As of today, July 31, I only have one opening left for fall- Thursday at 5:30. There is a waiting list for all other times.
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Click here to read Tips For Parents, Part 1, and other articles just for parents!
1. Help with Practice! If your child still needs you to remind, supervise, or facilitate homework, chores, etc, then they still need your help to make sure practicing is done. Very few children under age 8-10 are mature enough to schedule their own lives, putting duties, even fun ones, before play, and keeping an organized practice routine without parental help. Your child may love piano, but may not have the developmental ability to put practice over playing with friends or doing their favorite leisure activities. This is normal, ok, and doesn't make your child a bad piano student! They just need a bit of guidance from you. The amount of involvement your child will need from you is specific to your child, but in general:
2. Encourage your child. Focus on praising their effort, their character, their accomplishments, and tell them how it makes you feel when you hear them play. Let them know that you love it when they make music, and that you support them and are behind them all the way. Make a big deal out of awards and honors they receive, (in my studio these are not given lightly!) and come to their recitals. Tell them you are proud of them when they do really well or work really hard or persevere when things are difficult. Becoming a competent musician is not easy- celebrate the milestones along the way! Let them play for you often at home, and ask them what they love about their music. Tell them your favorites, and make music as much of a "together" activity as you can. 3. Bring them to lessons! I know this sounds rather obvious, but regular attendance is a MUST for consistent progress! If your student doesn't drive themselves to lessons in their own car, they are probably dependent on you to get them here. Please bring them, and make their music a priority. Try to schedule times out of town during breaks as much as possible, let me know as far in advance as you can when you must be absent, and consider taking advantage of Skype lessons or practice sessions so that the continuity of study continues, particularly if your child needs to be away for more than one lesson at a time. There are only 16-18 weeks of lessons per semester, and if you miss 3 or 4 you may well be missing a month of potential progress as well. 4. If your child is young, attend all lessons. If your child is older or more independent, attend some lessons. There is so substitute for sitting through a lesson when it comes to knowing what your child should be doing at home, knowing how I am directing them, getting to know me, and having the opportunity to ask me questions or make comments in person. 5. Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and good nutrition. As a fellow parent I can say that nobody's perfect here, me included, but please keep in mind that there is a huge difference in the way your child performs and plays and learns, and where their threshold of frustration is, between the student well-rested and the student sleep-deprived, particularly in very young children. If your child is so sleepy that nothing makes sense and everything is the Most Frustrating Thing Ever, I may send them home early for a good nap, rather than wading through the tears! I want my students to love piano and to enjoy our time together, and to that end I won't continue a lesson if the child is ill, emotionally distraught, or so tired we can't really do anything. 6. Please teach your child to be courteous and respectful. It's totally ok to be upset, or to request that I do something differently, to make a suggestion about a piece, or to ask for an alternate activity, but throwing tantrums or violence against myself or my piano will end the lesson, right then. :-) If there are regular behavior problems during lessons, I may ask you to stay, so that I can enlist your help in dealing with them in the way your family finds appropriate. We want to have fun learning how to play beautiful piano music, and behavior issues can be a big distraction if not dealt with promptly. 1. Provide opportunities for your child to listen to great music. This need not be exclusively classical, of course, but it is important to include some of the great repertoire for your child's instrument. The music list under "Piano Points" is a good starting point, and I am happy to make recommendations for further listening. You don't have to invest a lot of money in a classical library, though that is always nice- :) you can hear a great deal of quality music for free on Pandora or Spotify, (you could start by setting up a radio station based on a piece that your child enjoyed from my Music List) or you can check out CDs from your local library, as well as from my studio. I also heartily recommend our local classical radio station, WRR 101.1. Listening to a wide variety of good music will form a child's musical taste and make them a more discerning and conscious listener- and if they continue with their musical study, will provide them with a familiarity with much of the literature that they will be studying later.
