Practicing Tips from MTNA Conference 2019, Compositional Technical ideas, Web resources and product ideas, Cell phone ideas

Practice Like a Pro

Robert Henry, Kennesaw State University, Georgia

Repetitions

1. As written
2. Vary the dynamics
3. Work on articulation
4. Add accents
5. Focus on rhythm
6. Play chords blocked or broken

Mistakes:  Some mistakes are o.k. (\/=good, x=mistakes)

\/ x \/ x \/ \/ \/ x

Really dumb to practice like this:

xxxxxxxxx\/  "o.k. I learned it.  On to the next part."

If this happens, you're asking for too much.  You need to practice hands separately, slower, or with a smaller chunk.

We can remember SEVEN things at a time.  So, chunk groups to memorize instead of thinking of 546 individual notes.  Think of harmonic analysis and chords or cadences to make the chunks a little bigger and more manageable in your memory.

Ideal hour:

Don't skip scales.  Do them every day! (He said at least 15 minutes)

Warm up with something relevant to what you'll be playing.  If your piece is in dm, do your warm-ups with dm.  If there are lots of arpeggios, warm up with those.

Simulate the performance experience at tempo as soon as possible. Final tempo sooner!

Write fingerings from day 1

Attend symphonies and live concerts to internalize artistry.

Memorize immediately.

Choose Hanon or Czerny to support piece:  i.e. 2 note slurs, alberti bass etc.

Extra practice time:  old repertoire, sight-reading, analysis, etudes

Score study: away from instrument

Various Ways to Practice Scales 

Kate Acone NCTM Faber and Michael Clark NCTM Rice University

1. Beginners:  add one note at a time beyond five-finger pattern.  Add la or ti.
2. Tetrachord, no thumbs.  Go through circle of 5th.  LH takes over from RH.
3. Hands separately 1 or 2 octaves.
4. Block groups of fingerings:  thumb alone and chunk other fingers
5. Announce your scale with the tonic note, # of sharps or flats, where #4 finger goes
6. Stop on a particular finger---especially #4.
7. Isolate the shift or crossing over (is thumb or #3 preparing ahead of time?)
8. Patterns:  
1. Contrary (out going in, or in going out)
2. 3rds, 10ths, 6ths
9. Mirror patterns.  Start on Ab or D and play contrary.  Black and white keys will match up.
10. Rhythm patterns:
1. Accents:  every 2, every 3, every 5
2. Doubles:  each note is played twice
3. Tap and Hold:  one tap, 2 taps, 3 or 4 taps
4. On fallboard:  hear what fingertips are playing (contrast pads vs. tips sounds)
5. Long note on tonic:  one gesture on rest of note
6. Additively:  1, 12, 123, 1234, 12345
11. Descending first
12. Different rhythms in LH and RH
13. Every scale with CM fingering????
14. Chromatic
15. Blues Scales
16. Whole Tone Scales
17. Modes
18. Musicianship:
1. Harmonize every scale with a LH chor
2. Alberti bass
3. Improvise for good ear training
4. MM practice---do scale on off beats
5. Sing note names, harmonize with your voice
6. Legato using one finger for scale and pedal.  Use pencil eraser instead of finger along with pedal for legato.
19. Pischna etudes, Hanon, Dohnanyi, excerpts from literature

List of Technical Demands that need to be taught (from "Brazilian Dance Music for Young Pinists: Francisca Gonzaga's Tangos and Waltzes for Piano by Ana Paula Machado Simoes)

1.  Parallel thirds

2.  Scales in one hand, diatonic or chromatic

3.  Scales in parallel motion

4.  Varied accompaniment patterns

5.  Parallel blocked octaves, separate hands or hands together

6.  RH playing accompaniment + melody

7.  Big leaps in the RH

8.  Dotted Rhythms

9.  Arpeggios (separate hands)

10.  Arpeggios in contrary or parallel motion

11. Repeated notes

12.  Scale in broken thirds/sixths or blocked + broken thirds

13.  Tuplets

14.  Parallel sixths (blocked or broken)

15.  Repeated Octaves or chords/ double notes

16.  Tremolo

17.  Cadenza-like passage

18.  Parallel blocked/broken octaves

19.  RH with chordal melody

20.  Repeated chords/double notes (not in the accompaniment)

21. Running notes in the RH melody

22. Varied accompaniment patterns

23.  Parallel broken octaves

24.  Repeated notes

25. Parallel thirds

26. Triplets

Web Resources

www.colorinmypiano.com

www.composecreate.com

www.pianimation.com

www.pianopantry.com

www.susanparadis.com

www.theplayfulpiano.com

www.88pianokeys.me

Products recommended by Christina L. Whitlock in her presentation on 21 Tactics for Successful Supplemental Group Classes:

