Tag: piano

Performances, Practicing

Dealing with Performance Anxiety

Joy Morin

Your hands are cold and shaky, your heart is racing, and you find it hard to breath.  Are you sick?  Are you having a nightmare?  No, you’re about to play your instrument in a recital, and the symptoms you are experiencing are due to performance anxiety — better known as stage fright.

Performance anxiety affects us all, to some degree or another.  Here are some things you can try out to help deal with your performance anxiety:

  • Practice performing. Play your pieces for other people whenever you can. It’s one thing to practice your pieces, but it’s another thing to practice performing. Ask other people to come in the room to make you nervous, and see how well you can handle running through you pieces.
  • Envision yourself succeeding. Envisioning yourself performing your piece well is extremely helpful. Do it as your practicing, as you’re not practicing, and as you are performing.  Doing so keeps your outlook positive and sets you up for success. Continue reading “Dealing with Performance Anxiety” →
Performances

What to Say at Studio Recitals

Joy Morin

Today’s post is in answer to a question I received from a reader via email:

I am giving my first ever piano recital this Sunday and I am unsure what I should say to parents at the recital.  Besides welcoming them, what sorts of messages are good? Thanks!

Personally, I don’t feel the need to give a long speech at piano recitals.  After all, the members of the audience — mostly parents and grandparents — are there to hear the kids play, not to hear you give an long, eloquent speech.  =)  Just keep it short and sweet, something like this:

“Hello everyone!  As many of you may know, my name is ___, and I’d like to welcome you to this year’s Spring Piano Recital!  This is the first year we’ve held a studio recital, and I am so pleased to have you all join us today.  I know the students are all very excited to play their pieces that they’ve been working so hard on.  Just a few brief announcements, and then we’ll get started.  First of all: did everyone recieve a recital program who would like one? [pass out a couple more if needed]  Secondly, immediately following the recital, we will take some time to take group photo of all the students.  You are welcome to take pictures during the recital as well, but please turn off the flash on your camera.  Thirdly — after the time for photos, please wander over to the fellowship room where there are punch and refreshments for you all to enjoy.  Alright, without further ado, we’ll get started with the recital, beginning with student’s name playing student’s piece.”  [start the applause]

If you get nervous talking in front of groups of people, make yourself a notecard with a short list of things to remember to say.  It could look something like this:

  • Hello and welcome; introduce myself
  • Announcements: 1) Did everyone get a recital program who would like one?
  • 2) After recital, photo time.
  • 3) After photo time, refreshments.
  • Welcome first student to play; start applause.

After all the students play, you can stand up once more if you desire, and say something like:

“That concludes our recital for this evening.  I’d like to say thank you to all the parents and grandparents here today for helping and supporting the students all year long with their practicing and for taking them to lessons.  We couldn’t have done it without you.  And students, you did a wonderful job tonight.  Let’s give all the students one more round of applause.  [applause]  Thank you all for coming!  Now we will have a time for photos and refreshments.”

I hope this is helpful to some of you, and I hope you all have (or have had) successful piano recitals this spring!

Photo credit: gordontarpley | CC 2.0

improving as a teacher

The June Forum: Making your Vocation a Vacation

Joy Morin

As mentioned yesterday, a new series is being introduced here at Color In My Piano: a monthly forum of sorts, where readers put their heads together a discuss various topics.  The success of this series depends on YOU, so please, type away!

Without further ado, allow me to introduce the topic for the June forum:

The June Forum: Making your Vocation a Vacation

The June forum is inspired by a couple of quotes I encountered a couple of days ago that really got me thinking about my piano teaching:

“Instead of wondering where your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”  – Godin

“Make your vocation your vacation.”   – Old adage

So the idea is to make your vocation as a piano teacher enjoyable for yourself, so that you aren’t living most of your life just getting by until the next vacation.  =)

Now that summer vacation is here, ironically enough, I think this is a fitting topic to consider.  I’m sure that some of you are probably taking summer vacation from teaching and others of you are probably going to be teaching as normal through the summer (personally, I’m somewhere in the middle – some students have stayed on and others are taking a summer break).  Nevertheless, I’m sure we are all thinking ahead to the next year of teaching and maybe even already doing some planning.  Well, now you can add this thought to your list! — How can I make the next year of teaching be more like a vacation than a vocation?

