Review & Giveaway!: Ear Training Pro

April 13, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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?

April 11, 2011 Jennifer Boster

2 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

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:

<a href=”http://2077662.polldaddy.com/s/ear-training”>View Survey</a>

Lines & Spaces and Steps & Skips

April 1, 2011 Jennifer Boster

2 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

I love it when last-minute ideas turn out to be the funnest activities for students! To teach about lines and spaces and steps and skips, I got out the ol’ trusty masking tape and slapped it on the rug to make a quick musical staff. I cut out notes out of sheets of craft foam (LOVE that stuff!) and voila – a fun musical staff game!

Here is my giant musical staff. Please excuse the graininess/yellowness of the photo, and the fact that I can’t seem to get it to rotate!

I used this fun game for preschoolers. We had already introduced the staff, and how notes can be high or low. We first practiced walking up the staff in steps – line, space, line, space, line space (this was fun to tip-toe!) – and in skips – line, line, line or space, space, space (hopping works well)! We also played each on the piano – steps by playing every single note going up or down, and skips by playing every other note. We then practiced putting notes on the staff in steps or skips. The kids loved walking on their notes after they placed them on the staff, as I played the steps or skips on the piano. We then played a game where I would hand them a note and call out “step!” or “skip!” and they would have to place the next note on the correct line or space. It was fun with two kids at a time – they started on a note at the bottom of the staff, and I would hand each a note and call out “step” or “skip” and they would use their notes to try and get across the staff (wouldn’t it be fun to pretend the staff was a river to cross?).

As I was playing this game with a student who loves to get stickers as rewards, I had a sudden stroke of genius as I drew a staff on her assignment sheet and had her put her little circle stickers on the staff on lines or spaces, as if they were musical notes. So fun!

Themed Classical Music for Kids

March 29, 2011 Jennifer Boster

4 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

Image source

In brainstorming for some upcoming preschool piano camps, I started thinking about fun classical pieces to share with young children. What fun it would be to have a theme for a piano camp, and to use classical works related to that theme to teach the children. Here are some that I came up with – I know there are so many more!! In fact, here is a great website with an even better list with more themes, including themes such as Fairy Tales, Transportation and Halloween, and lists of pieces that are Fast or Slow.

Weather
Clouds by Griffes
Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
Clair de Lune by Debussy
Morning Mood from Peer Gynt Suite by Grieg
In the Mist by Janacek
Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain) by Debussy
To Spring by Grieg
Rustles of Spring by Sinding
Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 (Raindrop Prelude) by Chopin
see a more extensive list of pieces about weather & seasons here

The Night Sky
The Planets by Holst
Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
Clair de Lune by Debussy
Variations on Twinkle Twinkle (Ah, vous dirai-je, maman) by Mozart

Water

Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain) by Debussy

Jeux d’Eau (Water Games or Fountains) by Ravel

Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections on the Water) by Debussy
The Moldau by Smetana (love this piece!!)
La Mer by Decaux (so fun to find this youtube video – I played this piece for my senior recital and it is hard to find!)

Animals
The Cat and the Mouse by Copland
Carnival of the Animals by Saint Saens (with movements about many different animals, such as: Royal March of the Lion, Hens and Roosters, Tortoises, The Elephant, Kangaroos, Aquarium, Characters with Long Ears, Aviary, The Swan)

Bugs
Grasshoppers and Dragonflies from Cinderella, Op. 95 by Prokofiev
Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsakov
Papillons (Butterflies) by Schumann

Farm
Excursion No. 4 by Barber
The Happy Farmer by Schumann
I Bought Me a Cat by Copland (after I watched this video my 3-year-old started singing the song – he LOVED it!)

What pieces would you add to the list? What themes would you add?

Pin It

Introducing Curved Fingers to Young Children

March 24, 2011 Jennifer Boster

8 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

At our preschool piano camp we wanted to teach the kids about curved fingers – but how can you make that a fun and understandable concept for 3- and 4-year-olds? I decided to take my usual bird’s nest analogy and add in a fun little visual to help them understand the concept. I found the idea for these cute little fuzzy birds on this blog (which actually is written by a fellow-piano major of mine from BYU) and decided they would be perfect for teaching about curved fingers!

The kids LOVED holding their little birds (which are made with the really BIG pom poms, so they fit perfectly in a little hand) in their curved-finger birds nest. They could easily see that if they flattened their fingers, their poor little bird would fall right out of the nest! We had a lot of fun with these little birds.

In what ways have you taught important piano concepts to young children in fun and creative ways?

Giant floor piano!