Note Speed (card game) available from cntcreations.com
Rhythm Cups and Rhythm Menagerie available from composecreate.com
TCW Resources (Kreative Keyboard, Card Games, etc.) available from Kjos.
http://pianopantry.com/manipulatives-games-master-list

The Cell Phone as a Teaching Tool:  Dr. Terrie Manno and Dr. Michael Dean

Metronome apps---alter the tempo while you play, accentuate the meter (preprogram meter changes, provide style assistance, use visual clues

Recording Audio (retain lesson material and teacher modeling, immediate feedback during practice, send practice sample to teacher, rehearse with others, or even yourself

Altering playback--play with a model at any tempo, more flexibility in ensemble practice, careful performance analysis of any passage

Using the Camera--sharing basic information, noting practice spots, ask and answer questions

Recording video--lessons and assignments, live remote communication, students demonstrate practice strategies

Teaching Artistry Through Form, Phrasing, Dynamics, Planning, MTNA Conference 2019

Notes from "Teaching Artistry Through Form, Phrasing, Dynamics, Planning", MTNA Conference 2019 

Theresa Bogard, NCTM, University of Wyoming

Teach students to make decisions themselves.  If you always tell a student, they become dependent on you.

Every student has the potential to become musically expressive.

Like all languages, the language of classical music is learned through hearing and repeating.

Some student will speak more eloquently than others, but all can gain some fluency.

What contributes to a less than satisfying performance:

• Technical issues with tonal control
• Balance between hands
• Inadequate weight understanding on single note vs. chord
• Weak melodic voicing
• Poor tone matching
• Heavy phrase endings

Audiation:  External listening

• Record the piece and listen to it.
• Replay the part for student, exaggerating what they did.

Lack of subtlety in interpretation of dynamic markings can make even a technically brilliant interpretation flat.  Notes are always going to and from a dynamic.  No two notes are the same.  Plan dynamics, even with young kids.

Problems with tempo flexibility are one of the most noticeable causes of an unmusical performance--tempo rigidity.   Tempo  rigidity and lack of phrase shaping often go hand in hand.

The lack of forward motion is as bad as rushing.  Music notes need to go somewhere.

Knowledge of phrases is critical.  Use grammar terms:  sense of completion at the end of a period.  Sentences.  Long phrase ends with a period.  A weak antecedent might have a comma connecting it to a consequence.

Ways to shape a phrase (determine phrase length first):

• Louder then softer (can change the loudest point)
• Get louder to the end, or softer to the end.

Try making different phrase shapes at the lesson and make decisions together.

Forward momentum and release of tension are present in all phrases.  Dynamic shaping must be present within each phrase.

Planning phrasing helps students develop their musical taste.  Follow composer's marks.

Here's a well-known (often used) example which can be applied to shaping phrases in music:

1. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they are stressing it was someone else who accused her. Not them.
2. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they are stressing they never ever ever said that.
3. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they never actually accused her of stealing money, or that they actually wrote it instead of speaking.
4. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they never said it was the girl who stole the money, but someone else stole it.
5. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they never said she explicitly stole it, but did something else with it, like borrowed it.
6. I never said she stole my money. Meaning they are stressing it was someone else's money she stole, not theirs.
7. I never said she stole my money. Meaning it wasn't money she stole, but something else.

Ways to find the peak:

• Beginning of 3rd (most common) or 4th measure
• Often the highest note of the phrase
• Or, the moment of greatest tension.

To make a musically interesting piece:

• Repetitions NEVER the same
• Change the dynamics
• Almost every phrase can be altered in at least 2 ways
• Change phrase shape and direction by choosing a different "important" note.

New Composer and Teaching ideas, MTNA Conference 2019

Composers and Teaching Ideas

MTNA Conference 2019

I was pleased to meet a new composer at the MTNA conference.  I always think it's a brave thing to put out your own music and he's done just that.  William Minter.   His website is https://koamusic.org/

