“Music is an outburst of the soul.”
— Frederick DeLuis
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 an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
Looking to spice up your studio documents? Check out the fun music fonts!
1. LD Music | This charming font features hints of musical-symbol-likeness. This font would be perfect for studio newsletters, recital programs, and other studio handouts!
2. Simple Melody | Shows up as the font “New” once installed. For some reason, the spaces in this font are huge. Reduce the size of the spaces to a smaller font size and it will look normal.
3. All That Jazz | A fun piano keys font! There is no difference between uppercase and lowercase letters in this font.
Someone on the “piano-teachers” Yahoo group forum brought this to my attention – the Better Homes and Gardens magazine’s website has instructions for a craft for making a sheet music Christmas ornament (picture on right). It looks like a wonderful way to make your Christmas tree a little more musical!
The star pattern allows you to choose from three different sized stars. The instructions for making this ornament suggest photocopying sheet music, which of course is not legal. I would instead suggest visiting imslp.org and printing off some sheet music that is in the public domain (or use some Christmas music linked to in this post). On the pattern, the solid lines indicate “mountain folds” (fold comes out toward you) and the dashed lines indicated “valley folds.” Once the folding is complete, punch a small hole and tie a small loop using gold thread to complete the ornament.
Click here to view the full instructions on the Better Homes and Gardens website.
“He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once.”
— Robert Browning
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 an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve added a new printable to the Printables page….so here’s one I created a couple of months ago. You can find it on the Printables > Other Resources page.
Scale and Arpeggio Fingering (2 Octaves) Reference Sheet (3 pages long)
I created this printable with my intermediate/advanced students in mind who are working on 2- and 4- octave scales/arpeggios and have trouble keeping all their fingerings straight in their head once they start getting them under their fingers. It’s nice to have a guide tucked inside the front cover of a book to refer to now and then!
The document contains three pages:
Page 1: Rules and tricks for remembering scale and arpeggio fingerings (as shown on the right).
Page 2: A listing of the fingerings for each Major and Harmonic Minor scale/arpeggio (2-octave) for piano.
Page 3: A continuation of page 2.
Of course, there are a few different ways to finger scales and arpeggios, so I’m sorry if the fingerings listed in this printable do not correspond with the ones you prefer to teach your students. These are the ones I like to use, and I thought I’d share it with anyone who might happen to find it useful.
I did my best to proof-read the fingerings, but it is certainly possible that I may have missed something….so if you encounter something that seems sketchy, please let me know!
Discussion topic for the December Forum:
At studio recitals, should the teacher perform a piece? Will it inspire students and will families enjoy hearing the teacher play? Or will the students/families get the impression that the teacher is showing off and blowing the students’ performances out of the water? What is your take on this issue?
Please take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments below!
Photo Credit: HenryStradford | CC 2.0
Hello readers,
I apologize for the lack of posts this week – it is a busy and stressful time of the semester because there are just a couple of weeks left! Thankfully (pun intended), I have the next two days off from classes/practicing/teaching, and I fully intend to take it easy!
So here’s wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with time with family & friends, good food, and music.
– Joy
Photo Credit: aussiegall | CC 2.0
“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”
— William Butler Yeats
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 an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
I read something this week that mentioned in passing the benefit of engaging the emotions for learning. This idea really stuck with me, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It makes perfect sense, but I just never thought about it much before. I think this idea is worth some consideration.
Neurologically, humans learn best when their emotions are engaged. Various research has been done that suggests the benefit of learning when the emotions are engaged (see “For Further Reading” below). An effective speaker will appeal to the listeners’ emotions in order to affect and influence them to agree with the points made, support the viewpoint, and maybe even motivate them to do something about it. Similarly, an effective teacher will connect with the students’ emotions to make the student interested in the topic and motivated to learn. When the emotions are engaged, the learning moment becomes both meaningful and memorable.
The art of music is very close to the heart and the emotions. We music teachers are very fortunate! And yet, how often do we encounter students who seldom practice? How about unmotivated students who quit after just a few years? And how often do we hear completely unemotional performances? These things do happen, unfortunately. We can help prevent this from happening. Perhaps through engaging the emotions we can help students connect with the music and be interested/motivated. Continue reading “Teaching Tip: Engaging the Emotions”
Fellow U.S. piano teachers – in case you haven’t seen it yet, registration is now open for the 2011 Music Teachers National Association’s National Conference which is taking place March 26-30 in Milwaukee! Sign up before February 16 to receive the early bird rates. Check out the conference website to view the schedule of sessions and to get more information.
If you aren’t already an MTNA member, you will need to become a member before registering for the conference. There are many benefits to becoming an MTNA member — click here to learn more about MTNA on their website, and check out the video below. This video was made by Robyn Pfeifer of the musicteachingsuccess.com blog. It is an interview with the current president of MTNA, Gary Ingle, discussing the benefits of being a member of MTNA. Check it out!
Here’s another interview, again by Robyn, talking to a couple presenters from last year’s national conference. If you want an idea about what the sessions at the conference are like, take a look!
I’ve never had the opportunity to attend a national conference before – only state ones, so I am really looking forward to this! I hope some of you can make it too!
“Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll
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 an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
About a week ago, I received an email from a reader who states that he is learning the Bach-Petri transcription of “Sheep May Safely Graze.” (You may recall me posting a YouTube video of it here.) He writes:
I am by no means a concert pianist, but I did take piano lessons for 14 years (1 year into college), but I have never encountered such a challenging melody as is presented by this piece.
Obviously, this piece will take a lot of time to master, but I am determined to learn it. However, I was wondering if you could please offer some practice tips such as how to bring out the melody, for instance, in measures 10 & 11? I just don’t know the best method to train my 2nd and possibly 3rd fingers to bring out the melody while the other fingers play the counter melody.
Learning to bring out the melody properly is not easy! However, the good news is that once you’ve developed this skill, you will likely be using it again for situations in other pieces.
Here are a few general practice tips for bringing out the melody: Continue reading “Practice Tips: Bringing out the Melody”
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