Music History, Printables

New Composer Lapbooks: Vivaldi & Prokofiev

Joy Morin

As mentioned yesterday, two new lapbooks have been added to my digital shop: Antonio Vivaldi and Sergei Prokofiev.

If you aren’t already familiar with my lapbook curriculum, you might be interested in checking it out if you offer monthly group classes or summer music camps. Every year, I offer a music history camp using these lapbooks for my piano students and we study a composer from each historical time period. I’ve also used this curriculum in the past to offer weekly music appreciation classes for homeschoolers. To date, I have twenty different composer lapbooks available to choose from.

Purchasing the PDF for a composer includes the license to print and copy from the PDF for your entire teaching career for personal and educational use with your students. As the teacher reads the biography booklet and discusses terms/music related to the composer, students are responsible for cutting out and assembling the items for their own lapbook to take home.

Here is some info about the two new lapbooks.

In the lesson about Vivaldi, students will enjoy learning about “The Red Priest” and his passion for composing and teaching music to the orphans and students at the Ospedale della Pietá in Venice. Special focus is given to Vivaldi’s most well-known work, The Four Seasons.

Vivaldi collage

Sergei Prokofiev was a great Russian composer of the Modern Era. Students will learn about how the political upheaval in Russia impacted Prokofiev both personally and as a composer. Special attention will be given to perhaps his most well-known work, Peter and the Wolf.

Prokofiev collage

Visit the digital shop by clicking here.

Music Camps, Music History

2015 Music History Camp

Joy Morin

Summertime means…time for music camp!

Last week, I held my first music camp of the year: our annual Music History Blast From The Past camp using my composer lapbook curriculum. This year, I was able to re-use a few of the composers that we studied at camp three years ago, but I did create a new lapbook for Vivaldi.

Each day, we studied a period of music history and a composer from that time period.

20150625_110408 web

What kid doesn’t enjoy arts and crafts + music?! 🙂

20150625_110439 web

The four composers we studied this year were Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amy Beach, and John Cage.

20150625_110427 web

Here is a photo of this year’s camp T-shirt design. 🙂 I ordered my shirts from CustomInk.com.

20150616_145848 camp T shirt web

It was a fun week!

20150625_110530 web

Interested in holding your own music history camp using these composer lapbooks? Here is a blog post describing how to do just that!

Stay tuned — tomorrow I will share more about the new lapbooks now available in my digital shop: Vivaldi and Prokofiev.

Conferences

2015 Piano Pedagogy Seminar at Ohio University

Joy Morin

Last weekend, I attended the 2015 Piano Pedagogy Seminar at Ohio University. It was a wonderful event that definitely helped recharge my teaching batteries! If you happen to live anywhere near Ohio University, I would encourage you to “like” their facebook page so you can receive information about this annual event.

This year, the featured artists and clinicians were Alan Chow and Dr. Robert Duke. Alan Chow gave a masterclass, an artist recital, and a lecture entitled, “It’s In The Score!” I really like Alan Chow’s playing — I must say his recital was among the best I’ve attended. His lecture the following day was enlightening as it gave us a glimpse into his mind as an artist interpreting the score, and also into his mind and method as a teacher.

20150626 OU Piano Pedagogy Seminar - Alan Chow

Robert Duke gave a two-part lecture entitled, “If We Learn Like That, Why Do We Teach Like This?” He is the author of the incredible book, Intelligent Music Teaching, which I reviewed in a previous post. His lecture was challenging, inspiring, and entertaining. If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, be sure to take advantage!

20150626 OU Piano Pedagogy Seminar - Robert Duke

cover170x170After his lecture, Robert Duke encouraged us to check out the U of Texas-Austin’s Center for Music Learning website. There are a variety of videos and other free resources available there. He also let us know that he is involved in an NPR podcast called Two Guys on Your Head. I’ve been greatly enjoying these podcasts, and I also discovered that there are a few lectures by Robert Duke available for viewing on YouTube if you search for his name.

Other sessions included a lecture entitled, “The Secret Ingredient to Piano Teaching Success: The Powerful Role of Parents” by husband and wife team Dr. Christopher Fisher (OU professor) and Katherine Fisher (co-author of the Piano Safari method). In their talk, they described the “Parent Practice Workshops” they like to organize to help inform and equip parents to support their students’ piano study. They also shared a huge variety of creative resources and ideas for making home practice interesting and effective. If this sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy listening to this podcast Chris Fisher gave for the TeachPianoToday.com folks.

We also enjoyed a session about the Royal Conservatory of Music exams, given by Dr. Andrew Hisey. He gave an overview of the program and also provided a great deal of helpful information about the changes that were made with the release of the new 2015 syllabus (revisions are made every seven years). P.S.: If you have ever used my free technique charts for RCM, please know that I do plan to release charts for the new 2015 syllabus–hopefully soon!

