Have you checked out About.com online? It has lots of “neighborhoods” featuring information about all sorts of interests, and one of them is music education. Started in 1996, About.com has been run since 2005 by the New York Times company.

The music education site presents information and resources on music theory, history of music, profiles of musicians and composers, online music games, and lesson plans. Every week a newletter is emailed to those who sign up, with links to their articles about specific topics within each of these areas–spotlights on certain performers or composers from various musical genres, lesson plans, a free music resource of the week involving songs, links and downloads; timely series built around, for example, Women’s History Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, and Black History Month. There are ideas about practicing, buying instruments, history timelines, etc.

Apart from the music education site, the larger site, about.com also has “neighborhoods” devoted specifically to folk music, classical, guitar, top 40/pop music, and children’s music. You can also sign up to receive weekly emails with highlights and links for any of these topics.

Nervousness in performance isn’t a bad thing; it’s a way of collecting your energy, like a loaded spring. But anxiety, especially to the point of what some call stagefright, is clearly detrimental.

Below are some of the key suggestions of experts who deal with stagefright anxiety. How do you think teachers can encourage the enjoyment of performing, so that this terrible anxiety doesn’t have a chance to develop? I’ve made my own comments on the experts’ suggestions; please add your comments, too!

1. Practice, be prepared. Feeling prepared is clearly an important way to feel comfortable, and to direct energy into producing good music rather than into fearing mistakes or criticism. And yet there are many angles to practicing. If someone practices so as to play a piece perfectly every time, what happens if there’s a distraction in the performance or an unexpected mistake? Many experts recommend not only practicing the music, but practicing performing, to get a chance to adjust to one’s own thoughts and build confidence while playing for various people. We can give students opportunities to perform in enjoyable surroundings, as discussed in my earlier post. We can also give students confidence that they are prepared even if in small sections at a time. We can help them start small and successfully, with easier pieces done well (though this has to be balanced with giving them music that inspires and challenges them).

2. Relax. Some experts recommend meditation, stretching, breathing. I remember a teacher of mine listening to me play a difficult passage and (more…)

Building confident musicians who enjoy performing their music is as important as, if not more important than, building good technique. What purpose does it serve if students can play well, but don’t enjoy doing it in performance, or get stagefright and other kinds of stress about music?

This is a big topic, so I’m going to address one aspect of it in this post, and continue in other posts. I look forward to your insightful comments; please add them at the bottom. Thanks to those who added such interesting comments to my earlier post, Parental Expectations.

The idea is to identify some key elements for teachers to think about in order to encourage students to enjoy performing. I will also mix in some of the experts’ ideas about how to avoid stagefright. After all, stagefright is, in a way, the flip side of the same question. (See my earlier post, Is Stagefright Taught?)

First of all, we need to think about how to instill confidence and pleasure in the playing of music. (more…)

This is the third and final installment of the “Essentials for the Classical Vocal Library” series. This seems to be a catch all of topics, moving from style and reference resources to performance preparation and finally career development. This installment is particularly useful for the teacher who has budding students interested in doing more serious auditioning and making a go of the music world. Some resources are not books, in particular the career resources, which are online databases for audition searches. If you have used any of these references and have found them helpful, please blog about your experience with them. If you have found another reference equally if not more helpful in any one arena, please list the title below. Thanks for following the series- if you are interested in a series of other singing topics, please list that below as well.
(more…)

Your comments would be great on this one. It’s about the tension between parental expectations and student interest.

For kids to have instrumental music in their lives, they do best with music lessons. But some kids who love music and want to learn it are not ready to focus and dedicate themselves to serious practice. Meanwhile, parents find themselves paying good money for lessons without necessarily seeing their kids practice at home. And there’s the rub! Parents are naturally looking for value for their money, while kids may enjoy lessons but not always do their “homework.” (more…)

For ourselves as musicians, and to help our students, it’s crucial to continually learn how to stay strong and avoid injuries that can keep us from playing music (among other activities).

Here are five areas to be aware of: general health and exercise; muscle movement vs tendon use; rest breaks; varying our positions; and maintaining natural positions. I’ve taken the info below from several sources and thrown in my own observations, along with a few book titles; I hope you find this helpful!

1. Getting general exercise is key to avoiding problems due to your specific musical activities. Certain instruments require unbalanced movements, so it’s very important to your health to (more…)

While a performance student in my bachelor’s and master’s degree, I had access to so many wonderful books, recordings, videos, and music. As a student, I spent considerable time in the music library just listening to my favorite recordings, translating all of my repertoire, and looking for ever challenging music that I would some day sing.

Now as a private teacher, I want my students to have access to the same resources I had, and I want to keep an eye out for the latest in technique and performance preparation writings to keep my teaching fresh and on pointe. I have compiled a list of books that include some of the classic standbys, along with some new literature. In my first article, I will focus on studio management, and technique development. If you are currently teaching voice, and have found a resource that you think is particularly valuable that is not listed here, please post it in the comment box below. The art of singing and the teaching of singing are ever evolving, and so should this list!
(more…)

Practicing and performing music is a very physical activity.  In spite of all the mental and emotional exertion that goes into it, we must always remember how physical it is. 

Below are some thoughts about physical injury from music, and here’s a website link that can give you lots of information about this subject, including practical tips, anatomical information, and a list of excellent books. (more…)

I once saw some buttons which said “I played it better at home” and would love to get some. Anyone know how to find them? It would be fun to give them to students when they say it. Just to show them that the feeling is so common that it’s even on a button!

What teachers do about this comment varies fairly widely. I’ve heard of two basic responses: one is that “I played it better at home” is purely an excuse, that there should be no excuses, and that the teacher should turn a deaf ear to it.

The other response is to view it as an honest wish that they could have played the music as well at their lesson as they had played it at home, that it deserves some empathy because home is more comfortable, without the tension of playing for a critical audience focused on their every movement (and for piano students, playing on a different instrument).

Some take the middle ground, recognizing that (more…)

How we think about musical mistakes has a huge impact on how we practice, how we learn, how we perform.

One student told me that when she makes a mistake, it’s like falling off a bicycle. Another said it’s like finding herself down the wrong path in the woods. Still another says it’s like tripping on a tree root while hiking. Or like hitting the wrong floor button in an elevator.

Or is it like dropping tomato sauce on a white sleeve, or dropping the wrong ingredient in a recipe? Maybe it’s like saying the wrong word in the middle of a speech, or like missing a fly you’re trying to swat.

Choosing a response

Each of these possible ways to think of musical mistakes implies a completely different response. It may well be that each of your students thinks of mistakes a very different way and therefore responds differently to them.

Do you want a student to feel derailed by a mistake and have to start over, hoping to get it right the next time? Or should they catch themselves after tripping and keep hiking?

Is a musical mistake sometimes equivalent to having taken the wrong trail, and if so, do we start over, or go back 20 feet, or do we go back to a meaningful fork in the trail and choose the right path?

If we hit the wrong button on the elevator, are we humiliated, get out and wait for another elevator, or do we hit the correct button without thinking twice? Is making a mistake like a stain we can’t clean, or a wrong ingredient that ruins the flavor of a recipe–or is it a mispronounced word that is forgotten as the flow of ideas moves forward?

The Donut or the Hole?

Some students seem so worried about hitting the wrong note or making a bad sound that they sound like they are tiptoeing through the music, afraid of being mugged by a mistake. Since there are always going to be mistakes, (more…)