2. Take them to concerts! There is something magical about the whole experience. Your child may discover lifelong inspiration when they hear a musician of excellent caliber, playing a beautiful instrument and performing moving and thought-provoking music. There are a wide variety of concerts available- free to Bass Hall, symphonies and concertos to solos or choral music, classical to jazz. Find out what moves your child musically, and then support that! Several of the universities around have excellent music programs, and you can hear their student and faculty recitals for free in a more casual setting. There are also free concerts at public and university libraries and area churches, which are usually advertised on their websites and on the radio. We also have several specialty groups in this area, for example those who perform Baroque (think Bach era) music on some amazing period instruments to small chamber ensembles to groups presenting outdoor concerts around the Metroplex. If you need help finding good, affordable concerts, please ask! 3. Make sure your child is set up to practice well- that they have a decent instrument, a quiet place to practice, and a dedicated time at which to practice. Try to work practice time into your family's schedule and routine. Making practice a way of life makes it so much easier for the student! Practice is not just an optional exercise, nor is it just about passing the pieces that week! Piano study is about building mental and physical skills, and like any other discipline, skill building takes practice! Good,natural technique, competent sight playing, or a comfort and familiarity with the piano will not come if they are only exercised at weekly lessons. 4. Consider an acoustic piano! I can't say this enough- while an electric piano may be enough to limp along, learning notes and reading skills, for the first year or two, you cannot hone technique and cultivate a beautiful sound on an electric piano. The mechanics are different, and what is required to produce certain sounds and articulations is also different. The acoustic and electric pianos are both lovely instruments, and imminently useful, but they are different instruments! That, and cost and space are surprisingly easy to work around. An upright piano is only a few inches wider than an electric, though it is a bit deeper. A used piano is often little more, if at all, expensive than a quality electric. And, an acoustic piano will last, whereas an electric absolutely MUST be replaced with an acoustic after the first couple of years of study. Suzanne, a fellow piano teacher, says it well: "If you want your child to learn to play classical piano, you are really going to need an acoustic piano in your house. Really. You want them to fall in love with the sound and the feel of the instrument so that every note is a revelation. No love, no long-term relationship. That's how it works. Acoustic pianos aren't more expensive than a good weighted keyboard.They do take up space, and you have to pay $100 a year to tune them, but that is less than two tanks of gas. Keyboards are lovely, but they are a different instrument. If you listen to my friend, Keir Coleman Ward, who is a master of both the piano and the keyboard, you'll see what a keyboard can really do that a piano can't touch. For classical lessons, though, your child is not going to want to play Mozart and Bartok and Debussy on your keyboard after a short while, and they are going to quit lessons and you are going to wonder why they couldn't stick with it and it is going to break my heart when they leave my studio and I am going to miss them more than you can imagine. Buy the piano. Any piano that has 88 working keys and holds a tune. $500 on craigslist will do it. Don't wait to see if they like it first. They can't like what they don't get to play." They can't like what they don't get to play- so, so true!! More Parent Tips in part 2! I would like to announce the new musicianship award program I am premiering in the studio this year,100 Point Musicians. Students earning 100 Piano Points will be recognized at the Spring Recital, receive a special certificate, and be eligible for other rewards. Students will earn Piano Points for things like listening to an assigned classical piece and writing a short paragraph about what they heard, attending a classical concert, doing a music history project, passing a theory proficiency exam, passing all their method book pieces in a given week, participating in a Performance Class, composing and accurately notating their own piano piece, passing a sightreading or technique challenge, and more. More details will be on the Piano Points page soon.
I am implementing this program because I would like to see my student grow as overall musicians, as well as pianists, incorporate great music into their daily lives, gain a deeper understanding of the music we study and an awareness of some of the great music that they have yet to discover, and I would like to encourage students to pursue music in more depth than is always possible in weekly lessons. I eagerly anticipate the ways we will grow and learn this year, and all the fun we'll have! I have a spot on Monday, Tuesday, and possibly one on Thursday for the Fall 2014 semester. The spots are all early evening, around 5:30pm- these spots go quickly!
Are you a new student? Sign up for a summer lesson package at http://www.mytime.com/ and save nearly 20% on four lessons! The available spots for Spring 2014 are full. I am now accepting applications for Fall 2014. Summer lessons are available to anyone with a slot reserved for the fall. Summer lessons will begin in June, and will be replacing the spring lessons as online payment options in May, at the conclusion of the spring semester.
I now have one opening for up to a 45 minute lesson. It is on Tuesdays at 5:30.
I have recently come across a couple of piano blogs that I find interesting.
1, Eye Ear Revolution This one is about creative piano/improv/jazz. It's got some good info. 2. Practicing the Piano This one, as the title suggests, is all about piano practice. I especially enjoyed the latest post on pedalling. Enjoy! :) I am always telling my students to use slow, concentrated practice to improve accuracy. I'm a fan of slow practice, generally, so I liked the following perspective:
Melanie Spanswick on Slow Practicing http://melaniespanswick.com/2013/10/01/in-praise-of-slow-practice/ "....The first obstacle to successful slow practice is encouraging students and young pianists to view it as a valuable process. Many think it is a good idea in theory, but when it comes to practice time, it’s far easier (and more pleasant too) to play as usual; up to speed with the usual hesitations or errors. It takes vast amounts of discipline to play at a fraction of the speed, which is no easy feat, but once a student is able to see the value, they will generally work at it. All pianists can gain by practising slowly whatever level or standard, including professionals.Slow practice can help with so many different aspects; establishing correct fingering (particularly of rapid passagework), understanding chord structure, promoting suitable hand positions, wrist/arm movement, articulation, dynamic range, phrasing, and just good old note accuracy too! It can help a pianist to grasp the complete picture or structure of a work and gives the brain more time to assimilate every corner or angle of a piece. Whereas playing up to speed often exacerbates ‘hesitations’ or rhythmic/note errors, stumbles and rushing, slow playing gives the feeling of space, time, serenity, clarity and precision. I have written many times about the value of practising separate hands, especially the left alone, and this can be taken one step further by practising separately AND slowly. Slow practice and preparation also really helps a pianist when they want to memorise a piece. One further aspect that may be alleviated with careful, slow work is tension. Many of us feel tense and stiff whilst playing fast most notably if we haven’t prepared passagework or tricky, demanding sections very well, but if we take time and learn slowly, our upper body will simultaneously relax allowing for free movement and better sound quality. Once accustomed to the motility of playing certain passagework slowly, playing up to speed won’t be an issue because your brain will have already assimilated all necessary movements so speed is literally just a matter of thinking slightly faster. This is crucial if you are working on a piece with leaps or large chordal passages where a loose, free wrist and arm is imperative to the success of the performance......" I have one more spot left for this semester- Tuesday at 8.
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July 2014
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