Now Available: Muscle Builder Book 6

January 28, 2015 Jennifer Boster

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Now available to purchase is the 6th book in the My Muscle Builder Book series! This book is a lot of fun and continues to build on the techniques learned in previous books.

In Book 6 we continue working on hands-alone two-octave major white key scales, this time adding in some interesting rhythms and articulations to help make our scales more even and musical. We begin working on hands-alone two-octave black key major scales as well, using our Sneaky Thumb and Finger Crossover exercises to achieve a nice, even scale.

Students will review chord inversions, playing some inversion exercises in all of the white key minor keys – these exercises include “walking up” the chords one note at a time as well as playing them in block chords.

Next, students will do some simple transposing into the keys of D-flat, E-flat, G-flat, A-flat and B-flat.

And who doesn’t love playing a good, fast chromatic scale?? In Book 6 we learn the right hand and left hand fingerings of the chromatic scale, and then practice each one several different ways – gradually speeding it up with a metronome, playing it in different rhythms – until we get to try and play it at lightning speed!

And finally, students will work on listening and identifying a few different intervals – minor 2nds, major 2nds, and perfect 4ths, 5ths and 8ths. Each exercise is accompanied by colorful diagrams of the notes in each scale and the correct fingerings, so students of any age will be able to become fluent in playing all over the piano.

As always, this product is in the format of a digital download. I recommend printing the Muscle Builder Book in booklet form, with 2 pages per sheet, then folding and stapling together. Each exercise has a little circle that students/teachers can check off or place a sticker on when the exercise is mastered.

Also available is the companion Muscle Builder Extras – Book 6, which includes 2 reference sheets: black key major scales (right hand fingering and left hand fingering) and chromatic scales (right hand fingering and left hand fingering). It also includes a 2-page “Book 6 At a Glance” sheet, a handy sheet where you can check off and keep track of your students’ progress.

Both resources may be purchased in this post, or in the Teaching Studio Store on the Muscle Builders page.

My Muscle Builder Book 6
42 pages, digital download

My Muscle Builder Extras – Book 6
4 pages, digital download

Now Available: Muscle Builder Book 5

December 31, 2014 Jennifer Boster

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Now available in the Store is the next volume of the My Muscle Builder Book technique series! I’m super excited about Book 5 and about all of the things students have learned once they have reached this level. In this book we are using our “Sneaky Thumbs” and finger crossovers learned in previous volumes to play two-octave major scales!

Students will learn the basic scale fingering patterns and put them to good use on and off of the piano. We review our minor triads and then use them to play some fancy, musical arpeggios on both ends of the piano.

We also start dabbling in full-octave arpeggios, using the black-key major keys of D-flat, E-flat, G-flat, A-flat and B-flat. Students will really have a fun time as they cross over and under and play all over the piano in 19 different keys! As always, this Muscle Builder Book is in full color and includes all of the colorful picture scales and arpeggios to help students of all ages become literate at the piano.

Also available to purchase is the companion Muscle Builders Extras pack, including 3 full-color picture scale/arpeggio reference sheets and a “Book 5 At a Glance” page, where teachers or students can keep track of their Book 5 technique progress on one handy sheet. I recommend printing the Muscle Builder Book 2 pages per sheet in booklet format.

My Muscle Builder Book 5 and the Book 5 Extras pack may be purchased in the Store or at the bottom of this post. Enjoy some preview page views below. Have a happy new teaching year!

My Muscle Builder Book 5
40 pages, digital download
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My Muscle Builder Extras – Book 5
4 pages, digital download

Recommended: Play It Again, Sam!

August 20, 2013 Jennifer Boster

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I just read a really fabulous book that I think any piano teacher will enjoy and be able to utilize in their studio and in their own learning and performing. It is by Marienne Uszler and is called Play It Again, Sam… What, Why, and When to Repeat.

I absolutely loved this book that delves into questions about repetition in piano-playing and teaching. It encourages teachers and students to stay actively engaged in the learning process and to develop an awareness and an inner feedback that will ensure thoughtful and helpful repetitions.

It differentiates between kinesthetic and conceptual learning and gives many helpful, practical tips to help your students learn better and develop better technique. It’s all about differentiating between what type of skill is needed for different musical tasks – is it physical, visual, mental, auditory, or a synthesis of multiple skills? – and then knowing which skills require what type of repetition.

The author discusses how to teach your students to practice thoughtfully. I also loved the discussion on facts vs. “big ideas” and concept “chunking” – or the idea that small facts and basic concepts apply in larger examples and concepts and so on and so on until a student has a really sound understanding of advanced musical concepts and forms.

I was pleasantly surprised at the depth at which this topic was discussed, and kind of blown away by it! I had so many “a-hah” moments in reading this short book. I think it is an amazing resource for any teacher looking to improve their effectiveness.

I actually couldn’t put this book down. I can’t wait to apply these awesome concepts in my teaching and performing!

