Moonlight Sonata
I love this because many people get the chance to participate in playing Beethoven's well-loved work.
I love this because many people get the chance to participate in playing Beethoven's well-loved work.
Once students understand why practicing is necessary and how to get motivated to do it, students need to know what to do during a practice session. Many students take for granted that if they just play their pieces over and over that's enough to get better. This is never enough to bring a piece to performance level. Here are a few ideas to get a new student started practicing in a better way:
It's been a whole week since I've posted! I'm working on several posts, but none are ready quite yet. Here's my latest video to tide you over.
This song is a gem by Irving Berlin from 1921. Early recordings of "All By Myself" were by Aileen Stanley and Earnest Hare, but it's been recorded by many others including Ella Fitzgerald. It had a resurgence in popularity in the late 1940s when Bing Crosby sang it in the film Blue Skies.
Here's a little tin pan alley tune I recorded a few weeks ago. It's "For Me and My Gal" Music by George W. Meyer, words by Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz, written in 1917. I hope you enjoy it! For more ukulele tunes see my Youtube channel.
Good friend, colleague, excellent teacher, and director of Musical Beginnings (where I teach most of my students), Linda, has a blog where she has posts on why to practice and tips on how to get students to practice.
Getting students to practice regularly is one of the biggest challenges of teaching music. It generally boils down to making it a priority. Here are a few Practicing Tips from Linda:
· Stack the deck with loaded choices such as “Can you help me with these dishes or were you about to go practice?” or “I’d like you to fold the laundry, unless you were on your way to practice…?”
· A sticker chart, that old stand-by, works well with younger children. The concept of sitting down to practice 5 Steps Up today so they can know how to play a Mozart sonata in many tomorrows may be too abstract to motivate them. The knowledge that they’ll get to pick a sparkly sticker and that five stickers equals a trip to the park isn’t.
· A no-screen-time rule until practicing has been done.
Part of getting students to practice is understanding why it is necessary. From Linda's Why to Practice post:
…rarely does a child stop music lessons because they just couldn’t abide their 20-minute-a-day practice regimen. Mostly they stop because they so seldom sit down to practice that they’re not learning to play, and so it gradually becomes less important to both them and their parents. And, the vast majority of our advanced students throughout the years have had a practice routine dictated to them, at least at the beginning...
For more excellent advice and insight, visit Teacher Linda Talks.