Category: Piano Practice

Insight into piano practice tips, tricks, and methods.

National Federation of Music Clubs

Posted on by Heather Brunner

So this week we began picking out music for the National Federation of Music Clubs festival.  This festival will not take place until February 2011 for the city of Charlotte, NC.  Are you wondering what this event is that we need to pick out the music so early?

NFMC is a national event with a standardized repertoire or bulletin that is published once every three years.  The new bulletin came out in June of this year and is good for 2011-2012-2013.  This is not just a piano event.  There are categories for all sorts of performance arts from singing to organ and dance.  Every division has various levels to meet of the different stages of learning that students are in.  Since most of my students are piano, I’ll explain more about that.

The piano division begins with a Pre-Primary group.  Some of these pieces are for students who are not even reading on the staff yet!  Within each level there are pieces of various difficulty.  There is some overlap from level to level.  More on why this is a great idea in a minute.  The levels range all the way up to Musically Advanced II and these are definately professional level pieces that require months of work and years of experience.  Each student plays one piece from the festival bulletin and one piece of their own selection.

There are two different festival events.  The regular festival where students are scored with Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent and Superior.  No numerical grade is given and it is not a competition.  Students earn points over the years but are not trying to out play each other.  The other event is Scholarship Festival.  At Scholarship Festival students are given a numerical score as well as a word score.  The top 2 scores are promoted on to the state competition.

If a student scores a superior then they must move on to the next level.  This is why it is so nice that the levels have some overlap.  If a student isn’t ready for a whole step up then it is possible to chose an easier work from the next level.

NFMC festival is a positive experience for most students and I highly encourage participation.

Excuses that Piano Teachers Don’t Like to Hear

Posted on by Heather Brunner

There are a few phrases that I hear from my students that make me want to run screaming from the room. Not because the student doesn’t have a valid reason but the vagueness is distressing. Let’s start with number 3.

3. “I didn’t know what to do.”- It is excedingly rare that I send a student home with a new piece with no explaination. This is generally limited to highschool students or a student who I feel needs quizzed on their note reading ability. Most often either the student was intimidated by the piece and didn’t practice it or waited until late in the week and realized the piece required more work than originally thought. More appropriate phrases would be “I put it off until too late” or “I don’t understand this specific part” or “Can you walk me through this piece.”

2. “I forgot about that piece, theory, technique…” This one makes me a whole lot grumpy. Why? I provide my students ample assignment sheets and organizational tools. If the student is writing down their practice time daily, then that means they are looking at their assignment sheet each time they practice. If you tell me you forgot to practice or didn’t do your theory because you forgot, then we have a problem. That means you are not recording your practice as it happens and just filling in the blanks at the end of the week. This makes your practice record less than accurate and often results in a less than complete assignment.

1. “We were so busy.” Now I get that families today are busy. But this one really makes me mental. I would rather have a student just tell me that they didn’t want to practice and spent all afternoon playing outside. Or that mom was out of town or granny watches them in the afternoons. These kinds of details can help me plan the student’s assignments. I feel that the “we were so busy” excuse is something that kids hear adults say and think it is ok to repeat. Everyone is busy and has different responsiblities.

My point is that students need to work on their communication skills and learning to own their time management issues. Students are still learning and growing but excuses week after week begin to wear thin.

Theory Classes and the Basics

Posted on by Heather Brunner

This weekend I will be teaching a theory class for music students. Many parents have asked “What is the purpose of the class?” The purpose of the class is to review exisiting theory skills and to be introduced to new skills that the students will be learning soon in their lessons or the theory lab. Last year, I taught a class and many of the students found it very motivational. Theory is often on of those aspects of lessons that can fall by the wayside. Students don’t see the connection to their music and many times come to their lessons with this part of the assignment undone.

How can parents help with their at home if they don’t read music? There are a few basic questions and facts that you are looking for in many theory assignments. Almost all theory requires knowing the key that the example/music is in. This is shown using a key signatures that consists of sharps and flats.

A sharp looks like this

A sharp raises a note by a half step. This usually takes the note from a white key to a black key. If the key signature has sharps then finding the name of the key is straight forward. Find the last sharp and go up a half step. Whatever note that is, is the name of the key.

But how do you know what is the last sharp? Sharps will always be in the same order. F#,C#,G#,D#,A#,E#,B#. An acronym is Fat Cats Go Down Alleys Eating Bologna. Below you will see examples of all the sharp key signatures identified.

This is a basic run down on how sharp key signatures work and how to identify them. Look for a blog about flats later this week.

Helping Your Child Succeed at the Piano: Part 1

Posted on by Heather Brunner

Every week in the studio I encounter the same situations repeatedly. A few years ago I wrote a document called Helping Your Child Succeed at the Piano. The idea behind this paper to is to help the non-musician learn to navigate supervising practice at home. Today, learn how to effectively use the assignment book to supervise piano practice.