This education blog shares various horizons of music in order to promote sustainable development of music education. Being devoted to music education for 19 years, Carol Ng has established her private studio at Adelaide, South Australia with an examination-standard Yamaha grand piano. In addition, Carol is keen on enlightening the next generation and advocating continuous advancement of music industry.
心理學中有名的“耶克斯·多德森”定律指出,動機強度與工作效率的關係呈倒“ U ”形,也就是說動機太弱,內驅力激發不起來,工作效率就不高;相反,動機太強,超過了一定的限度,工作效率反而越來越低。在大多數情況下,演奏中斷情況的出現是演奏者精神過於集中或突然高度集中所導致的。許多演奏者在舞台上會突然想起平時練琴時沒有想過的問題,比如左手下一個音該是什麼? 主題下一次出現在哪一個聲部? 這裡要不要踩踏板等等,這時演奏者思想過度集中,處處小心翼翼,生怕彈錯,導致了鋼琴演奏者註意力的控制失調,影響手指的運動和音樂的表達,從而影響鋼琴演奏的連貫性和準確性。
Date:17 Jan, 2016 (Sunday)
Time:9:30AM
Venue:Recital Hall, Hong Kong City Hall
Familiarize contesters with the competition by performing at one of the frequently used venues
Play on one of the official grand pianos of the competition
Obtain a second opinion from a professional adjudicator
Tips shared by adjudicator
Each performer will be presented a certificate
This year, Mr Kent Lee, a graduate of the Trinity College of Music, London, director of Hong Kong Association for Music Educators and the conductor of Hong Kong Wind Symphony, will offer valuable tips to our little performers.
Most of my readers probably don’t know that I teach piano. I like to call myself a writer, but in truth I’m a lot of things. And one of those things is a piano teacher. I don't have a teacher's license, and therefore can't be called a "professional piano teacher," but for some reason people still seek me out (without me advertising) to teach their children music. I love to share what I know about music, and teaching kids (and adults) how to play the piano has a lot of rewards. Of course, I’ve been burned out several times before, and I know that teaching piano can be difficult.
Teaching piano doesn’t need to be all that difficult though. There are some things that you need to remember, that you need to keep telling yourself, if you ever want to see success from teaching piano. I’ve gathered from the harvest of my mistakes and deficiencies, and what I’ve reaped is a little experience. We all learn from our mistakes. So, here is what you need to have if you want to teach piano successfully.
Music for Little Mozarts is a good series to teach very young children
Music for Little Mozarts: Lesson Book 1
Imagination
When I say you need imagination, I don’t mean that you should become Peter Pan and fly away. Imagination means the ability to see outside of the box. When teaching piano, there will be many opportunities for you to get trapped in a ditch, the ditch of one-way thinking. Teaching requires at least two people: the teacher and the student. You need the imagination to reach out to the student where he or she is. Sometimes you might need to put the book away and just tell a story.
Knowledge
Obviously, if you want to teach piano, you need to know how to actually play the piano. If you are an experienced pianist, you might need to refresh yourself on the basics of playing before you start to teach. Remind yourself about the order of learning. Before you are able read a book, you learn how to recognize the letters. In piano, before you can play a masterpiece, you need to learn the basics of piano, from fingers to keys to notes.
Patience
Teaching anything takes patience, but teaching piano takes an extra measure. There will be times when little Jimmy will be more interested in kicking the bottom of the bench than in putting all five of his fingers in perfectly curved order. There will be times when Mrs. Jennings will want to talk more about her twenty-five amazing grandchildren than about how tempo relates to expression. There will be times, and you will need to breathe deeply, smile, and say what you need to say over and over again. Patience is a hard-earned virtue, not something you’re born with.
Optimism
You need to think positively when you teach piano. There is always a sunny side to look at; you just need to find it. Sometimes your student will get discouraged if he can’t accomplish something new right away. You need to encourage him, and help him to try harder. If your student is depressed that he can’t play a certain phrase without stumbling, praise how good his posture is or how wonderful the rest of the piece went or how great his determination is.
I have used the John W. Schaum series to teach elementary and middle school children
John W. Schaum Piano Course: Pre-A : The Green Book
Time
Teaching piano takes a lot of time and effort. There is no easy way to do it. Take time to prepare yourself before each lesson, reading up on what you are going to teach. Each lesson will be same amount of time, but the rate of speed can alter a great deal. Sometimes a student will surprise you and speed through a lesson. Other times, you will need to take slow time to teach a student one small principle. Take the time to make it work.
Organization
One of the hardest parts of being a piano teacher is getting organized. Organization is very important however if you want to be successful. If you teach from home, make sure your piano studio is clean. If you travel to your students' homes, make sure you are punctual. Keep your schedule written down, not in your head. Keep track of how much people owe you.
Professionalism
Never forget that you are the teacher. You are the one in authority. Yes, you can be friends with your students. In fact, I encourage you to do so. But never let the student take over the lesson. In a sense, you need to have your hands on the steering wheel at all times. Treat yourself with respect. If you do not act like a teacher who knows what he or she is doing, the student will not listen to you or respect you. Be professional in the way you act.