March 23, 2011 Jennifer Boster

6 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

One of the highlights of our preschool piano camp was the giant keyboard we used to learn some music theory and keyboard topography. I had seen some wonderful ideas on other blogs using big floor pianos, and decided that we needed one! We ended up having one made as a vinyl banner (because I wanted it to look nice and professional and to last awhile), and it turned out awesome! The kids absolutely loved running and jumping on it and learning things using this huge piano!

A few things we used it for:

Learning HIGH and LOW on the piano – we did a BIG version of my high/low game where we picked a picture of something and the kids had to decide if it was something high or low, and then run to that end of the keyboard. They had fun jumping down the keyboard to represent raindrops, stepping up and running back down to represent a slide, etc.
Learning about the 2 black keys and 3 black keys, and we taught them a little song by rote using the 3 black keys, and they loved walking on the keys and hopping up to the next set of 3 black keys while singing the song!
Learning all of the white key names! My friend made the cutest beanbags and we ironed on pictures of Doggie D, Grandma G, etc. so the kids could practice putting them on the correct keys. The kids were so smart and learned them all so quickly!

Purchase the graphic used to create this giant floor keyboard banner in the Shop here!

Preschool Piano Camp

March 22, 2011 Jennifer Boster

2 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

Well hello – I am alive and well and am finally jumping back into the blogging world! Last week a piano-teaching colleague and I taught our first ever preschool piano camp. We had so much fun and it was an overall success! Over the next little while I would like to share with you some of the fun games and activities we used to teach these great kids. First, a few things that I learned (or things that I already knew but that got reinforced during this week):

Preschool-aged children LOVE music – to them it is a magical, wonderful thing. If taught creatively using a fun, hands-on approach, you will be amazed at how smart they are and how much they can really learn at such a young age!

Young children can pick up on musical concepts before needing the full-out explanation. For example, they can learn to clap eighth and sixteenth notes without necessarily knowing that a sixteenth note gets 1/4 of a count!

Get out a bunch of fun instruments and a young child will stay busy for a long time – children love exploring different sounds on drums, rhythm instruments, bells, the piano, etc.

Never take a late flight (especially when you are pregnant and traveling with a 3-year-old) arriving home at 1:00 am on the day that you lose an hour through daylight savings time, the night before you teach a 9:00 piano camp. 🙂

In planning our curriculum for our camp, my friend and I drew our inspiration from many sources – including some great method books for young beginners, ideas from fellow-bloggers and our own personal teaching experience. Here are some wonderful books that I would highly recommend for young students:

Music for Little Mozarts – I LOVE the story format of this book and the way that the characters of Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse are used. We found that the children at our camp LOVED anything in a story format, and that they learned concepts so well when taught this way.

Lesson and Musicianship 1B: A Comprehensive Piano Method (Celebrate Piano!®)

Celebrate Piano – This is a wonderful method book for children. I love that it gets them playing in many different keys/hand positions right from the get-go, and it also emphasizes things like transposition a lot. There are some cute pre-reading songs in this book that we used.

My First Piano Adventure, Lesson Book A with CD (Faber Piano Adventures®)

My First Piano Adventures – I recently purchased this book and I love, love, LOVE it! One of its major strengths is that it teaches good, solid piano technique in really fun and creative ways.

Stay tuned for some fun preschool piano activities!

Life is busy!

February 14, 2011 Jennifer Boster

3 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

Hello, dear readers! I apologize for the lack of posts lately! This has been due to a couple of factors:

#1. I am expecting! So I have been sick and tired and all extra energy has gone toward either sleeping or eating. (I sort of love how pregnancy can be a blanket excuse for so many things….but really, I have been really tired….)

#2. I am working on preparing for a Preschool Piano Camp with a friend and fellow teacher of mine here in San Antonio. We have a lot of great things planned and I am so excited! I will definitely be sharing some of the things we’ve got planned with you all. In order to advertise and make registering easy, we created a little blog with all of the information and used this great website to create an online registration form. Take a look at our little website – http://earlyexpressionspiano.blogspot.com/. We are planning to teach some basic pre-piano skills (these are 3-5 year olds), and some basic music theory, and will also be doing some fun music appreciation and music & movement activities. Should be a lot of fun! Who else has fun camps and classes in the works??

Piano Teaching Q&A: Group Classes

January 20, 2011 Jennifer Boster

2 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

I have a small studio and would like to start doing group classes for my students. How many of these classes are good in a given ‘semester’? One or two? Also, I would love to see some discussion or input on what good activities for group classes would be for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students. Thanks!

Thanks for the question! I thought since we have just spent a lot of time on group teaching this would be a perfect topic to discuss!

I think that having periodic group classes in your studio can be so invaluable to your students. There are so many things you can accomplish in a group class that you cannot in a private lesson. Having said this, I actually have personally never had regular studio classes in my own studio, but definitely plan on it as I am finally going to be staying put in one location for more than a year (hehe) and will have time to build up my studio more 🙂 So please, readers, I’d love your comments and thoughts as well!

