Conferences

NCKP 2013 (2) – The Beauty And The Beast In The Piano Studio, by Marvin Blickenstaff

Joy Morin

W July 24 @ 3pm – The Beauty And The Beast In The Piano Studio, by Marvin Blickenstaff

Mr. Blickenstaff began by playing the beautiful Schumann Romance. Then he stated that beautiful music has the power to change human beings.

Marvin was almost a piano dropout in the 7th grade. He was bored and his mother decided to have him take from Fern Davidson – great teacher in Idaho. At her 100th birthday, over 900 people showed up at her birthday concert! Fern gave all of them the gift of beautiful music. Notice the phrase is not fast fingers, theoretical analysis, etc.. Beautiful music makes beautiful souls. Piano study is about increasing a sensitivity to the beautiful. Our lives are momentarily changed by beautiful sounds. The human being needs beauty.

We are here in the name of teaching beauty. It is the longest lasting gift we can give our students. It should be our focus. Continue reading “NCKP 2013 (2) – The Beauty And The Beast In The Piano Studio, by Marvin Blickenstaff” →

Conferences

NCKP 2013 (1) – Keynote Address: Service by Dr. Scott Price

Joy Morin

I am excited to be here at the 2013 NCKP! I am going to try to live blog some of my notes through-out the week, Natalie Wickham style. ;). Check back soon for updates.

W July 24 @ 2pm – Keynote Address: Service by Dr. Scott Price

Dr. Price began by showing video of one of his special needs students, Margaret, singing and playing the folk song “Oh Susannah.” It was a heartwarming video!

Dr. Price then asked: Is Margaret going to win competitions, scholarships, piano camps? No. But she can play folk songs and sing with family and friends. This video shows what we do every day as teachers: we serve.
Continue reading “NCKP 2013 (1) – Keynote Address: Service by Dr. Scott Price” →

General, Music Camps, Music History

2013 Music History Camp

Joy Morin

As I mentioned in a post last week, I held a Music History Camp last week with five of my private students.  Each day, we studied an era of music history (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern) and also focused on a composer from that period.

To study the eras, I decided to write a printable booklet for each era.  Below is a sneak peek at how they turned out.  I think they could be very useful both for music camps as well as for private students.   These booklets are going to make their way to the Shop very soon, accompanied by a set of corresponding worksheets and a timeline showing other events occurring in history during these eras. Photo - collage

Continue reading “2013 Music History Camp” →

Music History

SightRead Plusgiveaway winner & New Lapbooks

Joy Morin

Just a quick post today, to announce the randomly chosen winner of the giveaway for the Sight Read Plus app for iPad….

Congrats goes to Lori!  Lori, I will be sending you an email with your promo code very soon.

By the way, two new lapbooks have been added to the ColorInMyPiano shop — Handel & Mussorgsky!

Studying Handel provides the opportunity to discuss popular Baroque forms such as the concerto grosso and the oratorio, and to learn the stories behind a couple of his famous works: Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.  I used this lapbook at my Music History Camp this week.  Listening to those two pieces and learning the stories behind them was a hit with my students!

Handel both

Studying Mussorgsky provided the opportunity to learn about the group of Russian composers known as “The Mighty Five” and their Nationalist tendencies.  We also studied Mussorgsky’s well known work Pictures at an Exhibition, composed in honor of Mussorgsky’s artist/architect friend who died rather suddenly.  Included in the Mussorgsky lapbook is an optional worksheet activity to use while listening to Pictures at an Exhibition.

Mussorgsky both

In case you are curious, the next composer added will be Prokofiev.  After that, who knows…maybe Clementi or Tchaikovsky?  🙂

Performances, Teaching Piano

Audience In A Bottle

Joy Morin

A couple of weekends ago, I attended a fantastic Piano Pedagogy Seminar at Ohio University.  The featured clinician was Dr. Peter Mack — an Irishman from Seattle who is a fantastic teacher with a wonderful sense of humor.

During one of the sessions, Dr. Mack told us that in his studio there are lots of teddy bears and dolls, as well as masks on the walls.  He told us that it was so that his students would always feel that they had an audience to play for.  Can you imagine having all those eyes watching you during a piano lesson?  haha!

While I’m not particularly interested in using masks or teddy bears to decorate my studio, I am interested in getting my students to listen to themselves more and play as if an audience is listening.  🙂   Thus, I created this silly little prop.  What do you think?!

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I call it my “Jar of Eyes” or my “Audience in a Bottle.”  🙂  I haven’t used it on any unsuspecting students yet, but I anticipate it will be highly effective to bring out the next time I think a student could use a reminder to play as if an audience is listening/watching.  😉

I bought the little glass jar (it is only about 2.5 inches in diameter) at Hobby Lobby some time back for about $2.  I already had all those different craft eyes in my bin of craft supplies.  If you’d like to create your own jar of eyes, I’m sure you can find various sizes of googly eyes at any craft store.