20150626 OU Piano Pedagogy Seminar - Andrew Hisey

For the OU seminar, I traveled and roomed with a seasoned piano teacher from my local MTNA chapter. We had such a great time together.

I’ve been saving up to attend a couple of other events at the end of this summer: the 2015 NCKP near Chicago and a workshop by Irina Gorin occurring in the Indianapolis area. What upcoming events are you planning to attend? I encourage every piano teacher to be committed to attending every professional development opportunity that you can!

Resources

Highlighter Tape Alternative for Marking Music

Joy Morin

Just a quick, fun post today…

I’m sure many of you are familiar with and love using highlighter tape to add visual reminders to students’ sheet music. The “tape” is transparent yet colorful, and removes easily if you want to keep the student’s music clean. I’ve seen highlighter tape available at music stores, conferences, or online.

AC136501l

Highlighter tape is a bit expensive (but worth it!), in my opinion. However, I recently discovered that these highlighter “tabs“ (pictured below) are just as good if not better!Hot-Sale-Paper-Sticky-Adhesive-Post-Highlighter-Index-Tab-Flags-It-Neon-Page-Marker-School-Memo.jpg_350x350

 

They are essentially pre-cut as opposed to the tape rolls. Only half of the strip is sticky, but that actually makes removal easier. Win-win.

20150612 wm

You can buy packages of highlighter tabs here on Amazon; however, you will find it to be much more affordable in the office supply aisle at your local store. You might even find them at your local dollar store.

Reviews

Book Review: Intelligent Music Teaching by Robert A. Duke

Joy Morin

I am excited to post this book review because this is one of the best books I have read in a while. If you are looking for a practical yet research-based book about piano/music pedagogy, get your hands on this book. This is my best book recommendation for any music teacher looking to improve their teaching.

Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction, by Robert A. Duke

51W+HMvBj6L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

The author, Robert Duke, is currently Professor of Music and Human Learning at the University of Texas at Austin. According to his bio, his research on human learning and behavior includes studying motor skill learning, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. He is also a former studio musician and public school music teacher.

Robert Duke’s book is organized into eight chapters or essays, with titles such as “Precision in Language and Thought,” “Sequencing Instruction,” “Feedback, and “Effecting Change.”

In the first chapter, the author makes a point about the ability to speak/write with precision of language being an important asset for any teacher. Based on the wonderfully clear writing is this book, I imagine that the author is an excellent teacher.

The book discusses how to think of the every day components of our teaching — instruction, assessment, evaluation, sequencing, etc. — with an awareness of how the human mind works and learns. Every page of this book contains a nugget of wisdom or practical tip for how to teach intelligently and meaningfully so that our students learn how to change and improve themselves.

Allow me to give you one quick example of a meaningful take-away from the book. During a section where the author makes a comparison to learning how to solve quadratic equations in math, he states: “The goal of instruction — the real goal, the long-term, far-reaching goal — is not to solve the equations, but to use what you know about solving equations to solve other problems that you may or may not have encountered before” (p. 29). Music teachers should have a similar instructional goal, as the author expounds throughout the book. The goal is for the student to gain intellectual, physical, or social skill rather than merely knowledge.

The writing is pleasant to read, being both intelligent and conversational. I think it is rare to find a book with such well-grounded information that is understandable by the layperson. The teaching/learning strategies and principles discussed in this book are backed by research. Yet, reading this book felt like having a thought-provoking conversation with the author over coffee. I could hardly put the book down until I finished reading it.

I highly recommend this book to any music teacher. It is a must-read for newbie and experienced teachers alike. My opinion is that it should be required reading in every piano pedagogy class. It will influence and change the way you teach. View it on Amazon here.

Edit: Ohio University sponsors a piano pedagogy seminar each summer in June and this year (2015), they have invited Robert Duke to be a speaker. I read Dr. Duke’s book in anticipation of attending this event. For more information about the event, visit oupianopedagogyseminar.com. 

Memorization

Music Mapping with Piano Students

Joy Morin

With nearly every piece I teach, the student and I analyze and label the form: Q&A phrases, AB form, ABA form, sonata form, etc.. Understanding the structure of a piece helps the student learn the piece more thoroughly and make well-based decisions relating to the interpretation of a piece.

Back in early March, a student of mine demonstrated he had his piece memorized all the way through but found he was “fuzzy” on the details in certain places and could not always remember what came next between phrases without taking time for thought. In a moment of inspiration (or perhaps desperation!), we decided to construct a visual map of the piece — an activity I have found to be beneficial in the past with certain students. I took a blank sheet of paper from my printer and handed my student a few colored pencils. Taking a few minutes to turn our analysis into a simple, visual graphic proved to strengthen and clarify his memory of the piece.

During my college years, I was exposed to this kind of music mapping thanks to a book I found in the university library: Mapping Music: For Faster Learning and Secure Memory, by Rebecca Payne Shockley. She shares many examples in her book to learn from, but emphasizes that music mapping is a very personal thing: the map must primarily make sense to the person who makes it.

