Practicing & Playlists

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 6 months 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 1 year ago
• adding expression, automatic, automaticity, competence, control the events, controlling the events, creating awareness, CTE, deliberate practice, expression, expressive playing, fast playing, flexibility, getting student to slow down, knowing, learning slowly, memory muscle, mindfulness, muscle memory, musical expression, Neil Moore, neurology, playing fast vs slow, playing slowly, playing speed, playing too fast, playing with expression, practicing slowly, psychology, self expression, slow practice, slow-steady-musical-even, slowing down, speed of learning, tempo, thoughtlessness

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 1 year ago
• anxiety, anxious, anxious student, autism, autism spectrum, autistic, autistic student, autistic students, beginning notes, beginning song, breaking things down, calm, control the events, controlling the events, CTE, dosage, dose, doses, first notes, fragmenting, fragments, getting student to slow down, home use of practice pads, Laurie Richards, microdose, mindfulness, on the spectrum, opening notes, performance anxiety, practice pad, practice pads, relax, single thought process, single thought processes, slowing down, small doses, smaller dose, smaller doses, special needs, spectrum, starting notes, starting positions, starting song, STP, student anxiety, students on the spectrum, stutter, stuttering, teaching special needs, trouble starting song, using practice pads

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 2 years ago
• accountability, checking in, holding students accountable, importance of playlist, Laurie Richards, LAWOL, learning a new way of learning, learning a way of learning, managing playlist, managing the playlist, marking, Playlist, playlist check, playlist review, repertoire, repertoire review, responsibility, review, review ideas, reviewing, using playlist

I was remembering something I used to do with my elem general music students in school. They would sing a song and when I held up my hand, they kept singing it internally. When my hand came down, they would continue singing where the song…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• enhancing practice, inner hearing, lesson ideas, practice, practice ideas, practicing, review ideas, singing, singing along, singing while playing, teaching ideas

What creative ways do you use to get students to slow down? I don’t know any creative ways, I just resort to tapping a slow beat, and getting them to play along to the audio slow version. I wonder if it is a stage they…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• audio, control the events, controlling the events, CTE, events, getting student to slow down, Gordon Harvey, learning slowly, mindfulness, piano event, piano events, play along, playing along with audio, playing fast vs slow, playing slowly, playing speed, playing too fast, playing with audio tracks, practicing slowly, slow-steady-musical-even, slowing down, speed of learning, SSME, using audio recordings, using audio tracks, using the audio recordings to learn songs

Playlist Time in a Development Student Lesson – I have five students at these levels. By this time they are old hands at pruning, choosing what’s in, whats’ out, making sure they have their one hour of playing materiel etc. My question is to what…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• adding expression, development, development classes, Development Levels, Development Program, dropping songs off playlist, evaluating playlist, expression, Gordon Harvey, managing playlist, managing the playlist, musical expression, playing with expression, Playlist, playlist check, playlist management, playlist review, repertoire, repertoire review

I tried a little something this morning in my group lesson that worked well. We’re in F4 and to review the play list, we did a round robin STARTING WITH ME and only playing the first phrase. It seemed to give them some security to…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• demo, demonstrating, demonstration, group, group lesson, groups, Laurie Richards, managing groups, managing shared lessons, online groups, round robin, shared lesson, shared lesson ideas, shared lesson management, shared lessons, shared lessons management, teaching groups, tips

My 7-year-old student and her Dad showed up today with these lyrics they wrote for Night Storm with plenty of copies for all, so all day my groups sang it. A little late for Halloween week but if you have students tomorrow have some fun…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• changing lyrics, creating lyrics, Halloween, lyrics, making lyrics, making up lyrics, Night Storm

I personally have experienced the power of a casual question, like “Did you write any music this week?” Last week one of my students casually asked me, “Are we going to have any songs for Halloween?” When I started looking for songs, I didn’t come…

• Last updated 2 years ago
• changing lyrics, Chester, chester chills out, creating lyrics, Dog, Dreams in Dm, dreams on d, Dreams variation on d, Halloween, lyrics, making lyrics, making up lyrics, Night Storm, She'll Be Comin, writing lyrics