This is one of the really successful music camp activities we’ve done this summer. During our Let’s Get Creative Camp, the students all made music creativity journals. For basic journals, you can use school composition notebooks found at the local drug store or school/office supplies store. They have a solid cardboard cover that is easy to cover with varied pieces of scrap booking papers and decorations. I chose to use card stock for the covers, with various lined, blank and music manuscript papers for the insides. I have a binding machine, which makes it easy to put together booklets with whatever filler paper you desire. They can also be taken to a copy store and bound for a small fee. After the journals were completed, the students used them to write and illustrate on of each:
- Poem
- Silly Song (lyrics set to melody)
- Simple Instrumental Composition (for piano, drum or other instruments using standard notation)
- Lead Sheet (notated melody with chord symbols, like you find in a “fake” book, for a nursery song or other simple song)
- Lyric Song Chart (lyrics with chord symbol above to indicate chord changes)
- and…last but not least…
“My Big Event” Improvisation Game -
(Learning how to organize music while having fun improvising!)
Here’s how it went:
1 ~ We started out by writing a title at the top of one of the blank unlined pages in their journal. This title was determined by answering this simple question, “What favorite thing did you do this summer?” Some of my students’ titles were: “Sea World”, “At the Fair” and “The Big Swim Meet”.
2 ~ Next, the students were asked to draw three big circles on their page, and illustrate each, depicting three different scenes from their “Big Adventure”. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Performing, Teaching Tips
Have you ever wanted to record a student’s performance prior to a recital, or a difficult passage that the student needs to work on, but lacked the equipment or knowledge to do so? I would like to share the ways in which I use recordings in my studio, and the very accessible and simple equipment that I use to produce recordings. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Performing, Teaching Tips, Using Music Teacher's Helper
To start this off, I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed being an author on this blog for the past year and a half and the wonderful people I have met, as well as the beneficial information I have learned as well. This will be my last article on Music Teacher’s Helper, as I’m getting ready to have my 2nd baby here quite soon, and am starting my hiatus.
As I’ve been contemplating what topic to cover for this last article, it occurred to me while teaching, that it might be beneficial to talk about how I’ve integrated my home studio into my music lessons, and how it has affected my students for the better.
As well as being a music teacher, I’m also a composer/recording artist and so I have a studio in my home. Many parents and students have asked me “Why do you need two keyboards?” or “How do you record all of that right here?”, as well as many other curious questions pertaining to what goes into recording music from a home studio. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Teaching Tips
When did you last sit down at your instrument and improvise a piece of music? I find it a great way to boost my creative energy. Were you even encouraged to do that as a student? I know I wasn’t. My job, growing up, was to play my scales, pieces, studies, and sight-reading with impeccable fidelity to the required text and technique, and then to close the piano lid when it was time for dinner. Anything else was considered ‘playing around’, and was strongly discouraged.
These days, fortunately, children who learn instruments generally feel a lot freer to play and to improvise at their instrument, and we can learn a lot from them. What do they do when they sit at the piano? Experiment with sounds and colors? Enjoy the feeling of flapping their hands up and down on the notes? Stick to the extreme ends of the keyboard?
As a piano teacher, I often begin by improvising around a simple chord sequence, and inviting the student to create a melody. If they’re shy, I set a tempo and suggest they play only whole notes to start with. When they begin to become more confident, I move to half notes and then quarter notes, before encouraging them to start to create a more inventive rhythm. What works particularly well is to play in F sharp major and let the student know that playing just on the black notes will work fine. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Performing, Practicing, Teaching Tips
Evidence that great minds DO think alike: after spending time drafting my next blog about summer camps, I logged in to my MTH account and wouldn’t you know–the very creative Christine Schumann had already posted a blog about summer options! I contemplated scrapping my draft and finding a new topic. However, I decided this could be my “response” to Christine’s timely topic. So…
By mid May, I, along with my students, suffer from spring fever with symptoms including motivation deprivation, practice burnout, lesson absentia, routine-o-phobia.
Nothing has remedied this spring fever more successfully in my studio than offering summer camps. Every student is required to attend a camp or take at least 5 private lessons during June-July or they may register for both.
Following the suggestions of experienced teachers regarding materials, fees, format, etc, I began offering summer camps as an option for my students two years ago. The first year I offered Creation Camp and last year I offered Creation Camp along with Discovery Camp, Invention Camp and Theory Boot Camp. Below are brief descriptions of each camp including materials used. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music Theory, Promoting Your Studio, Teaching Tips
As I ponder my blog entry today, I’m in the process of scheduling new monthly jam sessions for my students!