A few things that would be absolutely perfect to teach in a group setting:

Music Theory – every teacher knows that it is practically impossible to take as much time as you really need/want to during private lessons to really cover all of the necessary music theory concepts. Music theory is also perfect for teaching (or reviewing and reinforcing) in a group setting, as you can use so many fun games and activities to learn the concepts (hint hint readers….*discuss game ideas* ready go!)

Performance – this is the hugely important one for me that I really would like to have a group class devoted to. Performance is so important and cannot be learned unless the student has real opportunities to perform (go figure). Performing is so so different than practicing, or even just playing for your teacher. Having the opportunity to perform in front of your peers on a regular basis will work wonders for your students’ performance skills and confidence. I loved going to studio class as a teenager and being able to perform for my peers. As we listened to each performance, my teacher had us each write “love notes” (yes that is what she called them – love it!) to each other, telling some things that we liked about their piece and maybe a suggestion or two. I think that really helped me learn how to listen to a performance and critique it, and in turn to be able to critique my own playing better.

Music History & Music Appreciation – what a great opportunity to teach your studio about a specific composer and have them listen to some great music.

Duets! – group class is a perfect time to learn about and practice ensemble playing, accompanying, etc.

As far as how many classes to hold during a semester, I think it depends on your goals and the needs of your studio. I know some teachers who hold class monthly and some who hold class once or twice during the whole semester. As a teenager I went to group class about once or twice a semester, usually in the month or two before a recital. The main goal of that class was to practice performing our recital pieces. If your goal is to supplement the private lessons with a theory class, perhaps once a month might be better.

Something else not so important (but worth mentioning) is that treats are always appreciated at such events 🙂 There was never a studio class that went by in my teenage years without receipt of a Creamie at the end.

So readers, now it is your turn! I’d love your input about specific game/activity ideas for group classes, and any other suggestions on this topic.

If you have a question about piano teaching that you’d like to ask us, please leave it in a comment or submit it here! Thanks!

Group Teaching: Recitals & Summer Classes

January 17, 2011 Jennifer Boster

2 Comments

Featured Posts, Uncategorized

The final post of the Group Teaching series written by guest contributor Marissa Erekson

Recitals

I held two recitals each year – one before Thanksgiving and one in the early Spring. My students also participated in the Piano Festival in March.

As I had several students, I would schedule several short recitals within the time frame at the recital hall. This gave them a larger performance audience in comparison to the group at the weekly lessons (which often included parents and siblings when I scheduled them to perform at the end of the lessons), but not so large that they were stressed or bored with playing in front of super large audiences or in long recitals.

In the fall recital, group students typically played songs from the lesson and supplemental books that they had been working on already in lessons. This included playing the songs as solos or as “monster” duets where they all simply played the same thing at the same time. In the Spring Recital the students had 2 solos and one ensemble with their group class in which there were 2 or 4 different parts (depending on if it was a 1-piano-duet on 2 pianos or an actual quartet). The Spring Recital allowed the students the opportunity to play two additional solos in front of a judge and others of compatible levels who studied with other teachers. They played one Classical piece and one buy a living American composer.

Summer Classes

Group Classes for Continuing Students
During the summer I offered group classes in specific musical areas (theory, composition, pop chords, history, jazz, ensemble, etc) in which students would come to class a few times the same week. This worked best in regard to working around vacation schedules. This created opportunities for students to expand their knowledge and skills in a specific area. I worked to include each of these areas in lessons during the school year, but time was always short and there were so many things to cover already. The students loved having the extra time to focus just on these specific skills.

I also had students who continued private lessons.

Group Camps for Beginner Students
I held beginner group piano camps during the summer. The camps lasted for 50 minutes a day for 5 days. I found that it greatly aided the students to have concentrated time with me for one week. We were able to cover many of the basics of piano education. There are many concepts that take a lot of lesson time, but don’t necessarily take a lot of practice time during the week in the beginning. Because of this, we were able to progress through the fundamentals quickly. We would typically cover in the one-week what would have been covered in the first couple of weeks of regular lessons. I used the lesson book that they would be using if they
continued during the school year.

This also gave both the parents and myself the opportunity to see if their kids were ready to begin lessons. I had a mix of over eager parents whose kids weren’t ready but typically came back a year later, and parents whose kids progressed more quickly then they imagined and enrolled for that school year. Parents liked to have the opportunity to expose their kids to music in a concentrated setting to see if their kids were interested and ready to sign up for regular lessons. Many of my students came from families where they did not have a lot of exposure to classical music or musical training on any instrument.

Marissa – thank you, thank you for sharing your thorough and organized approach to teaching group lessons! I am sure that many of us will benefit from your wonderful suggestions.