Piano Teacher in the home studio or a Music School?

Most piano students will do private piano lessons in the home studio of an established piano teacher or at a music school, for example a school, academy or conservatory (this term is more widely used in Quebec, more restrictive in Ontario).  Just to point out, in North America most students will do piano lessons in the piano teacher's home studio or a music school setting, whereas in Hong Kong, it is more common to go to music institute or music school operated as business establishment.  In New York, because parents are too busy working on Wall Street to take their kids to lessons, I have a friend who is a piano teacher on wheels (actually she travels by subway) who teaches at the students' home, with the nanny!


Here is a list of music schools in the area I wanted to mention about. Some of them are recommended by my colleagues at work, others from graduates or transfer students. In your search for the best piano teacher, I urge you to consider all options and be very selective with your search. Choosing the best piano teacher is the most important decision you will make for your child's musical eduation and future advancement.

HOME STUDIO
Some piano teachers are very selective. If they have a very full and active studio, there may be only a specific age or playing level they are looking for in a prospective student to fill a spot, if any.  You may be invited to an interview. As a parent, take this as an opportunity to interview the teacher! Visit the teacher and even observe a lesson if possible. Discuss your musical goals and ambitions for your child. The teacher should also have a series of interview-like questions for you and your child and do not be surprised if your child is required to play something on the spot. You may be lucky to receive a free impromptu lesson the spot.  Look for the musical qualifications such as minimum Grade 8 RCM piano; a Music Degree in Pedagogy or Performance and/or  ARCT Teachers Certification would be even better. Look for years of experience, manner of approaching technical diffulties, patience, how she deals with her own children, command of language, studio setup and just an overall gut feeling. If and when you get to the discussion on payment, expect to pay the tuition up front for the year, in post dated on the first of every month or quarterly.


CONSERVATORY
Conservatoire de Alymer/ Conservatoire de Hull/ Quebec belong to the same government program, offering free piano lessons to residents of Quebec, if the children meet the audition and admission requirements.  It is a very competitive admission process to this prestigious school.  I have a friend named Ruth (age 25) who did her piano lessons at the Conservatoire de Alymer from age 5 until she recently graduated and now she's doing her Masters in Piano Performance in New York City. She just came back to Ottawa on the weekend to play at the NAC to sub for a piano solo for the Mamma Mia pianist, her first professional gig at the NAC!

Macey Conservatory of Music 819-682-8888 http://www.conservatoire.ca/ Offering lessons in piano, violin, singing, guitar,drums etc. They offer instrument rentals and a free six week music discovery program before a child chooses an instrument. The rates seem to be $25 per half hour.

As previously mentioned, the word Conservatory may appear to be widely and broadly used in Quebec. In the USA, the Conservatory level is equated to the post-secondary institution level. In the rest of Canada, you'll hear about the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) which is a national school of national-wide standarized exams and repertoire; or the Canada National Conservatory of Music (CNCM). You'll have to be your own judge what is a true "Conservatory".


MUSIC SCHOOLS
Sonart Musique in Alymer, www.sonartmusique.com 819-557-0776 All the instructors have music degrees, owner Vincent Boudreault is a frequent judge at CEGEP en Spectacle and they have good ties with the Conservatoire in Hull.



The Ottawa Music Academy on Conroy Rd. My friend used to be a part-time piano teacher there; she's a professional financial analysts in the federal goverment (not a music major) but she was still very qualified to teach private piano lessons. She felt that the tuition rates were reasonable but the payment for the teacher was not.  I also have two transfer students who played beginners piano there for two years. Although their mother felt that the piano teachers were young high-school/ university age students and junior quality, I have to point out that they did a fairly good job teaching the kids. A strong foundation in listening, rhythm, tone and touch.

The Long and McQuade music store on Alta Vista @ Bank has music school. I have an older former piano student in high school who moved her lessons there because it was closer to her high school and she could work the schedule better with her part time job and sports etc.  I buy my music materials for my studio from this music store because they have a wide selection, the staff is friendly and they offer me a piano teacher discount on books!


The Yamaha Music School on Bank street offers private and group lessons too. About 10 years ago I took piano lessons there too because I was preparing for piano teacher exams and I needed a teacher too.

RATES
The going rate for piano lessons truly varies for the wide spectrum of teachers qualifications and the demographics for the city. I would say that the starting rate for a high school student just starting to teach piano is probably about $15 for half hour lessons.  Advertised in an expensive newspaper ad for a music teacher in Ottawa offering private lessons at the studio or student's home, $25 for half hour or $40 for an hour.  My own teacher with over 30 years of experience and teaching at the advanced levels but claiming to no rate hikes for years, charging $45 for one hour lessons.  My friend teaching piano in New York, the one traveling to the suburbs by subway, charges $90 per hour.

