Preparing your Christmas recital piece

There are only a few weeks before Christmas piano recitals begin all across North America. How can you prepare your child or student for this joyous occasion? To begin, the very first practice at home is the most important one. Everything covered with your teacher at the lesson introducing the piece must be observed perfectly. Here are some questions to ask:
1. What note am I to begin on? Are there any clues or landmarks that can assist me?
2. What finger number must that first note use? In transferring the sound to the next note do I have to create a space between the fingers or can I play in a 5-finger position?
3. Where is the end of the first musical phrase? How am I to shape that phrase dynamically?
4. What did my teacher tell me to practice---the entire piece or a phrase each day?
5. Can I begin hands together right away or do I need time to play duets with my parent?
6. Have I created a relaxing environment to be productive during my rehearsal time at home?
7. Do I know how to contact my teacher if I discover that I am having difficulties? Avoid playing mistakes for the entire week.

Hopefully this will help guide you during your first week of practicing. Enjoy!!

Canada's Music week

There is a richness to Canadian compositions for young piano players. At one time we only had what was available through the choices in the Conservatory books. Now Canadian publishing companies such as Mayfair, Black Cat and Red Leaf have lots of options available for teachers and students. Students can play jazz, lyrical, neo-classical and 12-tone styles. How fun is that?!? As we approach Canada's Music week beginning November 22nd, ask your teacher for a Canadian composition. The other option is to visit the websites of the publishers and see what is new. Most of the books are under $10 including shipping and on some of the sites you can get pieces for free to download and try. Bravo Canadian music, eh?

Is musicality contingent on good technique?

In the Webster's dictionary a pianist is used to illustrate the meaning of the word "technique". Interestesting. I guess even they know that beautiful expression is impossible without good technique. Technique helps control, modify, and free the many body movements crucial to fine pianism (Lois Nielson, Clavier Companion Sept./Oct. 2010). If all the parts of the body are well-positioned and controlled, movement is free, extensions are easy, voicing is distinct, and musical lines and colour are possible.

When Practice Makes Perfect

All our lives we've heard that practice makes perfect. But even as I write this blog entry, we all know that practice does not necessarily make perfect. We've all seen or experienced the opposite at one time or another. The word "practice" has become a catchword. It explains our failures and our successes. Poor pracitce means failure and good practice means success. However, let's not forget the base meaning of piano practice which means to train by "repetition". Repeating something "almost" correctly leads us to slow learning, or, at worst, no learning. It often causes the kind of frustration that leads to giving up. The goal is to have your child or student practice what is correct 100% of the time so that nine wrong experiences out of ten tries does not become the habit rather than the correct one. So---when your child comes home from their piano lesson three things must occur:
1. The student  should be prepared to practice his/her home assignment correctly and have understood it before leaving the studio.
2. The student must follow the practice outline each day.
3. Practice must be exciting so that the student is creating wonderful performances. Your teacher will give you lots of ideas to help with this.

Practice steps make the student think about what he is doing and allow correct habits to form. Therefore:
GOOD HABITS + AUTOMATIC RESPONSES = SUCCESS
( adapted from Richard Chronister, " A Piano Teacher's Legacy"- 2005)

Learning to Listen

Ferruccio Busoni born in Italy in 1866 was a very famous pianist who once said." There is a detail which few students observe which is of such vast importance that one is tempted to say that the main part of successful musical progress depends upon it. This is the detail of learning to listen". Hours and hours can be wasted by students who treat the piano as some sort of gymnasium that is attached to a musical instrument. They may acquire strong fingers, but will have to learn to listen before they can hope to become good performers. Pianists, even at young ages should always be in quest of new beautiful sounds that result in wonderful details. Have your child or student play a small series of notes in several ways including striking the key from high above the keyboard, striking just using finger weight, depressing a key using arm weight and the fingers as transmitters, incorporating freedom of the elbow, depressing the key at different speeds etc.... You might even record these sounds so that they can be played back. Then decide with the student or your child where these individual sounds would be appropriate in music. Some sounds are very good for fortissimo, large sounds but would not work well if the piece of music was describing a delicate flower. Allow your imagination to run wild and be expressed through the sounds you create !!

Welcome !!

Welcome to my newly created blog, "The treble and bass of Music". This site is designed to give my piano students hints and ideas for practice, musical trivia, composer information, studio information etc... It will also be a place to showcase performances. Check back weekly to see my progress and to discover !!!