Kindness
Kindness is key. Your attitude changes the whole atmosphere of a piano lesson. Be sure to smile, to let your student know that you are on his side. There are teachers that hold to a law of structure and boundaries. Structure and boundaries have their place, but if a student is so scared that he is uncomfortable, he won’t enjoy learning to play piano. And if he doesn’t enjoy learning to play piano, he won’t enjoy playing piano and another musical soul is lost.
Teaching piano is like teaching a new language, only instead of words and sentences, there are notes and symbols and lines. As with learning a new language, it may be take music students a long time to be able to read notes proficiently. Remembering notes, or note recognition, is a very important skill for a student to gain, but it can often be a struggle for the beginner student to feel comfortable and confident in this skill. My fellow hubber zanin has asked me for some tips to help her son remember his musical notes, and I hope to give some helpful suggestions for parents and teachers to use when teaching piano.
From the Beginning
Note recognition training should start from lesson one. Basic principles can be taught from the beginning, such as the differences between quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes. I use flashcards that demonstrate how these notes can go up or down the keyboard - they look like they are going uphill or downhill. At this point, when the student looks at a simple piece of music, he should be able to see which direction on the keyboard the notes are moving. Ask him if they are going up the keyboard (to the right) or down the keyboard (to the left).
The piano student should also start to learn the letter names of the physical keys. Start with A and have your student spell up the alphabet until he reaches G. Explain that the musical alphabet stops at G and starts over at A again. The student should begin to see the pattern that the black and white keys make. Have him find all the A's on the keyboard, then all the B's, etc. Point out Middle C, which will be the starting point in learning to play piano.
Your piano student also needs to learn the finger numbers. Thumbs are Number 1, index fingers are Number 2, and so on. Once the student is introduced to note images, letter names on keys, and finger numbers, he is ready to begin to read music.
Middle C
Middle C
Show your student Middle C on the keyboard and Middle C on a sheet of music or a flashcard. Point out the little line that cuts it in half. Once the student is able to recognize and play Middle C, he can move on to D and E as played with the right hand. The next notes to learn are B and A as played with the left hand. From there add the notes F and G in the left hand and F and G in the right hand. Let your student become comfortable reading these notes before you move on to the rest of the notes on the staff.
Acronyms
On the musical Grand Staff, every line and space is a certain note that corresponds to the keyboard. The easiest way to remember which line and space is which note is to memorize acronyms. If you notice on the staff imaged below, there are two separate sets of lines and spaces. The top set is known as the treble clef, and the bottom set is known as the bass clef.
On the treble clef, the notes of the spaces spell out F-A-C-E. The lines of the treble clef have the notes E-G-B-D-F. The most popular acronym for memorizing the lines of the treble clef is: Every Good Boy Does Fine. Of course, the student can make up his own acronym with the letters - the important thing is to remember the letters in the proper order.
On the bass clef, the notes of the spaces are A-C-E-G, which have the acronym:All Cows Eat Grass. Another acronym that you could use is: All Cars Eat Gas. The notes for the lines of the bass clef are G-B-D-F-A. The acronym for this is: GoodBoys Do Fine Always. This can be easily confused with Every Good Boy DoesFine however, so an alternate acronym may work better.
Labeling Notes
In the beginning, the student will have a hard time looking at a note on the page and recognizing which letter it represents. I try to bridge the gap by labeling the notes in pencil on the first pages of the piano book. I do this with the student, having him or her think through the acronyms to figure out which letter I should write down. Eventually, the student should be able to see a note in the music and recognize the letter quickly. It is easy, however, for the student to become dependent on the letter labels. For this reason, letter labels shouldn't be used for too long - just long enough for the student to feel more confident in reading music.
Alfred's Basic Piano Library Flash Cards Levels 1A-1B
Flashcards
One time-tested resource for training a student's mind in memory is using flashcards. These can be a helpful tool that allows the student to look away from the music book for a little while. Flashcards can be purchased online or printed off of websites. You can also make your own using colorful 3x5 index cards. Having a single note on each card separates the image for the student, and over time he or she will be able to recognize the picture and the note name at the same time.
Key Stickers (Ez Play Today)
Keyboard Stickers
I know from personal experience that keyboard stickers can be extremely helpful for a beginner student in remembering the letter names of the keys. Of course, this is probably better if you have an electronic keyboard as opposed to a shiny grand piano, as I can't promise that the stickers won't leave marks on the keys.
Music for Little Mozarts: Lesson Book 1
Curriculum
A good curriculum is important in providing a good foundation for the beginner student. I recommend the Alfred's Basic Piano Course, because it moves at a good pace for elementary aged children. For younger students under the age of six, I would recommend Alfred's Music for Little Mozarts series.
In Conclusion
As with most worthwhile things in life, note recognition takes a lot of time and practice to perfect. Spending extra time in practice and repetitive drills (such as flash cards) will help your student get over this hill and into the wonderful world of music.