Music Listening 101

My Pre-Twinkle Level Suzuki students have a daily listening assignmeng, to listen to their Suzuki Book 1 CD everyday.  I even gave out a colouring sheet with 100 stars so they could colour in a star for every day of music listening to achieve the "100 Days of Twinkle Little Star Listening" Award.  Dr. Kataoka also recommends that piano teachers listen to quality piano music as well, lest they start sounding like their own students. I read somewhere that she recommends Rubenstein; I like his playing for the rich, buttery tone so smooth.

I`d like to write about active listening to other great piano performers from throughout the ages. I attended a Royal Conservatory of Music Teacher Professional Development Seminar today and one of the excercises we did as a group as part of the Pedagogy Session presented by Dr Christopher Hahn was the Ìnspiration Through Recorded Performance listening excercise. He played recordings of selections from RCM repertoire (Grade 9 to ARCT Levels) and we had to identify the name of the composer, the name of the work (with opus, K, Hob, BWV number etc), the name of the pianist and describe some outstanding features. Here is a synopsis.

1. Bach Invention No 1 in C Major, played by Angela Hewitt
Outstanding features: Clear voicing, precise tempo, sparkling clarity. Hear the imitation in the voices, driving rhythm, nuance in the structure.

2. Bach Prelude in D BWV 850, played by Wilhelm Kempf
Outstanding features: He is best known for playing Beethoven and Schubert. Precise bass line like a sewing machine, yet fast feathery light and continuity in the right hand. The left hand pulse is secure, dance-like and lyrical.

3. Haydn, Sonata in C Major hob 1560 3rd Movement, played by Lang Lang
Oustanding features:  Animated, dynamic contrast, untamed, exciting and dramatic. It reminded me of background music to an animated cartoon, a deer darting about in and out of the forest.

4. Beethoven, Sonata in G minor opus 49 no 1, played by Glenn Gould age 20
Outstanding features: clear melody, LH supportive, discreet, long phrasing, lyrical and very melancholy. Makes your heart ache a little bit.

5. Schumann, Scenes from Childhood, Countries and Far Away Places, played by Benhold Mosievich
Outstanding features; slow and controlled, hesitation, robato like. The classic way of performing with the LH slightly preceding the right hand. A singing melody and rolling accompaniment.

6. Shumann, Scenes from Childhood, Countries and Far Away Places, played by Fanny Davis, 1861 - 1934. She was a student of Clara Schumann, often described as a wild woman yet when she played many would describe her as the spectre of Clara Schumann, playing with discipline and assertiveness.
Outstanding features: a bit confused texture,  triplet rhythms are odd and inconsistent, non-sentimental and robotic. Perhaps we were too enamoured with the previous performance and interpretation.

7. Clementi, Sonatina in G op xx no 2, played by a 6 year old prodigy
It was very cheerful, but we had to be forgiving of the slowing down for the trill and the hammering three repeated quarter note motif when we discovered his age.

I really like this format of active listening and the group discussion. My notes are taken from the collective collaboration. Perhaps I could engage this type of excercise at the next masterclass; we could listen to a recorded performance or discuss the performance live by the students present.

The Parent's Notebook

The supervising parent needs to take good notes during the child's lesson; especially to write down
1) The practise assignment
2) Specific details in remembering how to play and listen for the perfect natural tone
3) The fingering

Hint: For advanced notetaking, listen very carefully to identify the main Teaching Point of the lesson. (It could be something like a Stengthening the pinky tone, Light wrist staccato, High bounce staccato, Listening for tone geration and attenuation) The teacher is supposed to work on delivering a one point lesson (though sometimes it is hard to focus on that ONE thing).

Just a reminder that at the piano lesson, the teacher is teaching HOW to play piano, the skills and technique to play piano.  That is more important than the repertoire or how many songs someone could learn in the shortest time. Repertoire is learned at home by listening to the CD, by practising with the correct fingering. It is never a race.

Future topic: Practising vs Just Playing Piano

Lesson3: Flight Training

Hey Parents!
MUSICBYTES 31. Lesson overview2. Homework3. Yellowcat Publishing website4. Free piano5. Dress up for next lesson!

OVERVIEW"Flight Training with Blue Fairy". See Chapter 4 in the storybook, blue pages. Learn the Flight Rules: Note, Key Finger (NKF)
Which note is on the music sheet?
Which key is it on the piano?
Which finger should I use?

We started with a game of CAT Bingo to review the note values. I was quite impressed that the kids could recognize a whole note, half note and pick out the dot to make three beats. Plus the eighth note pairs and quarter notes. They're good at picking out the Caves and Castles, and also Cat, Dragon and Giant etc on the coloured keyboard I have for the Musicland Game.

HOME ASSIGNMENT
1) Trace the child's hands on the back of the book and date it. LabelUP hand for the right hand and DOWN for the left hand. Number thefingers 1 for thumb through to 5 for pinky. Sing the song, "Where isThumpkin" and wiggle the fingers.

2) Keep playing "Pancakes" on the two black key caves, and "PumpkinPie" on the three black key castles. Practice this as a structured activity. For free play, let them play any combination of black keysonly (it may sound "Chinese").* Remember to keep the hand in a gentle formation, like you're holdinga soap bubble. The little finger joints shall be strong.

3) Practise the song Flying High in the activity book, blue pages.Follow the instructions, perhaps an adult could play the other songsin the section too following the characters in the story.. This is an intro to note reading.

4) Review the Blue Fairy Flight Rules - NKF (see above).

YELLOWCAT PUBLISHING
http://www.yellowcatpublishing.com/product_details.cfm?id=36&cid=5 Yan had asked me about the Musicland Keyboard game we were playing. Here it is online from the Yellowcat store. If you are interested inthat or anything else, perhaps you can let me know and we can do agroup order because shipping from the USA is very expensive.

FREE PIANO
My co-worker is offering his 100 year old Heintzman piano, includingfree delivery (really?). I have some reservations about older pianos,but I haven't seen this one, and Heintzman is supposed to be a goodCanadian built brand. It is an upright piano. Please let me know ifyou are interested or if you know someone who is, ASAP. He got it forfree so he wanted to give it for free too.

DRESSUP
It's October 27 but maybe the kids will enjoy a bit of dressup astheir favorite musicland character, even if it is not in the exactcolour. For example, if I can convince Maggie to dressup as agreen/Purple Dragon or Red Giant ladybug, that would be cute.

Please remember to bring the Activity Book and Trace and Play book.
Deborah