Words of Wisdom

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

Joy Morin

“My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I abhor imitation and I abhor the familiar.”

— Sergei Prokofiev

Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.

Music Camps, Music History

2013 Music History Camp

Joy Morin

My students and I are in the middle of Music History camp this week and having a blast!  This year, I’m teaching 5 girls between the ages of 5 and 8.

Yesterday, we studied Handel (using my lapbook curriculum) and the Baroque Era.  Today was Haydn and the Classical Era.  We have two more days of camp to go, when we’ll be covering the Romantic Era and the Modern Era.  Wish me luck!  It is a lot to cover in just four 2-hour classes, but I am pleased with the information my students are absorbing so far.  This camp will serve as a good first introduction to the stylistic periods of Western music!

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General

More Music Apps for iPad/iPhone

Joy Morin

Over the past week, I’ve been gradually reviewing more music apps!  It’s nice to be able to recommend these to students and their parents.  I am surprised at how many of my students own either an iPad or an iPhone.

Below, I’ve copy and pasted my latest additions to the Music Apps page.  You can view the complete list here.

I apologize to those who do not own an iPad or iPhone — I know a lot of my posts recently have been about that!  Next week is my Music History camp, so I’ll be blogging about non-tech things soon.  🙂

THE LATEST MUSIC APPS I HAVE REVIEWED: 

Screen shot 2013-07-07 at 4.52.53 PMTenuto ($3.99)

Tenuto is made by the developers behind the fantastic musictheory.net website and is also one of the best music apps you can buy for your iPhone/iPad.  The app contains a variety of modules for practicing identification of notes, key signatures, intervals, chords, piano keys — both by sight as well as by ear.  The graphics are attractive and the app is easy-to-use.  The modules can be adjusted to adjust the difficulty of the activity.  Tenuto is an excellent tool for beginner students through advanced students.  Continue reading “More Music Apps for iPad/iPhone” →

Words of Wisdom

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

Joy Morin

“I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.”

— Igor Stravinsky

Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send me a message here.

Reading Notation, Technology

App Review & Giveaway: SightReadPlus

Joy Morin

bg-1-273140SightReadPlus — $7.99 *for iPad only*

Update: also check out my short review of SightReadMinor ($4.99).

SightReadPlus is an app for iPad for piano students.  The app not only contains thousands of sight-reading exercises, but it also “listens” to the student play on their piano and evaluates their performance based on accuracy of pitch and rhythm.  I love this technology!  SightReadPlus is a great tool to improve students’ sight-reading abilities, especially in preparation for examinations or adjudications that require sight-reading.

The 4800 sight-reading examples in this app are appropriate for beginning and elementary students.  The range of notes in each exercise is limited to major five-finger patterns, and all exercises are either for RH or LH (never together).

The exercises are divided into 10 levels.  Level 1 begins with half note and whole note rhythms in 4/4 time, with intervals limited to 2nds.  The more advanced levels contain intervals up to a 5th, rhythm values such as dotted quarter notes and eighth rests, and a variety of time signatures (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and 6/8).  The exercises can be played in any key.  Continue reading “App Review & Giveaway: SightReadPlus” →

Conferences

NCKP 2013 Meet-Up with Wendy Stevens

Joy Morin

NCKP-2013_logo_v2cropped

The 2013 NCKP is only about 2 weeks away!  The sessions on the schedule look fantastic as usual, and I am looking forward to connecting with friends and colleagues.  Do you plan to attend the NCKP?

Wendy Stevens from the ComposeCreate blog is holding a dinner meet-up during the conference.  I’m sure many of you are already familiar with Wendy’s blog (I love her rhythm resource, Rhythm Menagerie!), but if you aren’t, you should go check it out!

I plan to attend Wendy’s meet-up, and Wendy has graciously agreed to allow me to invite additional guests to her event.  I would love to see you there!

Here are the details:

  • Wendy’s meet-up will be Thursday, July 25 at 6:15pm at the Brio Italian Restaurant.  Brio is located 1/2 mile from the conference hotel.  You can walk there or take the conference hotel’s shuttle.
  • The restaurant has kindly agreed to allow everyone to pay via separate checks (with gratuity included), but you must submit your dinner order in advance.  You can take a peek at the menu here.  Please email your dinner order to Wendy by July 20 at the latest.  It would be helpful if you could let her know you are coming as soon as possible.
  • Read more about Wendy’s meet-up here, and then send her an email here.

I hope to see you there!