Musical Easter Egg Hunt

April 19, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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

April 18, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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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

April 16, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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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…

April 15, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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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

April 13, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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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

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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

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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!

Introducing Curved Fingers to Young Children

March 24, 2011 Jennifer Boster

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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

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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

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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!