“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.”
— Charlie Parker
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.
With my piano students, I love to introduce classical music as soon as possible. It gives them a head-start in getting used to the contrapuntal reading that classical music requires, as well as the kinds of technical and musical challenges that classical music requires. Early exposure also means that they in most cases they grow to love and appreciate the music!
Anthologies are perfect for students who are just being introduced to classical music. They allow you to expose students a variety of styles and composers at a great value. Even if the student does not study all of the pieces in the anthology, they can use the others for sight-reading practice or play them just-for-fun later in their piano study.
In most cases, I give my students their first classical anthology soon after they complete the Primer and Level 1 of their method book. I have tried out a variety of different anthologies in order to determine which ones work best for students at that early level. It is nice to have a few options to chose from, so that your students are not all playing the same repertoire.
Below is a list of some excellent anthologies I have evaluated for their suitability as an early elementary level student’s first introduction to classical music. I’ve also included comments about each book’s value, length, variety of selections, clarity of the score, quality of the editing, etc. I hope you can find my list and comments useful!
Contains 12 selections, and comes with a CD. The scores are clean and clear, and the editing is good. This is an excellent book to use as a student’s first classical anthology. It includes two pieces with teacher duets, which is a nice bonus. My students have enjoyed learning those duets, and I’ve often had older siblings accompany them instead of me.
After completing this books, students can continue to books 1, 2, 3, and 4 — or jump over into the set of Piano Sonatina books, Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. I love the 20th/21st century selections included in the Piano Literature books (there is not much in the Prep level, but there is more in the upper levels) — in particular, I love Hansi Alt’s “On the Ocean Floor” from Level 1. Continue reading “9 First Classical Anthologies for Piano Students”
Below are the 20 randomly-chosen winners of the Rhythm Cat Pro giveaway:
#14: RebeccaWinners, please watch your inbox — I’ll send out the emails with the promo codes later on today!
If you didn’t win, you can still purchase the Rhythm Cat app here. It’s worth it!
Happy Halloween!
This is me in my costume. 🙂 ————>
Just a quick reminder:
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you may want to enter the current giveaway for the Rhythm Cat app! Today is the last day to enter — the winner will be announced tomorrow. Click here for details.
I hope you are all having a good week! Thoughts and prayers go to those affected by Hurricane Sandy.
“Do not try to be a genius in every bar.”
— Gabriel Fauré
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.
I’ve added a new free worksheet to the Printables page today!
This Line & Space Notes Worksheet is intended for use with beginner students who are first being introduced to the staff notation. Understanding line and space notes is important not only for understanding how staff notation works in general, but it is also an important pre-cursor for being able to identify intervals accurately by sight.
You can download this free worksheet by visiting the Printables > Worksheets page and scrolling down to the L’s for “Line & Space Notes Worksheet.” Enjoy!
Line & Space Notes Worksheet (75.8 KiB, 37,623 hits)
I am preparing to pass out Christmas music to my students to this week! It still seems early to me, but my students have a performance opportunity in early December — so I thought we better get rolling on that Christmas music!
I’ve updated my post from two years ago “List of Free Christmas Arrangements on the Web” to include a few new links and some resources for lead sheets. The holiday season seems like the perfect time to focus on chord playing, because of the wealth of familiar Christmas tunes students know!
Let me know if you know of more links to add to that post!
Rhythm Cat — Cost: Free version (15 levels) is FREE; Rhythm Cat Pro is $2.99. The pro version is available currently for iPhone/iPod Touch — and the pro version for iPad is coming out soon!
This app is a fun and effective way to improve rhythm skills. Let me tell you why!
On each level, the player is presented with a rhythm example.
After hitting the Play button, a soundtrack begins. After 1-2-3-4 is shown, the player must tap the rhythm of the example shown using the large green button. Here is what the very first rhythm example looks like: Continue reading “Review & Giveaway: Rhythm Cat app”
“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”
— Frederic Chopin
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.
This year for Halloween, I plan to pass out candy with my studio name on it again and wear my piano costume dress again. I was thinking about having some scary classical music playing on my porch too, so I compiled a list of music! Let me know if you have any suggestions to add to the list. 🙂
Alkan – Prelude Op. 31 No. 8 (a madwoman at the seashore)
Elena Cobb is a piano teacher and composer in the UK (but originally from Russia) who writes music in various popular musical styles, including blues, Latin, and jazz. She has music books available intended for both young students and intermediate to advanced students. You can read more about Elena’s teaching approach and goals behind her pedagogical music here.
Elena asked me to review a couple of her books, which you can read about below! Continue reading “Review: Sheet Music by Elena Cobb”
For any of you fellow crafty-types out there, here’s a fun Pinterest-inspired project I completed lately:
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