One of my piano parents inquired what makes music lessons so attractive to university faculties such as medicine and engineering. In the 1990s, Lewis Thomas, a physician and biologist conducted a study on undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. Of all successful applicants, 66% of them were music majors.
Getting Inspiration from Other Composers
One of the highlights of Monday's Calgary ARMTA Annual General Meeting was the lecture-recital by Canadian composer David McIntyre. I enjoyed hearing about what inspired him to write some of his works. For instance, he said that his work Better Days for solo piano was initially "Bitter Days" - written on a bad day. Another was nicknamed "Chuga" because of the rhythm.
Practice Tip: Playing along with a CD
I recently ordered Bleach the Best CD through amazon.com. A courier dropped it off during this morning's piano lessons. As soon as I ushered my day students out the door, I set the CD to Houki Boshi- the song I'm doing for the APTA Festival.
Sight Reading Tips
Busy week - three posts from me. I've had to do some research for students so I have lots of information to share this week. A while back, one of my beginner students (and her dad) asked me why we had to work on sight reading (playing something you haven't seen before). The easy answer? It makes you a better musician.
Overcoming Stage Fright - Second Movement
"This week, I want you to practice performing." My students have been hearing me say this throughout the week, in preparation for my studio's winter recital on Sunday. We only have one shot on stage to weave our magic for the audience. Many musicians can attest to nailing their songs in the practice room, only to have everything fall apart on stage.
The secret is to practice performing. One must play through the song(s) in a performance setting, where you can get that heart pounding, feel the weight of all eyes on you and play through distractions. Some tricks I've learned along the way:
perform often: the more you perform, the more used you get to the stress and the easier it gets
cajole your family and friends to be a guinea pig audience - have them be a model audience one time and a disruptive one the next run-through
know your repertoire really well
visualization: visualize the setting, yourself playing well, yourself successfully navigating through a stumble, memory glitch
breathing techniques
put Maestro to work: Sometimes, I allow Maestro to provide distractions for the students to perform through. His favourite techniques include surrounding the student with toys, hopping on the bench and singing along.
Here are some cool articles on performance anxiety/jitters:
Happy reading! (c) 2007 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.