Find this book and more under my I Recommend page!

My Muscle Builder Book: Level 3!

March 4, 2013 Jennifer Boster

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I have been so pleased with my students’ progress in my other two Muscle Builder Books (and have gotten great feedback from you readers, as well!), and I am so excited to be offering level 3 of the My Muscle Builder Book, available now in The Teaching Studio Store. (If you haven’t had the chance to check out Level 1 and Level 2 yet, I recommend it! My students have really excelled in their understanding of chords and scales using these books!)

Book 3 builds on the foundation of successful completion of Books 1 & 2. (So by now, students should know:

• how to play all 7 white-key major and minor chords, arpeggios, and 5-finger scales, both hands

• how each white-key major chord is spelled by memory

• how to listen and identify major vs. minor chords

• how to transpose simple songs from one five-finger position to another

• the 7 major chord inversions in broken chords (walking up the keys) and block chords, right hand

• how to play staccato and legato scales

• how to play five-finger scales in opposite motion

• how to listen and identify 2nds and 3rds)

In my studio, I have had young students who have taken lessons for about a year, and are in the Faber “My First Piano Adventures” Book C who are totally ready for My Muscle Builders Book 3. They are super confident in playing major white-key chords and arpeggios and are ready to move onto some more techniques!

Here are some previews of Book 3:

We learn some thumb preparation exercises to get ready to play full scales (one octave, hands alone):

We learn five full scales (one octave, hands alone):

We do some tonic/dominant chord exercises in 7 major keys:

We review the major chords, this time using an Alberti bass pattern in the left hand:

…and more!

Like the other two Muscle Builder Books, this includes lots of fun, colorful “picture scales” so even students in lower levels of music-reading will be able to play these, no problem. Each technique is broken down into short and manageable exercises, and there is a place to pass off each individual exercise with a sticker or check mark. I have found that, generally, students can work on and master a couple of exercises per week. Of course, some may go quite a bit faster and some may need more time!

This book is 28 pages long and is in downloadable e-book format. I recommend printing it in booklet format (double-sided with two pages per sheet – so when you fold it the pages are in the right order!), so check your printer settings before printing! That way it can be folded and stapled into a nice little booklet. I often use small round stickers to pass off exercises, and to place on the circles of the picture scales. The price is $10.00 and it is available to purchase here in this post, or over in The Teaching Studio Store under Teaching Resources For Sale.

And, what’s an exciting new teaching resource on The Teaching Studio without a GIVEAWAY to go with it???

I want to give away a Muscle Builder Book to TWO lucky readers! Leave me a comment on this post for an entry into the giveaway! I will give away one copy of My Muscle Builders Book 2, and one copy of My Muscle Builders Book 3! (Remember, Book 1 is available as a FREE download – check it out!) Receive one extra entry by sharing about this giveaway via Facebook, Pinterest, etc. Giveaway ends this Friday, March 8 at 10:00 pm, Central Time. Have a great day!

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!

Making Music Musical: Playing Beautiful Phrases

January 21, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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Thanks for the wonderful comments about Finding the Balance! Let’s discuss another technique for making music musical…

One of the most important elements of beautiful, musical piano playing is something that is usually introduced very early on, but is a concept that I feel many piano students never fully understand or are taught well. Enter the SLUR…

Slurs, of course, are those fun curvy lines we often see in our music connecting two or more notes together and forming a phrase, or in other words a musical sentence.These slurs are often ignored while the focus is placed on more “important” matters, such as correct notes, rhythm, fingering, etc. (Which, don’t get me wrong, are super important as well!) It is relatively easy to achieve correct notes and rhythm, but isn’t our goal to actually make some beautiful music?

When slurs are learned, often the student learns to play them legato, or smooth and connected, and then they stop there…when really there is so much more to a slur or a phrase that can add so much musicality to a piece. Before we begin, let me just add that mastering the technique of phrasing is hugely important in making beautiful music, and while it takes some time and a lot of practice to master, it is something that can be introduced to the young beginner.

So let’s talk slurs. We’ll use a simple Bach Minuet for our example…(thanks 8notes.com for this image!)

Great, so we’ve got a lot of slurs here. What do we need to do first? That’s right…play the slurred notes smooth and connected. We do lots of walking around the room in my studio to discover that you can’t lift one foot up until your other one is touching the floor (unless of course you hop, but that would be staccato now, wouldn’t it?) So first we…

1.) Play smooth & connected

But is that all there is to playing slurs? No-sir. We’ve got to somehow differentiate between each slur, or else it is going to sound like one big musical run-on sentence. (If you have a student who loves to read, they will definitely get this analogy.) There needs to be some kind of period or exclamation mark or question mark in between each “sentence” for it to make sense, right? So in music, we’ve got to have some kind of a break between each slur. I use lots of arrows in my students’ pieces to remind them to gracefully lift their wrist up and bring their hand off of the keys to create a nice little break or “breath” between each phrase.

