The best article in recent memory is Kenneth Saxon’s “The Science . . . → Read More: The Holy Grail of Piano Teaching]]> I suppose it’s about time I said something about sight-reading.  I’ve actually thought a lot about it over the last several years – it’s a hot topic for piano teachers, and plenty of ink and air has been spent on it in magazines and at conferences.

The best article in recent memory is Kenneth Saxon’s “The Science of Sight-Reading” in the June 2009 issue of American Music Teacher.

In addition, I’ve found another excellent article on the subject – sort of.

When I was studying for my teaching certificate for the Texas public schools, I came across a fascinating article from the Texas Education Agency.  It turns out that language arts teachers have much the same problem as music teachers – how to teach students to read fluently.

My favorite paragraph is worth restating here in full:

“Fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success. Therefore, your students should practice rereading aloud texts that are reasonably easy for them – that is, texts containing mostly words that they know or can decode easily. In other words, the texts should be at the students’ independent reading level.”

What does this mean for music?  I started thinking about all the things I’ve been doing wrong.  I’ll list them here in the hopes that other teachers can avoid my mistakes.

1)  I didn’t understand the value of rereading.  I used to treat all reading practice as “playing an unfamiliar piece of music at first sight.”  Granted, that’s a useful skill and an admirable goal, but it’s horribly frustrating for students who have difficulty reading.  It’s like starting with four octave scales, hands together, in 16th notes at mm=144.  We don’t develop technique that way, and we shouldn’t develop reading that way.

2)  I overestimated the difficulty level of appropriate reading material.  Language arts guidelines (based on research) say that fluency is built when a student can read a passage at a 95% success rate; in other words, when they can easily recognize 19 out of every 20 words.  If the material is more difficult than that, the student is apt to become frustrated and gain nothing from the exercise.  This makes sense – would you actually read this blog if you had to look up every 10th word in a dictionary?  Of course not!  And in music, it’s not just a string of words, it’s pitch, rhythm, articulation, dynamics, and the technique required to pull it off!  Remember, asking a student to sight-read something near the level of their performance repertoire would be like me asking you to read the first page of the 1st Boulez sonata.  (Aw, come on, it’s only 14 measures, and the tempo is nice and slow!)

And a final thought – if something isn’t worth rereading, it’s probably not worth reading in the first place.  It’s important to choose high-quality music.  I understand the value of exercises and use them in my teaching – flash cards, note spellers, technique drills and rhythmic reading activities, etc. – but when the time comes to practice actual reading, pick something that’s interesting and exciting.  Last year, I started having my students read through Christopher Norton’s American Popular Piano series.  The pieces are catchy and clever, and they have wonderful duet parts for the teacher.  And seriously, if you make your students read music they don’t really like, then I’m going to come to your house and make you read the 1st Boulez Sonata.

(Okay, I’ll admit it, I actually like the Boulez sonatas.  They have a mysterious, atmospheric beauty to them.  I wouldn’t want to sight-read them, though.  Yikes!)

Monster Puppet – It’s just a puppet.  I stick it on my . . . → Read More: Juggling Balls]]> Responding to Wendy Stevens’ question “What is your favorite gadget or gizmo to use in teaching?” on Facebook today, my response included a Monster Puppet, a scarf, and juggling balls.  There wasn’t quite enough room in the comments section, so I figured I’d elaborate here!

Monster Puppet – It’s just a puppet.  I stick it on my hand and it talks to people.  Most of the time, it watches students play and bites them when they mess up.  Sometimes it bites them just for fun.  Students taste good!

Scarf – It’s a big cheap scarf I got on sale for $6 at Target.  I use it to cover up students hands so that they can’t look down.  It also gets in the way and makes it more difficult to play.  It’s a completely unreasonable handicap, but like I tell my students, if you can play with a scarf covering up your hands and the keyboard, that recital coming up in two weeks is going to be a piece of cake.

Juggling Balls – Mine are like the picture, three beanbag balls that are used by professional jugglers.  (I have two sets, one that’s red/yellow/blue and another set of black & white ones with pianos on them I bought at the gift shop at the Cliburn competition a few years back.)

We use the balls for a little practice game.  The student is given a goal, something like playing a passage with no mistakes, or with the correct rhythm, or with a convincing crescendo.  Then the game proceeds as follows:  I start with all three balls.  If the student plays the passage and achieves the stated goal, they win a ball from me.  If the student plays the passage and fails to achieve the stated goal, I win the ball back.  When they win all 3 balls, they get their prize – I juggle!

What’s perhaps most interesting is how the game almost always proceeds.  By far, the most difficult ball to win is the second.  The first ball is usually easy to win – anybody can get something right by accident once.  The second ball is quite difficult – keeping focused enough to repeat one’s success can be quite a challenge.  The third ball is usually much easier, lending credence to the idea that success breeds success.  The game also promotes self-awareness.  While I serve as the referee, students almost always know immediately whether or not they’re going to win a ball – evidence that they’re listening carefully and focusing on the task at hand.