Thoughts?  What do YOU do to make your vocation more like your vacation?  How do you deal with discouragement and disappointments as a teacher when they come along?  How do you keep your teaching fresh and fun?  What are some practical ways that you can do differently to make your vocation as a piano teacher more like a vacation all year long?

Photo credit: jonycunha | CC 2.0

General

Music-Related Pet Names

Joy Morin

My husband and I recently rescued a cat (pictured at right)!  We spent a lot of time thinking up a name for her.  I wanted to give her a music related name, but as it turned out, we ended up agreeing to name her “Kira.”  But for any of you who might wish to give your pet a musical name, I’ve compiled a long list of my favorites!

Edit: We adopted a second cat! Guess what: we named her Coda. 🙂 

Pianos

  • Kawai
  • Steinway
  • Story & Clark (cute names for a pair of cats)
  • Mason & Hamlin
  • Schimmel
  • Yamaha
  • Bosendorfer
  • Fazioli

Tempo & Style Markings

improving as a teacher, Studio Business

Building Your Studio: How to Inform Parents About Your Tuition Rates

Joy Morin

When you get a phone call from an parent of a potential student asking about studio information, should you inform potential students of your rates first, or should you tell them about your studio first?

I know a fellow teacher who does not answer the “rates question” – even when specially asked about it – until the end of the phone call, after she has told them about everything her studio offers.  She chooses to emphasize the quality of the music education she offers in her studio before informing the parent of the rates.   Not a bad idea!

Other teachers are very upfront and prefer to tell parents their rates first thing.  There is no harm in either method.  Personally, I am somewhere in the middle.  Unless specifically asked, I save the rates information until the end.  Regardless of where you stand, it’s a good idea to plan in advance how you are going to deal with the “rates question” when the potential student calls.

How do you like to handle the “rates question”?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/publicdomainphotos/ / CC BY 2.0

improving as a teacher, Studio Business

Building Your Studio: Offer Free Trial Lesson, and Have References Ready!

Joy Morin

A few months ago, I received a call from a parent who was looking for lessons for her two daughters.  She was a little reluctant to commit to lessons because of a past experience with another teacher: the teacher was an excellent performer, but unfortunately not as great of a teacher.  I chatted with her for a few minutes and I told her about my studio and my teaching experience.  Then I offered to give her a trial lesson for free, so she could see for herself what my teaching style is like.  She agreed to this, and afterwards, was happy to commit to lessons.  We’ve been continuing ever since.

At her daughter’s lesson this week, the same parent kindly offered (with no request on my part) to be a reference or write a letter of recommendation should I ever need one.  When she said this, I realized that having a reference or two (from other happy parents) ready to give her would have been a another great way for her to learn about my teaching style and personality — and it would have been much more convincing than hearing it from me!

Lessons learned: DO offer a free interview/first lesson, and DO have references ready to give out!  =)

Click here to read ideas for activities to do with the student at the first free trial lesson and click here for some free printables for use during the first trial lesson.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenliveshere/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Performances, Printables

Piano Recital Program Template #1

Joy Morin

 

Today’s free printable is a template of a piano studio recital program, for listing students’ names and pieces.

Just download this Microsoft Word file (.doc), and fill in your students’ information and print!

Click here to view it larger (uneditable).

To download it the .doc file, visit the Printables > Other Resources page and scroll down to “Piano Recital Program Template #1“.

Feel free to edit the document in any way you desire to suite your needs.

Enjoy!

Also see: Piano Recital Program Template #2

Resources, Technology

A Piano with 4 Pedals?!

Joy Morin

Stuart & Sons is a Australian-based company who build hand-crafted pianos.  They are unique pianos for a number of reasons:

What is so special about Stuart & Sons pianos?