2) Lift your wrist up and take your hand off the keys to create a break between slurs

What, there’s more? Yes! How about what to do within each slur to make each phrase as beautiful and musical as possible? Remember that a general rule in music is that when the melody line goes UP, the notes should get LOUDER. When it goes DOWN, they should get SOFTER. Help students find the peak or the high point of each phrase, and learn to crescendo up to it and diminuendo down from it. It’s subtle but it’s effective!

3) Use graded dynamics to follow the melodic line within each phrase

Another concept that is related to number three but is important enough to restate, is that a lot of the time phrases should taper off and get a little bit softer on the last note. The main reason for this is that you usually do not want the last note of a phrase accented, that would just sound and feel not musical. (Of course there are definitely situations where you should crescendo until the end of the phrase – like for example maybe the first phrase of this song!)

I had a piano teacher who taught me this principle by explaining that you wouldn’t say my name “Jen-NY” with the second syllable accented. Try it – it just sounds weird, and not natural. Phrases in music should sound natural as well! When you taper off and say the second syllable softer, it sounds much nicer, and even more “musical” if you will – “JEN-ny.” (Be careful before using this analogy, your student’s name may have an accented last syllable and it’ll kill your analogy! That happened with me and my student Nichole. Oops!)

4) Taper off (get softer) on the last note of a phrase (unless otherwise indicated)

And finally, you need to decide how each phrase should function (dynamically and otherwise) in relation to the phrases around it. We’ll go more into this concept later, but it is important to notice if a phrase should be generally louder or softer than the previous phrase and the following phrase. In the Minuet, for example, the dynamic level is marked as piano, but you can tell that the second phrase should be a little louder (the notes go higher, and a crescendo is marked), and then the three phrases on the second line sort of gradually get softer, to create an overall crescendo/diminuendo effect that peaks at the end of the first line.

5) Decide how each phrase should function, dynamically and otherwise, within the context of other phrases

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now…what are some ways you have come up with to teach your own students beautiful phrasing? Do you make sure they learn correct techniques for playing slurs right from the beginning, or is it something you find you need to focus on with your intermediate or advanced students?

Have a nice weekend!

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?

Technique from the Pianist’s Bench

June 18, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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I was recently re-reading a great book by Boris Berman, Notes from the Pianist’s Bench. What a wonderful book! I highly recommend it for any piano teacher. Berman includes in his book chapters on topics such as Sound and Touch, Practicing, Deciphering the Composer’s Message, Technique, and The Art of Teaching and the Art of Learning. He illustrates his points with tons of musical examples from great piano literature. I find this book really inspiring to me as a pianist as well as a teacher. I think that this book is just as helpful for teachers of young students as it is for advanced pianists.

In light of our current topic here on The Teaching Studio, I was especially re-reading the chapter on Technique, which is fabulous and goes into great depth on what good technique is and how to teach it. I’d like to summarize a bit of his chapter on technique, because it has been so helpful to me (but you really should read the entire thing, it is chock full of incredibly helpful ideas!).

Did you know that the word technique is derived from the Greek word for “art”? I didn’t, until I read this book!

Berman talks about three fundamental physical actions used in piano technique:

independent use of well-articulated fingers
rotation movements of wrist or forearm
use of weight of the forearm and upper arm

He believes that most of the pianist’s movements are some combination of these actions, and that they are all equally important.

Berman also believes that two pillars form the foundation of good piano technique:

The economy principle (being economic in your movements; to not use a bigger part of the body when a smaller will suffice)
The extension principle (to regard the finger, hand, forearm and arm as the continuation of the others, with each individual unit ready to support and share the work with the others.)

He goes over each part of the hand/arm that is used in playing the piano (fingers, palm, wrist, elbows, arms, etc.)

Fingers

The fingers must always be active; this is essential for enunciation…The fingertips give definition to the sound…Finger technique is not only indispensable but also completely safe if practiced properly.

Wrist

It is essential for the pianist to develop a flexible wrist, capable of small and rapid movements. It should be able to work flexibly and smoothly in three ways: rotating, performing horizontal shifts, and making vertical movements….Wrist technique needs to be developed early in the pianist’s life.

Studies & Etudes

Berman briefly discusses studies and etudes, but says he is more familiar with the more advanced ones, as that is the level he most often teaches. However, for etudes he does recommend that Czerny, Cramer, Clementi and Moszkowski be used before more difficult ones such as Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov or Scriabin. As far as exercises go, he prefers Brahms, Tausig and Hanon. He says,

…some of them are well worth incorporating into a daily technical routine…to be highly useful for daily warm-up.

He also builds his daily technical routine on scales and arpeggios.

No technique without a musical goal

Important as the technical work is, it should never be done without a musical goal in mind. Realizing the musical content of the passage helps the pianist to find the right technical approach.