PIANO LESSONS AT SCHOOL

At my daughter's school and many others in the public school board, they have a program offering group, semi-private or private piano lessons after school hours to the children ages 6 and up - 30 minutes/ week for 32 weeks.  The fees are $365 for group class, semi-private cls is $499 and the individual instruction is $799. The contact information http://www.ocdsb.ca/Continuweb or http://www.artsforkidsatocdsb.com/ 613-239-2747

The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) also has a program called "Music Therapy" sponsored in part by Long and MacQuade. I don't know the details about how the course is run or which patients qualify for the lessons and how it is funded, but it sounded like something that might be on a volunteer basis perhaps.

Ways to Sparkle or Fizzle at Piano Exams

I am currently preparing a small handful students for piano exams in the upcoming Winter 2012 Session for the Royal Conservatory of Music.  I also attended a teacher training workshop and one of the topics focused on piano exam preparation. I decided to transform my notes into a list and added a few of my own ideas into two categories I'm referring to as Sparklers and Fizzlers. This is a collection of ideas on how to sparkle or not sparkle at your next piano exam.


How to Sparkle
1) Teachers believe in your student; student believe in yourself. Temper this with realistic expectations.
2) Provide a good edition. Urtext is not always the best fit for all pieces; be sure to find an edition that has useful fingering and not too much editing.
3) Focus on the concepts, context, musical relationships and technic. When teaching, make comparisons with other works, use contrast, comment on the style of the period and character.  The student workbooks provide good insight.
4) Teachers demonstrate colourful sound, describe the tone production. These could include arm weight, round out the wrist.
5) Develop the Music Skills early in the year (Technique, Sight Reading, Interval Naming, Melody Playback, Rhythm Clapback combined, accounts for more marks than Repertoire).
6) Build a performance in gradual steps. Learn the individual sections but join them, don't practise the mistakes!

Ways to Fizzle or Lose Marks!
1) Student has weak basic skills (intervals, melody playback, rhythm counting etc)
2) The performance pieces are still in the learning stage with unncessary skips and disturbances to the flow; imprecise rhythm, lack of right-left hand balance, unsteady tempo.
3) The music piece is at the wrong level based on the student's ability and maturity
4) Student did not adequately prepare the requirements. For example the Sonata performance requires Movement 1 and 2 but the student only prepared the first; otherwise, the last pages missing from a rondo.
5) Inappropriate repertoire choice. Stick to the list, or go through the proper procedure for the substitution approval.
6) Lack of stylistic variation
7) Lack of structual awareness and dynamic range
8) Insufficient control of touch, unstantial tone, misplaced accents and bumps in the melodic line. The effect is a beat by beat playing.
9) The tempo is too slow and breathless, ignoring rests and accelerating.
10) Shy or insecure student succumb to nerves.


* The list was compiled from my notes at the RCM Teacher Professional Development Seminar presented by Dr. Hahn

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.

Teaching Note Reading

I have a couple of transfer students who play with such joy and ease; they love the songs in the beginner books they've been working on with the previous teacher since last school year; they seem to feel sad about finishing the book and moving on. However, I quickly identified the underlying reason; the note reading skills needed to be ramped up a bit to keep up with the playing level. While teaching my student Teapot Invention in RCM Grade 1, I discovered that she was actually playing the song by copying the melody, phrasing and staccato from hearing and watching me play it. This is confirmed, because she was not looking at the book at all, it is a brand new song and yet she complained, "Sorry I can't remember how to play it". (Of course not, it's still new :)

Of course this whole scenario reinforces the whole idea that some young children learn to play alot better from hearing the song and learning by heart without note-reading. However to reach the next level we want to achieve, some serious intervention is required.

YELLOWCAT

The student is a model student for the Yellowcat method to teach the note reading, hand placement and maintain playing skills at the highest level. Find out more about Yellowcat at http://www.yellowcatpublishing.com/ and http://www.ycmused.com/ Here is the plan for the next four lessons.

