Hey all,
This is a quick post...(I know my posts are kindof longish- working on that!)
I am teaching one of my students the song "We Are Young," which I know is quite popular right now. I'm teaching him from the sheet music, but we first starting out listening to the original song and seeing if he could pick out the notes by ear. It's a hard skill to learn, so thankfully there are people who do these tutorials for all types of songs. Enjoy!
"We Are Young" Piano Tutorial
Marianthe
Piano Teacher Girl
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
And with that, we look to Rio 2016!
As many of you know, the Olympics came to a close this Sunday. I was able to catch some of the Olympic events, unfortunately not everything that I'm interested in, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I did get to see the entire Trampoline competition, which was really awesome. The truth is, I don't even own a TV, so unless I was visiting a friend that had a TV or was in a bar, I couldn't really catch much of the coverage. But anyways, sad sob story for my lack of a TV aside (I only miss it SOMETIMES, like when there's a show on that I like, or every night when the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are on - *sigh*) the Olympics still made me think a lot about my own experience growing up with sports and music lessons.
I have a few students who are very involved with multiple activities. At certain ages, this seems to be more common for obvious reasons, i.e. kids start to get more coordinated as they get older, and obviously gain more interests in things. When I was growing up, I don't recall that there was quite the same emphasis placed on multiple concurrent athletic activities. I wanted to swim because my older brother swam, but that really was the only sport I could focus on at one time because it required every day practice. Correction, I believe I begged my parents to let me swim, seeing how much of a seemingly fun involvement my brother had with his team. Sadly, I didn't quite click with the girls on the team (maybe because I was a really shy dorky girl? I don't really know) so my experience being on a team didn't quite match my brother's. I did join the cross country team in high school, and that seemed to be the place for me, where many of my friends were already involved, and it was exactly the type of experience I was trying to get when I was a swimmer, but was always lacking.
My point (yes, there's a point!) is that while I watched the Olympics, it made me think about the choices people make as to what to focus on intently in life. It seems that many of my students are spread thin with school, various sports, sometimes another instrument, and my piano lessons on top of it all. Sometimes I feel guilty piling on an activity during the week, because maybe piano just isn't really a priority. But if there is something that you want to be good at, it needs to be a priority. Once any of the Olympic athletes showed any prowess and interest in an activity, that became their passion and their priority in life, and many other things probably had to fall by the way side. Not because other activities are less important, but because one needs to decide whether they want to be a Jack-of-all-trades and a Master-of-none, or an aspiring Olympic athlete, aspiring concert pianist, or an aspiring [insert one activity] ....... something.
I imagine this is how my parents thought, that maybe it would be best to focus on piano because that's what I showed the best promise in, while I had to beg to be put into swimming, something that I was ok in but would never be great. Or maybe it's because I grew up in small town of 17,000 and one activity was really all you could get. I'm writing this while smiling because, it all works out in the end. Michael Phelps gets to be Michael Phelps, and Gustavo Dudamel gets to be "the dude".....and they'll never have to compete with each other because they only wanted to be the best at their one thing, their passion. Now all I have to do is explain that to a 9-year old.....
I have a few students who are very involved with multiple activities. At certain ages, this seems to be more common for obvious reasons, i.e. kids start to get more coordinated as they get older, and obviously gain more interests in things. When I was growing up, I don't recall that there was quite the same emphasis placed on multiple concurrent athletic activities. I wanted to swim because my older brother swam, but that really was the only sport I could focus on at one time because it required every day practice. Correction, I believe I begged my parents to let me swim, seeing how much of a seemingly fun involvement my brother had with his team. Sadly, I didn't quite click with the girls on the team (maybe because I was a really shy dorky girl? I don't really know) so my experience being on a team didn't quite match my brother's. I did join the cross country team in high school, and that seemed to be the place for me, where many of my friends were already involved, and it was exactly the type of experience I was trying to get when I was a swimmer, but was always lacking.
My point (yes, there's a point!) is that while I watched the Olympics, it made me think about the choices people make as to what to focus on intently in life. It seems that many of my students are spread thin with school, various sports, sometimes another instrument, and my piano lessons on top of it all. Sometimes I feel guilty piling on an activity during the week, because maybe piano just isn't really a priority. But if there is something that you want to be good at, it needs to be a priority. Once any of the Olympic athletes showed any prowess and interest in an activity, that became their passion and their priority in life, and many other things probably had to fall by the way side. Not because other activities are less important, but because one needs to decide whether they want to be a Jack-of-all-trades and a Master-of-none, or an aspiring Olympic athlete, aspiring concert pianist, or an aspiring [insert one activity] ....... something.
I imagine this is how my parents thought, that maybe it would be best to focus on piano because that's what I showed the best promise in, while I had to beg to be put into swimming, something that I was ok in but would never be great. Or maybe it's because I grew up in small town of 17,000 and one activity was really all you could get. I'm writing this while smiling because, it all works out in the end. Michael Phelps gets to be Michael Phelps, and Gustavo Dudamel gets to be "the dude".....and they'll never have to compete with each other because they only wanted to be the best at their one thing, their passion. Now all I have to do is explain that to a 9-year old.....
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Another tip!
In general, I wouldn't consider myself a super affectionate person. I'm not cold, but I definitely refrain from being overly huggy and touchy with people, even with friends that I've known for years. Guess that's just one of my quirks! For the longest time, I also refrained from being even remotely affectionate with my students....it's just not my thing. But having taught young kids for several years, I've learned a couple things. One, little kids are rather friendly and affectionate naturally. Two, I've come to realize, especially with little boy students, a simple touch on the back can help to reel them back into what's going on in the lesson. It seems like as adults, we've lost the permission to do this, because we've been trained in other ways to maintain attention for our conversations, work, and tasks. But this is a whole other topic altogether. From these observations, I've learned that being a bit physically engaged with a student can be very helpful. For one, oftentimes if I'm trying to explain how a student should place their fingers on the keys, sometimes explaining is not enough. It's best to just help their little hands out and place their fingers where they need to be. And two, engaging in this type connection can also help in another way. For example, when a student has a tough time feeling the tempo (which happens a lot, tempo and rhythm might be the hardest things for students to feel innately), I have noticed that this technique can really help their understanding how to play in tempo. For one student who understands rhythm, but sometimes has a tough time feeling it, I tried tapping her shoulder while she was playing. I had tried other things before that but thought that since rhythm and tempo is something that we feel more than think about, it would make sense to communicate the tempo in a way that her body could feel versus having it explained verbally to her. Well, after tapping the tempo on her shoulder while playing a piece, she made a huge improvement in understanding how to play according to the beat I was giving her. I told her dad about the technique and suggested he could also try it, and the following week he told me that it worked when he tried it as well. This just goes to show, sometimes its a good idea to break out of one's box and not be afraid to try new things, as well as get that human connection back....sometimes it yields great results! Happy Piano-ing!
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