You can find the sheet in pdf format on my Teaching Materials page.  I made the sheet in Pages, and . . . → Read More: Assignment Sheets]]> A recent discussion at PianoTeaching.com’s Piano Club focused on the different kinds of assignment sheets teachers use for their students.  I thought I’d share mine and say a few words about the kinds of assignments I make.

You can find the sheet in pdf format on my Teaching Materials page.  I made the sheet in Pages, and I type directly into the form in that application.  I create a separate page for each lesson.  At the end of each lesson, I print the sheet out and add it to the student’s binder.  I like doing this because it gives me a quick and easy way of having two copies of the assignment – one for the student and one for me.  I always refer to these when planning lessons to review what was done previously, and if a student ever loses theirs, I can always email a quick copy of it to the parents.

As you might notice – like my flash cards, the assignment sheet is pretty minimal.  This gives me a lot of flexibility in what I write, and it forces me to give clear, concise instructions.

The assignment sheet is only one part of the information a student gets, though.  The assignment sheet is a quick and easy note stating expected goals and giving a few suggestions on practicing.

The assignment sheet usually gives simple instructions and refers to measure numbers in the score.  Examples of things I write are:  ”check rhythm in mm. 30 and 38″ and “bring the tempo of  the B section up to mm=132.”  I don’t put much detail in the assignment sheet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give detailed instructions – for that, we go to the score.  The details are written in the score itself, and often, I’ll have students write their own instructions on the music – fingering, rhythm, legato, etc…

So that’s pretty much it – a few instructions from me on a single piece of paper with a checklist and 3 boxes, and a bunch of markings in the score to highlight the details.

When preparing students for recitals, the challenge is to set them up so that they reach their “peak” at the performance.  If they don’t have enough time to prepare properly, then the final week before the recital is likely to be stressful and unenjoyable (as well as the performance itself!) . . . → Read More: Recital Preparation]]> Here’s the problem:  every student is different.

When preparing students for recitals, the challenge is to set them up so that they reach their “peak” at the performance.  If they don’t have enough time to prepare properly, then the final week before the recital is likely to be stressful and unenjoyable (as well as the performance itself!)  If students have too much time, they can lose interest in their repertoire and not really know what to do when they’re practicing.

Philip to the Rescue!

One thing I find very helpful is the idea of a countdown chart.  Credit for this goes to the amazing Philip Johnston, who has a great article on making countdown charts on his website.  (I also highly recommend his book, The Practice Revolution.)

The hardest part of making a countdown chart is fitting it to the individual student.  Like I said earlier, not all students are the same, so I came up with some guidelines for myself to help students make best use of their time:

1) It All Begins With Repertoire Selection

Choosing repertoire is extremely important.  It needs to be manageable, but challenging enough to hold interest.  It should have pedagogical and motivational value, and it should suit the performance.

2) Don’t Assign Everything at Once

I don’t like assigning multiple pieces at the same time.  I like students to practice in a variety of ways, and if I assign all their recital/festival music at the same time, they spend all their practice time doing the same thing, be it learning notes, capturing the expression, refining, memorizing, etc…

Instead, I assign the more time-consuming repertoire first.  For most students, this is often contrapuntal music or 20th century music – repertoire that contains an unfamiliar element that requires a lot of time and repetition to sink in.  Then a few weeks later, I add the next piece, and so on.  The last piece they’re assigned is something that fits just like a glove – a piece that hits on all their strengths, so that they feel refreshed and empowered going in to the performance.

3) Think in Terms of Hours, not Months

While the Countdown Calendar is a great way for students to think of upcoming performances, as a teacher, I find it more useful to think in terms of a countdown clock.

Consider this – the performance is three months away, and your students have 45 minute lessons.  Of those 45 minutes, about 10 will be spent on warm-up/technique, another 10-20 on method book and theory materials and activities.  That leaves, at best, 25 minutes in each lesson to work on performance repertoire.  12 weeks * 25 minutes = FIVE HOURS.

That’s right, even though the recital is 3 Months away, you only get 5 Hours with your student on repertoire.  And if anybody gets the flu, well…you see how precious the time is!  For students who are good at working independently, this time is less of an issue.  For students who need help every step of the way, those 5 Hours are extremely important.

4) But it’s JULY!

I know, I know.  I’m sitting here writing a post about recital preparation and for many of us, our next recital isn’t until December – but that’s the point.  July is Vacation Month, August is the Beginning of School.  September and October are good working months.  Then November happens – everybody gets tired and Thanksgiving will erase a week of teaching from our schedules.  (Which is not a bad thing – everybody needs a break and I love Turkey!)  Then we’re back, and those December performances are upon us!  (And that’s optimistic, most of my students will do a festival in November – yikes!)

So yes, I’m thinking about it now.  And if I can choose some great repertoire and formulate a solid game plan, this Fall’s performances will be a success!