Music Mapping with Piano Students graphic

As you can see from the image above, we used boxes to represent the 4-bar phrases as well as the larger A and B sections. Within each box, my student drew lines or shapes to represent the melodic contour of the phrases. We also added a few chord symbols to help mentally clarify the B section and the ending.

As a final step, we added dynamic markings in pink and green shading to represent pedaling.

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 12.51.20 PMAfter completing the music map, I asked my student to play the piece by memory again. It was not a perfect performance, but it was definitely better because his memory of the piece’s structure was stronger and more clear.

After creating a map, it should not be necessary to have the student read from the music map while playing, although that is an option. The point of the exercise is to be able to rely on a strong, mental picture of the piece during performance. In my student’s own words: “It’s the process of creating the map that is beneficial; not the finished map itself.”

Have you ever created a music map with a student?

[Note: In case you are interested, the piece my student was learning is called “A Quiet Lagoon” by Dennis Alexander and Martha Mier. We were using a sampler piece of sheet music I received during a conference, but the piece is readily available in the Technique Book Level 2B of the Alfred Premier Piano Course.]

Piano Teacher Institute, Professional Development

Upcoming 2015 Sessions from Piano Teacher Institute

Joy Morin

This information was just sent out to those on the email list for the Piano Teacher Institute with Joy Morin. I’m blogging it here as well, just for your interest!

PIANO TEACHER INSTITUTE - join email list

Greetings!

A year ago, I began writing the coursework for my online course, Introduction to Piano Teaching. I’ve now offered the course three times: Summer 2014, Fall 2014, and Winter 2015. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed designing the course and interacting with the teachers who have enrolled each time! I believe this course fills an important need for teachers who have a desire to increase or refresh their current knowledge to gain further education in piano pedagogy, i.e., the art of teaching piano.

I’m preparing to offer two more sessions this year, so I asked the most recent registrants if they would be willing to write testimonials to help others decide if my online course is right for them. Here is what they had to say:

“This course was excellent!  For several months, I had been looking for some kind of training for piano teachers.  There are many university level, longer term programs available, but I needed something I could do from home.  This course was exactly what I needed.  I am a new teacher, and this course really helped steer my efforts toward the most important things that I should be focusing on–including the business side of teaching and the actual teaching.  Ms. Morin was prompt about both responding to my questions and leaving feedback for my assignments.  I also appreciated being able to interact with the other members of the class.  Their ideas and experience were wonderful!  I feel I am more organized and have clearer direction as a teacher because of this course.” 
          — Michelle Marchant, piano teacher in Utah

I HIGHLY (*****) recommend Piano Teacher Institute by Joy Morin.  This class was fantastic for me!  My formal education came many years ago and I have taught many students over the years.  But with a relocation of my studio to another state, I felt it was a great time to update my piano pedagogy skills and to enroll in the course.   Ms. Morin did an EXCELLENT job with the design of the course as well as conducting the one hour weekly chat sessions with the other enrolled students. … She is a very professional instructor but at the same time is very personal and insightful in helping each student in their piano teaching journey.  The materials from the course will be an excellent resource for future usage.  If you are looking for a great piano teacher class, I would encourage you to enroll in Piano Teacher Institute.   
          — Phyllis Bowers, piano teacher in Alabama

Dear Joy, Observing the way you take such pride in your role as an educator has made a huge impact on me. You have truly helped me to look at what I do in a dramatically different way. You have helped me to treat my job more like a career. The changes I have made in my business approach have been exciting, but I’m even more enthusiastic about the way I FEEL about the piano. Watching you love music has helped me rekindle my love of the piano! I’m playing again and actually enjoying it! Thank you for being a great mentor and for being a new friend! 
          —Susan Honey, teacher in North Carolina

You can read the rest of the testimonials here. Introduction to Piano Teaching is an intensive course that lasts for six weeks, with each week dedicated to a certain topic (business topics, piano methods, technique, etc.). The ideal registrant is an individual with a passion for learning, a dedication to teaching, and the time and energy to spend 10-15 hours each week reading and completing the assignments.

Here are the dates for the two upcoming sessions:

  1. Summer 2015: May 25 through July 12. (I’ve allowed seven weeks instead of the usual six, to help both you and I accommodate any summer travel plans.) 
  2. Fall 2015: August 25 through October 4. 

Registration for the Summer 2015 session will open at 9AM EST on Tuesday, May 5 and will appear on this page of the website. Registration will automatically close after the first 10 teachers have registered. Last time, registration filled within two hours — so if you are interested in taking the course, I recommend that you mark your calendar!

Read more about the course or sign up for the email list (I promise to send no more than 10 email updates each year) on the website here.  If you still have questions, please feel free to send me a message.