

Here we go!

Teaching Tip #1: Keep a teaching journal!

One of my favorite ways lately to keep track of miscellaneous ideas and gems of teaching wisdom that pop up during lessons is to keep a teaching journal. I keep a notebook inside my piano bench, and whenever I try something that was particularly effective, or have an “aha!” moment with a student, or just have a fabulously brilliant or fun idea, I jot it down in here for future reference. I have found that without writing these things down, I tend to forget my awesome ideas.

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25 Things To Do When Piano Students Forget Their Books

February 18, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Have you ever had a student arrive at their lesson, only to announce that they accidentally left all their books at home?

As ridiculous as it sounds, I think we all have experienced this in our studios at one time or another. The question is, how do you respond to a situation like this?

Get annoyed?
Panic?
Send them home?
Teach them anyway?
Schedule a make-up lesson (which really isn’t fair to you, since it’s their fault they forgot their books in the first place)?
I recently had a student call an hour before a scheduled lesson to tell me she forgot her books that day so she would just skip this week and come next time (she had already paid me, so it wasn’t my loss). Do we just let the student miss a valuable week of lessons and slow down in their progress?

I have gotten to a point in my teaching where when something like this happens, I no longer panic and instead see it as an opportunity for a great piano lesson!

There are oh so many things you can teach a student without their books! In fact, shouldn’t we as piano teachers have enough musical knowledge to teach a student a great lesson without needing to rely on a method book as a crutch? It may be wise to try and keep a copy of your students’ method books in your own library to pull out in these types of situations…but even if you don’t have their exact book, there are SO MANY things you can do at a lesson instead.

25 Things to Do at a Piano Lesson When a Student Forgets Their Books

Sight read.

Have a 30-minute theory lesson.

Work on scales/technique.

Try some fakebook playing/harmonization exercises!

Transpose a hymn.

Teach them about your favorite composer and listen to a piece.

Show them a YouTube video of one of the GREATS performing a piece the student is working on.

Play duets.

Talk about how to accompany.

Teach them how to conduct music.

Listen to music from your iTunes and practice finding the underlying beat.

Using their knowledge of primary chords, help them figure out how to play “Happy Birthday to You!”

Get out a piece from your own library and have an entire lesson on how to learn a new piece.

Teach them about good practicing tips.

Show them the inside of your piano and teach them how it works.

Teach them about the damper pedal and let them play simple arpeggios while holding down the pedal.

Do some ear training.

Make up some musical question and answer phrases.

Teach them about major & minor, then have them listen to excerpts of pieces and identify if it is major or minor (or sounds “happy” or “sad”).

Teach them about simple transposition by changing from one five-finger position to another.

Improvise a song about a thunderstorm. Or a train. Or Halloween.

Have a lesson on a new technique, such as staccato or legato.

Teach them the blues scale. Improvise some blues riffs!
Have a few music theory games on hand to pull out in situations such as this.

Quiz them on flashcards.

Have a flashcard “spelling bee” and see how quickly they can spell words with their flashcards (cage, face, age, facade, ace, etc.)

Have confidence in your experience, your training, and your musical knowledge, and don’t even flinch – teach them a stellar lesson on something you usually don’t have much time for during the lesson! After all, are we not trying to produce well-rounded musicians? Use this opportunity to round out their music education a bit and focus on something other than their repertoire for one week.

Making Music Musical: Finding The Point

February 17, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Happy Thursday! Here comes another installment of how to teach our students to go above and beyond just playing the notes and to truly polish a piece and create beautiful music – Making Music Musical!

Once one has mastered playing beautiful phrases and has worked on finding the balance in the music, what else can be done to really polish up a piece and make it MUSICAL?

After working out individual phrases and achieving good balance, it is wise to take a step back and see the big picture of the piece. How do the phrases relate to one another? What is the function of each phrase in the context of the entire piece? How does each section of the piece relate to the others? What is the overall direction of the dynamics of the piece – does it start soft and climax near the end at forte, or does it have a forte section followed by a piano middle section and then a recap of the forte section? What are you trying to say with the piece? What is the whole point?

Rachmaninoff – image source

Each piece that Rachmaninoff played was meticulously shaped around a culminating POINT – a climax of sorts. Sometimes it was in the middle of the piece, sometimes near the end, but the whole aim of the piece was to build up to this one important point.

What is the whole point of your piece? Where is the climax?

In Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music by Sergei Bertensson, the story is told of a concert given by Rachmaninoff where he felt that he completely missed the point of the piece. During intermission he was in a horrible mood.

A woman describes,

“we finally reached the artists’ room, where we saw at once from the expression on Rachmaninoff’s face that he was in an awful state: he was biting his lip furiously, his complexion was yellow. As we opened our mouths to congratulate him he exploded in complaint…’Didn’t you notice that I missed the point? Don’t you understand – I let the point slip!'”

I love Rachmaninoff’s description of what “the point” of a piece is:

“…[Rachmaninoff] explained that each piece he plays is shaped around its culminating point: the whole mass of sounds must be so measured, the depth and power of each sound must be given with such purity and gradation that this peak point is achieved with an appearance of the greatest naturalness, though actually its accomplishment is the highest art. This moment must arrive with the sound and sparkle of a ribbon snapped at the end of a race – it must seem a liberation from the last material obstacle, the last barrier between truth and its expression. The composition itself determines this culmination; the point may come at its end or in the middle, it may be loud or soft, yet the musician must always be able to approach it with sure calculation, absolute exactitude, for it if slips by the whole structure crumbles, the work goes soft and fuzzy, and cannot convey to the listener what must be conveyed.” (Bertensson, p. 195)

Can you believe the amount of polishing and effort that can go into making a piece really musical? If we can even pass some of this knowledge of expression and music-making onto our students, then what a wonderful thing! What a joy to be able to pass on not just the knowledge of how to basically play a piece and understand the theory behind it, but to really make music and achieve beauty. Isn’t that really the whole point?

To illustrate this concept of THE POINT, here are a couple of pieces I have played, and where I think THE POINT is. Of course it might differ depending on the pianist and their individual interpretation. That is the beauty of it – deciding for yourself what you want to say with a piece, discovering where the important climax may be, and then shaping the entire piece around that.

Example #1 – Ravel’s Jeux d’eau

Oh how I love this piece! I played this for my sophomore recital in college. At this point I hadn’t heard of Rachmaninoff’s “POINT” concept, but I remember whenever I played this piece I looked forward to this one part, and tried to build and build to this awesome point that climaxed at a fortississimo and culminated with a descending black-key glissando. Ahhh, I love it!

Here is Martha Argerich playing Jeux d’Eau – to watch my “POINT” start at about 2:10.

Example #2 – Schumann’s Traumerei

The “point” that I circled in this piece is found at the very end, the third to last measure, and it is the big chord with the fermata.

Start at about 1:55 to hear Horowitz execute this “point” beautifully!

Can you help your students find the culminating point or climax in their pieces? Help them understand how to really bring out this part, how to build up to it or whatever the piece may call for, in order for it be beautiful and make the whole piece make sense. Happy music-making!