More Summertime Practice Ideas

You may be thinking, "Summertime practicing? But summer vacation has just started." True enough, and we music teachers hope to enjoy the summer break just as much as our students.

All we ask is that you don't forget about your musical instrument. After all, you've spend the entire school year studying and practicing - most of you on your parents' dime. You don't want to forget everything you've learned.

I've noticed that if you don't practice music for two months, it takes at least two months to get back to where you left off. One year, I was away on a work-term and didn't have ready access to a piano for six months. That was my first year working towards my ARCT Diploma. It took between six to eight months to get back into shape!

The following articles have some good ideas on how to set up summer practicing goals and a music practice plan for the summer:

Summer practice plan, with the goal of 50 times

There is a Cure for Summertime Blues...Play Music!

Bigfoot, Ogopogo and Summer Piano Practicing has good ideas for music students and teachers. Finally, A Guide to Great Home Music Practice has some good general tips.

Music Practicing Tip - The Random Spot Drill

For many music students around the world, this is a really tense time. There are only weeks before their music exam.

If you're preparing for a music exam, chances are your parents and your music teacher are telling you that you need to practice more, etc. etc.

This month, I'm checking to see how secure my students' repertoire is by using the Random Spot Drill. Really, it's as it sounds. You walk by the piano, sit down and try to play one of your pieces from anywhere. Well, from any memory station, that is.

If you're in the middle of your practice, try it for about a minute. Try playing the intro of one piece, the middle of another and the end of a third piece. OK, that's not really random, but you can make it random by trying any of the following:

• Scribble out bar numbers onto slips of paper and put them in a jar or hat. Then number your pieces. Draw one slip to choose a piece and another to tell you which bar to start from.

• Ask a family member in another room to pick a number from 1 and X (the last bar of your piece).

• Get a random number generator app and have it choose your bar numbers.

• Close your eyes and move a finger randomly on the score. When it stops, that's where you start.

• Roll dice

• Spin the Bottle

The idea behind the drill is to see how quickly you can get into the groove of that piece. After all, you never know when a distraction will occur. It could cause a blip. To keep you and your audience on track, you need to get back into the groove with as few missed beats as possible.

What to Have in Your Technique Toolbox

My friend and colleague, LaDona Ahenda has published a comprehensive series on "In the Technique Toolbox". She takes a look at several books and methods, grouped by level.

In the Technique Box (Part 1): Beginner & Elementary

In the Technique Box (Part 2): Intermediate

In the Technique Box (Part 3): Advanced

Are we surprised that most of them are on the Popular Hand Exercises For Piano Book List? Please, tell me that you weren't.

DVD Review - The Music Instinct: Science & Song

"One of the last frontiers is the human brain," said Robert J. Zatorre, neuroscientist at McGill University. "Music serves as a gateway to understanding human cognition." Zatorre and Daniel Levitin teamed up with colleagues from around the world to unravel the secrets of the brain in The Music Instinct: Science & Song.

Also featured in this PBS Network DVD documentary are physicist Brian Greene, neuroscientists Lawrence Parsons and Jamshed Bharucha, archeologists Steven Mithen and Nicholas Conard, ethnomusicologist Kay K. Shelemay, researchers Sheila C. Woodward, Kathleen Wermke and Tom Fritz, psychologist John Sloboda, neurologists Gottfried Schlaug, Oliver Sacks and Tom Cicoria, neurobiologist Aniruddh Patel and author Steven Pinker.

Musicians interviewed include singer Bobby McFerrin, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim, British rockers Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, blind pianist Hwaen Ch'uqi and Lebanese singer Christiane Karam.

Cutting Edge Technology Reveals How Music Affects the Brain

With Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) and PET technology, scientists can track blood flow and brain activity when subjects are listening to music, improvising, composing and collaborating. This helps them map various areas of the brain that are used.

In The Music Instinct, scientists discovered that the body is a barometer of our musical response to music. When listening to frightening music, our body responds by exhibiting the "flight or fight" response. When we listen to music we like, dopamine, the neurotransmitter for pleasure, is released. A recent discovery is that multiple areas of the brain are involved in processing music.

Music Teaches Us about the Brain, the Brain Teaches Us Music

"If you look at music performance, there's no activity that we do that allows the brain to do so many things at once, with such a complicated coordination and at such depth," said Parsons. His team discovered brain activity is higher when performing in collaboration versus performing solo. Playing an instrument engages the brain more than just listening to music.

"Music - probably one of the most distinctive characteristics of humans," said Mithen, who set out to discover how this compulsion for musicality evolved. He traveled to Germany, where Conard showed him an ivory flute from the Ice Age. The ancient artifacts found seem to indicate that music was as much a part of their life as it is now and that they used a similar scale in their music.

Woodward and Wermke found that babies can hear sound within their mother's womb and that they prefer consonance. Wermke learned that babies cry using melodic intervals, commonly using a perfect fifth, major and minor third and perfect fourth.

Both found that children of deaf parents performed similarly. This is significant as children of deaf parents were subject to less sound stimulation in the womb.

Is Music Universal?

Researchers learned that there are three intervals that are most common worldwide: the perfect fifth, perfect fourth and the perfect octave (the third is next). Ethnomusicologists also found that art music and lullabies from around the world possess common traits.

One interesting study showed the Mafa tribe in Africa. This civilization is far removed from modern technology and Western music. Researchers asked the Mafa to listen to musical excerpts from around the world and identify each as being "happy", "sad" or "scary". Their response was identical to people from Western cultures.

However, Shelemay warns viewers against claims of anything being "universal" in music. "Conceptions vary," she said.