In the past, as a summer workshop, Keyboard Jam proved to be very successful in stretching the students abilities, as well as giving them experience and enthusiasm for playing with other musicians! Have you read Nate Shaw’s two most recent articles on this very blog site? (If not, I hope that you will! I have added the links at the bottom of this article!) Nate has some great ideas that I am definitely going to implement into my studio jam sessions, private lessons and recitals!
All of my students will be invited (pianists, singer, other instrumentalists). As the jam sessions become a huge hit, I will use them as an incentive, and extend invitation first to top practicers, best scales for the month, etc. All of the students will have fun creating music together, and learning how musicians work and play together. It works best to have separate sessions if you have a large variance in ages and level of students. We will use the grand piano, a few keyboards, hand drums, shakers, my electric bass, and any other instruments that show up with the students. There are so many different directions a class like this can take, but here’s a session plan that I have found to work extremely well! Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Performing, Practicing, Teaching Tips
‘Tis the season of winter holiday recitals. One more activity for the student stuffed in between a myriad of others that they are required to partake in. Some years back I decided I was tired of the traditional model of recital; ie. students and parents sit quietly in a recital hall while each student gets up and performs their solo piece, nervous and under a spot light, lasting all of 2 minutes each before everyone claps politely. The beginning students and many of the intermediate and advanced as well look a bit shell shocked when they finish (regardless of how the performance went) and it happens much too fast for them to truly digest the magnitude of the moment. I decided this model of recital was through. No fun for anyone involved (parents included) and it did not truly celebrate all of the hard work the students had completed. Time for a change!
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Performing, Promoting Your Studio
Need curriculum for teaching the creative stuff? Have favorite resources to share?
- Over the next few months, I’d love your help in compiling a list of resources for teaching music creativity. My own experience has been that it is difficult to find adequate materials in the areas of improvisation and composition curricula, and I would love to know about resources you use to inspire your students in their music creativity! I will share some of my favorites. As you can see, many of them are my own, developed for use in my own teaching and then published for others. They have been successful! But, I would really value your suggestions as well! Please add your favorites by comment, and I will amend the list as we go!
Here’s just a start…as I am on vacation as I write this, so I may be able to add more upon returning to my studio after the New Year!
Resources for Music Creativity –
Places to Start, and Were to Find Them
Imagery and Stories
Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (all levels) – Amazon
Crazy Staves by C. Schumann (beg/int) – Piacere Music
Flip for Improvisation “Jr” and “Original” (beg/int) by C. Schumann – Piacere Music
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music Theory, Performing, Practicing, Product Reviews, Teaching Tips
daily observations “classical music insights” Charles Noble is the Assistant principal violist of the Oregon Symphony. He blogs about his experiences with the orchestra, as well as his deep love of good coffee. Follow Charles on Twitter.
Dial “M” for Musicology “Music, Musicology, and Related Matters.” “This is a musicology group blog that features the prose stylings of Jonathan Bellman (University of Northern Colorado) and Phil Ford (Indiana University Jacobs School of Music). It is a place for us to work ideas out publicly in what is still, for our field, a somewhat new medium. We are members of the American Musicological Society, but our views are entirely our own and should not be taken as representative of the AMS or any other academic organization. “Dial ‘M’ for Musicology” is an academic blog, but it wants to be friends with everyone. Welcome to all critics, musicians, bedroom air-guitarists, louche aesthetes, prickly autodidacts, and random passers-by!” There are also several new contributors who have joined the fold. Often thought-provoking and always interesting, this is a great place to find things to think about. 4-8 posts monthly.
dramma per musica “My name is Bob Kingston. I’m a librarian, free-lance musicologist, lapsed bass-baritone, and self-professed opera fanatic living in Portland, Oregon. I give all of the pre-performance talks for the Portland Opera, and I also lead music history classes for the company’s Studio Artists. I love collecting historic vocal recordings, and I often use examples of these in my classes and presentations. So, don’t be surprised if I post a clip of some obscure Russian tenor or Italian baritone from time to time.” 4-12 posts monthly. I enjoy Bob’s tweets immensely. Follow Bob on Twitter. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Music News, Music Theory, Performing, Practicing, Press, Promoting Your Studio
As the year draws to a close, most studios will be turning their attention to tax time. But there’s a lot more you should do before turning the page to 2010. You’re already reviewing your books and crunching the numbers to get ready for next year. It’s the perfect time to do a little checkup on where your business has been and where it’s going. Remember the old adage: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Here is a checklist of important things you should do before closing out the business year. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Teaching Tips