Teaching Ideas

1. Multimedia Performances:  slide show, film, painting, follow the structure of the piece, accompany a silent movie.  These things help with performance anxiety.
2.  Musical Hangman
1. Student guesses letters from (A-G) and draws the letter on the staff.
2. A more advanced idea is that the student draws four notes for the same letter.
3. Retrieval Practice https://www.retrievalpractice.org/
4. Evolving Flash Cards---use apps such as quizlet.com
5. Musical Puzzle Challenge--find phrases, chord progressions, analysis (I V I), easily rearrangeable, mark top right hand corner so they can orient it correctly, helps to have a clear beginning (treble/bass clef) and clear ending (ending bar). Cut piece into pieces.  Use a timer as the students try to rearrange it back into its original form.  Reveal the title, composer, and play the entire piece.
6. Playing Cards---especially good for group classes.  Write one name per card. Use to take turns calling on kids for answers, making teams or group assignments.  You can call on the joker, or the queen.  Students are more prepared if they are held accountable.  "I need ____ to play an E Major chord." "Play an F Major cadence." "Play all the A's."
7. Amazing Keyboard Race:  Use game tokens on lowest note of keyboard.  Select random letters A-G and children take turns moving up the keyboard.  Race to get to the top. Can be made more difficult by using #'s and b's.  They could also draw cards and have it timed to see who ends up at the highest point.
8. Swat a Rhythm game--each student needs a fly swatter.  Keep score with bug cards.  1st to 10 points wins.  Whoever is on the bottom wins.
9. Rhythm Dictation:  need sets of cards.  Teacher claps rhythm. Student echo back.  Then they notate the rhythm.
10. Grand Staff pass:  draw card and put marker on a grand staff
11. Spoons.  Have to match 2-4 cards in your hand.  Have to pass one card to your right before picking up a new card on your left. As soon as a person has a match, they can pick up a spoon.  As soon as others see spoons being picked up, they can pick up a spoon.  There is one less spoon than number of players.  
12. Ice cream intervals--add "scoops" of ice cream.  Cones are labeled 2nd, 3rd etc.  Then they sort cards into the right cones.
13. Block (or cup) stacking.  If you get it right, stack higher.  If you get it wrong, take one off
14. Pedaling:  Down on count 2 or count 1 "&".
15. Flow Chart with rhythm sounds (this rhythm pattern might work):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA85eWL_W90

1. Say alphabet: frontwards and backwards
2. Top to bottom
3. Tap "Right", "Left", Together"
4. Tap while saying the alphabet: do it backwards

Artistry by Veda Zuponcic, Notes from MTNA 2019 Conference

I will be adding my notes from the 2019 MTNA Conference here.  I hope you enjoy them. 

Artistry

Veda Zuponcic, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey

What is artistry?  Clean technique, capturing the character of the piece, personal charisma.

Artistry and technique must go together.  Technique comes first.

See Martha Argarich's scales.  Here's an example of a Scarlatti Sonate .

Build:

• Fingers
• Musical intellect
• Taste/Style
• Develop confidence

1. Use great materials.  Try to get to early intermediate by the end of the first year.  (i.e. Anna Magdalena Bach).

Ages 5-7:  the "Golden Age".  They can sit still for 20-30 minutes.   They have enough language to understand and they respect authority.  They have an intense interest in learning and they have time.  At this age, the practice responsibility is on the parents.

Look for method books that have melodies shared between two hands, the intention of the author to move child forward, not tethered to certain positions, many tonalities with and without key signatures.  (Reading errors happen when kids don't know scales).

Year 1-3 master all majors/minors in circle of 5ths.

2.  Master Every Detail in the score--written or implied:  intervals, dynamics, consonance, dissonance, things that are the same or different in the score.

3.  Comfortable physical approach to the piano:  create a variety of sounds, physical freedom at the piano.

4.  Build a big technique:  scales, arpeggios, inversions with speed. You can't play big literature without big technique.  Hanon and Czerny Etudes! also Cobb.

Slurs--mother of artistry.  Drop-lift with wrist.  

If using one finger, use finger #3.  Recommends Russian technique.  You don't have to worry about thumbs since RT uses a lot of only #3. Never play two notes with the same finger.  Changing fingers requires the arm rather than making the fingers do the work--easier and better sound. Graduation to Anna Magdalena Bach after "Under the Green Apple Tree" #83 of Russian Technique book. 7-8 exercises/week.  Do RH alone, LH alone, 15x HT.

5.  Provide opportunities for performance so that at least a portion of repertoire reaches a high performance level:  Recitals, auditions, competitions, volunteer recitals, (MTNA e-festivals, NVMTA general and judged recitals), school opportunities.

Primary value of competitions:  deadlines, extensive preparation.  If student has 8 deadlines, you'll get 8x the preparation.

6.  Art of Balance:  big and little gestures. Stay close to the keys for a soft sound. 

The Happy Farmer is a good example of a piece that requires good balance between the hands.  Talk about the character of the piece: 

Why is the farmer happy?

• He loves to see things grow
• He's happy to come home to his family
• He loves working in nature

What does he look like?

• tall or short?
• strong or thin?
• smiling or sad?

Transfer Students---don't give them a book with a level number.

Melody:  Teach lots of Schumann.  Make sure students do Preludes and Fugues before graduating from high school.