Neurologists and other scientists found that playing music with a strong pulse helps patients with Parkinson's Disease learn to walk again. They also discovered that music helps stroke patients improve their speech and motor skills. Music that mimics the sound of a mother's heartbeat soothes premature babies, while it helps slow down the progress of dementia.

A Well Done Piece that Leaves Viewers with More Questions

Will this take away the mystery of music for you or whet your appetite for more information? Watch it and decide for yourself.

This PBS documentary features an impressive team of scientists and musicians. However, as the team admits, they face challenges and controversies moving forward. Are music and language two sides of the same coin or can they be separated? How much of what we know is learned and how much is "music instinct"? Does music move us or do the memories we attach to a song move us?

To find out more about Daniel Levitin's studies on science and music, visit Why Music Moves Us, Why Do People Sing?, DanielLevitin's website and The Music Instinct on PBS.

If you haven't figured it out yet: goose bumps come from the brain.

Release Date: 2009

Running Time: 120 minutes

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Director: Elena Mannes

Executive Producers: Elena Mannes & Margaret Smilow

Special Features: 12 additional interviews and performances

Where to buy The Music Instinct:

Originally published on Suite101.com on December 19, 2009. Updated April 2, 2013. All rights reserved by Rhona-Mae Arca.

Where to Find Free Piano Music Online

A look at Free Art License, as well as various websites that legally offer free piano sheet music of anime, classical, video game, pop, and rock songs.

Numerous websites offer free sheet music for piano. However, tracking down a suitable arrangement legally sometimes requires a bit of digging.

Free sheet music that is legal falls under the Free Art License, which "grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform creative works without infringing the author's rights." Works in the public domain, as well as arrangements and transcriptions posted by the arranger to be downloaded for free fall under this category.

Once the intellectual property rights on a work have expired, they become part of the public domain. These works are copyright-free and can be printed, copied, distributed, and modified.

An arrangement is a music score of a piece that a musician has done by hand or with music notation software. It includes his or her own editorial markings or it is set to a style or instrumentation that differs from the original version.

A transcription is not the same as a reproduction. To make a transcription, a musician picks out the melody and harmonies of a song by ear and then writes out the notation by hand or with the aid of music notation software.

The following are some websites that offer free printable piano sheet music:

Free Anime Sheet Music and Video Game Music Online

Josh's Anime Sheet Music Collection boasts an extensive collection of anime and video game music transcriptions and links to other websites with fan transcriptions. Theme songs from popular anime such as Bleach, Naruto, and K-On! are available. Difficulty level ranges from intermediate to advanced.

Ichigos has one of the largest collections online of free video game and anime sheet music. Theme songs from popular anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Melancholy of Harurhi Suzumiya, and Clannad, as well as music from popular video games such as The Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy are available.The difficulty level of the sheet music varies from low intermediate to upper intermediate.

Free Classical Sheet Music On the Internet

Music-Scores contains over 500 pieces of classical sheet music. There are arrangements for piano, violin, woodwinds, and more. The site features music by the greats like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Mozart. The level of difficulty is listed with each piece. Members have access to more music scores than non-members.

The Sheet Music Archive has over 5000 works that are in the public domain. Classical sheet music by famous composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Chopin are included in this library. Visitors can download up to two works a day for free. Subscribers have unlimited downloads.

The International Music Score Library Project (IMSP), otherwise known as the Petrucci Music Library, contains an extensive collection of public domain music. Sheet music, as well as recordings are available. It contains over 234, 000 scores and 23, 000 recordings.

Websites With Free Piano Sheet Music in a Variety of Styles

Easy Sheet Music houses around 500 songs for piano. Music is listed in five categories: Music from Around the World, Popular Classics, Boogie & Blues, Opera Classics, and Mission - Not That Difficult. Non-members are limited to three free downloads per day, while subscribers get unlimited downloads.

Free Piano Music! contains approximately 100 pieces of classical, popular, and Christmas songs. The pieces are ordered by level of difficulty, from beginner to intermediate. Midi files are also available for educational purposes.

Sibelius Music - Score Exchange has a wide range of printable sheet music, including classical, Christian, Christmas, historical, jazz, pop/rock, educational, and original works. The site contains music for piano, voice, guitar, strings, and ensembles. Although there are many free music titles, there are some available for purchase.

For further suggestions, read Finding Free Sheet Music and Christian Sheet Music Websites.

Things to Watch Out for When Downloading Free Printable Piano Sheet Music

There are three things to watch out for when searching for free sheet music online: illegal scans of copyrighted scores, poor transcriptions, or editions:

A fan making his or her own transcription or arrangement is legal. However, scanning a copyrighted work is illegal. Musicians should inspect the score carefully. Fuzzy quality is a sign of photocopying or scanning. A transcription is genuine when "Transcribed by" or "Arranged by" is part of the text.

Some music was originally written for an ensemble to be performed by a computer. An anime theme song that requires the right hand to play a chord that spans three octaves is just not "piano friendly." The musician must modify the transcription to avoid musician injury. Music students should consult with their music teacher if they require assistance.

With regards to classical music, it is wise to consult and compare several editions as edition quality varies. Students taking a piano exam should use an edition that is approved by the music conservatory conducting the piano examination.

Downloading an arrangement, transcription, or copyright-free work are three ways to legally obtain free printable piano sheet music. Good transcribers and arrangers are able to make their arrangement "piano friendly." Fans who wish to download free piano sheet music should be cognizant of the difficulty level of the arrangement and look for signs that a transcription is legitimate.

Originally published on Suite101.com on June 16, 2010. Updated April 16, 2013. All rights reserved by Rhona-Mae Arca.