Practicing & Playlists

I think sometimes students do mindless repetition for practice without breaking it down in such a way that the brain retains the piece. I had a student today who struggles with remembering her pieces so we just slowly went through a series of questions and…

• Last updated 3 months ago
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Please read this post with the mindset that a student is playing too fast and you CAN’T slow them down they are great students and they totally on board for the long term relationship they don’t have any other problems other than slowing down (…

• Last updated 1 year ago
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A new adult student with a small amount of previous experience told me that it’s hard for her to watch her hands because she took a beginning piano class in college with a teacher who insisted that students never look at their hands and would…

• Last updated 1 year ago
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I have an adult student asking if there’s anyway to slow down the audio songs in order to play along with them. She’s in Level 6 and would love to play along with the Gaz, and others but esp. the Gaz. Maybe something corp. adds…

• Last updated 1 year ago
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Here is something that every one of my students have above their pianos. Obviously if your students are in the lower foundations, intervals, counting would not be needed but I find it a great tool to help remind them what boxes need to be ticked.…

• Last updated 1 year ago
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Metaphor I came up with today while coaching a student, expanding on the notion of working slowly to learn quickly. Student wasn’t speaking instructions. I reminded. Student resisted, said it’s harder. I said, you know what? You’re right. It’s harder to do two things at…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• control the events, controlling the events, CTE, external speaker, external speakers, fast playing, getting student to slow down, how fast to move, how quickly students learn, learning pace, learning slowly, learning strategies, learning tools and strategies, pace, pace of learning, playing fast vs slow, playing slowly, playing speed, playing too fast, playing-based strategies, practicing slowly, resistant students, slow practice, slow-steady-musical-even, slowing down, speaking instructions out loud, speed of learning, speed of progress, strategies, student processing and resisting approach, students moving quickly, students speed of progress, tools and strategies

Funny sometimes the things that we need to teach/share with our students. This week we talked about performing without ‘giving away’ the fact that you had a stumble. After the conversation, one of my students played “Sit by My Side” with some imperfections BUT didn’t…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• errors, handling mistakes, improvise through mistakes, keep going through mistakes, mistakes, playing through mistakes

I’m curious about the psychology behind the brain’s ability to increase the speed of muscle memory (play a song faster), but its struggle to decrease the speed of the same task. Anyone? Not an expert neurological answer, but: Speed comes with familiarity and comfort. Slowness…

• Last updated 3 years ago
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Looking for some advice…I have student who stutters everytime he starts to play. He’ll replay his starting note numerous times before finally getting into the song. Once he gets going, he plays well. But if there’s a break in his playing, or the start of…

• Last updated 3 years ago
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Here is another playlist dilemma. Most of my students use their playlist pretty diligently however I have a 15 year old who just doesn’t. She won’t use the materials (CD, notes, DVD) plays by ear, doesn’t practice a great deal but most of the time…

• Last updated 3 years ago
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