Lesson 1

• Musicland Story Chapter 1
• Identify the Caves and Castles, Worksheet
• Introduce Yellow Cat, Purple Dragon, Green Elf
• Play: Cat Dragon Elf, Elf Dragon Cat

Lesson 2

• Musicland Story Chapter 2
• Introduce the Blue Fairy, Red Giant, Orange Albert and Brown Beethoven.
• If they're ready, go to Bass Clef Notes and Treble Clef Notes
• Halloween Hairy Scary Spider
• If we're ready for sharps and flats, Halloween Lullaby

* Remember that the student already has a background in note reading, but appears to have trouble reading "fast enough" to play a song.

Lesson 3

• Talk about Blue Fairy Flight Rules: Note Key Finger
• Use Dragon Paw starter pages
• Selections from Notebook for Mozart

Lesson 4

• Review Blue Fairy Flight Rules: Note Key Finger
• Use Dragon Paw starter pages
• Identify songs printed from Yellowcat music sheets; music notes will still be printed in colour except for C's because "Cat turns black" in the Grand Piano Book.

I have an older beginner, he was 14 when he started beginners piano.  He plays very well and reads quickly now in traditional printed music, but we first started with Yellowcat.  One time we used standard black and white flash cards for note reading; he wanted to say "Blue Fairy" for F or whatever notes we were quizzing on.  Very cute. I told him, "That's ok you can say Blue Fairy if that helps you remember it better." The more important thing is to play "Blue Fairy" on the piano and have the brain make that connection with the finger placement.

Happy Birthday Dr Suzuki!

Today is Dr. Suzuki’s birthday! Born on October 17, 1898, he spent the better part of his nearly century-long life helping the world to realize the amazing potential that is poised waiting to be unleashed in every human being.

Suzuki training courses (supported by the Suzuki Association of the Americas) not only grounded me in a positive core philosophy but it also gave me a “toolbox” of communication and teaching strategies that I draw upon every day. If you have a moment, please watch this video and show your support!


http://suzukiassociation.org/giving/community/

Solfege Singing

Everyone is quite familiar with the song Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music, classic movie with Julie Andrews. The use of these syllables to correspond to fixed pitches on the piano beginning on the C is called Solfege.  In English, the key signature of a piece is given in a letter name of the scale or mode; in French the Solfege is used.

Many music students from around the world who have teachers familiar with the music theory teaching strategies found in Music Mind Games may be learning another catchy tune called "Daily Do".

Here is an amazing video of children singing "Daily Do" in Syndey, Australia with Michiko Yurko creator of MMG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N7U9xqHmvk

I was wondering myself why it was part of the program to sing "Daily Do" in the lesson, and studying the structure of the piece makes it obvious.

"Daily Do" trains the ability to sing:
1. a Major triad
2. a minor triad
3. the intervals in a Major scale
4. a minor scale
5. a minor triad
and naturally relates the major scale to the relative minor scale.

Solfege singing is great for ear training, especially to learn music aurally by hearing pitches, intervals, melodies, chords and rhythms.  More advanced music skills built from knowledge of Solfege include music transcription (or copying), harmonizing and improvization, and even composition.

There are many other songs, even simple nursery songs for children that are sung to solfege and curwen hand signs. In my daughter's music class, her teacher likes to sing a song called Blue Bird, begins on Sol.

"Here comes the blue bird, in through my window.
Hey diddle dumb day day day."

Another favorite that my son likes to sing too, also beginning on Sol.

"Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't very, fuzzy wuzzy"


NEVER TOO EARLY TO LEARN

Even as a young toddler, barely 16 months my daughter would love to sing Do Re Mi. I would start with singing Do, and she'd just immediately follow with RAY (and a smile). Then I'd say Mi, and she'd repeat MEE, and I say Fa, VA. And of course I'd finish with Sol (she doesn't say SO, 'k that's it mom, I'm bored). But it just gets me everytime, it's so cool! Unfortunately I don't have perfect pitch myself so I'm always checking on the piano that I'm actually singing a "C". So wicked!  -My baby journal dated Aug 22 2008

What are the benefits of Piano Exams

When you have something to work for, you work a lot harder. You make a commitment to yourself. You practise because you have set an objective.

I found a Royal Conservatory of Music handout at a piano store that described the benefits of piano exams for the "triangle" of Student, Teacher and Parent.

To Students

• motivation
• commitment to practise
• performance experience
• pride of accomplishment
• high school credits
• certificates and awards
• personal growth

To the Teacher

• an excellent curriculum
• high pedagogical standards
• wide choice of repertoire and study pieces at level
• standardized assessment of student's achievements

To parents

• a balanced course of study
• a high standard of evaluation
• internationally recognized certificates
• valuable experience for the children
• development of self discipline
• objective assessment of child's accomplishment