  • They have 4 pedals.  The fourth pedal is a second soft pedal, called the dulce pedal.  It brings the hammers’ resting point halfway up to the strings, reducing the intensity of the hammer strike and giving the pianist more control over sound quality and color.
  • They have a “bridge agraffe” string coupling device, which “enables the string when struck by the hammer to vibrate vertically and for a longer duration than in conventional piano designs.”  This allows the piano to have an unusual clarity especially in the low and high registers, and to have better dynamic and sustaining qualities.  Read this article for a more information. January 2018 update: “An Australian applied mathematician, Dr. Bob Anderson, was asked to look at the bridge agraffe. The first thing he noticed was that the equations defining the vibration of strings were deficient in that they did not take not account the changing length and tension of the string throughout each cycle. He won an international award for his revision of the mathematics of vibrating strings. He then showed that the conventional pinning of the strings resulted in elliptical polarisation of the vibrating string. This resulted in a rapid decay, a poor sustain, wasted energy in the string’s ending up vibrating horizontally instead of vertically, and non-harmonic DISTORTION of the note. (Harmonic distortion is fine, non-harmonic distortion is noise).” (credit: Ian Lowery)
  • Stuart & Sons pianos have 97 keys instead of the usual 88.  The outermost keys are both F’s, putting middle C exactly in the middle of keyboard. January 2018 update from Stuart & Sons: “My second point is that the Stuart is now running to 102 notes, and by mid 2018 will be running at 108 notes, which is the limit for the piano. (Any lower is inaudible, although its presence can be FELT. Any higher, the string is too short for the hammer).” (credit: Ian Lowery) Continue reading “A Piano with 4 Pedals?!” →
Group Classes, Memorization, Performances, Printables, Teaching Piano, Worksheets

Just added: Performing at the Piano Worksheet

Joy Morin

Just added: a new free, printable worksheet called:

>  Performing at the Piano Worksheet

Just in time for the spring recital season, this fill-in-the-blank worksheet is intended to help prepare students for an upcoming recital or other performance by discussing stage presence and performance etiquette.

Terms/concepts covered in the worksheet:

  • Memorizing
  • Applause
  • Bowing
  • Checking the bench
  • and more.

This worksheet can either be sent home with students, completed one-on-one with the student during the lesson, or — my favorite — done as a group as a studio class or group lesson.   It would be fun to complete this worksheet as a group just before a practice run-through of a recital.

To download, visit the Printables > Worksheets page and scroll down to the P’s for “Performing at the Piano worksheet.”

Your turn!  Share your ideas for preparing students for recitals in the comments!

Announcements, Group Classes, improving as a teacher, Motivation, Performances, repertoire / methods

Listening and Communicating in 4-Handed Piano Music

Joy Morin

A colleague of mine and I are planning to learn some four-handed piano music this summer, and perhaps do a whole recital together of just four-handed music in the fall semester.  So I’ve been digging around on YouTube, looking for repertoire ideas.  And I have couple of cool videos to share with you today:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omuZF6oaCnw

What a great video to show students!  Everything is so perfectly synchronized, and their playing is so beautifully expressive.  They are AMAZING musicians.

Here’s another fine duo team.  Perhaps the coolest thing about this video, however, is the piano they are playing on: a Pleyel Double Grand Piano!  I’ve never seen anything like it!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYfdB0CvSg

There are some important benefits of playing four-handed repertoire.  Both players must be actively listening and communicating with each other — not only so that they are together beat-wise and so that the melody and accompaniment ideas are balanced, but also so that they are playing musically together: shaping phrases together, executing rubato together, and calling and responding to each other’s melodic motives.  Developing these skills while working on four-handed repertoire can give a whole new perspective to solo piano repertoire!  Besides — working on four-handed music can be a lot of fun!  =)

Watching these videos looks like so much fun, I think I’m going to dig through the duet music on my shelf and find some duet pieces to assign to some of my students to work on over the summer too!

Music Theory, Printables, Worksheets

Just Added: Navigating at the Keyboard Worksheet

Joy Morin

A new free worksheet has just been added to the Printables page: Navigating at the Keyboard.

This worksheet is for young beginners who have only just recently been exposed to piano.  This worksheet is designed to help them become familiar with the layout of the keyboard so that they can locate and identify the keys by name.

This worksheet reinforces:

  • recognizing black-key groups of 2 versus 3
  • finding C on the keyboard
  • the musical alphabet (it only goes to G, and then repeats)
  • then finding D-G on the keyboard

This is an excellent worksheet to send home with a young student after their first piano lesson.  Visit the Printables > Worksheets page and scroll down to the N’s for “Navigating at the Piano worksheet” to view it now!