Helping Fidgety Students Focus with Active Sitting and Stress Balls

I have two students who are extremely fidgety during lessons. At some point, I'm going to have to read the information package I have on Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder to see what other strategies I can use. The following are a few strategies I've come up with along the way.

1. Keep changing the activities every few minutes

2. Keep these students moving from one part of the studio to the other side

3. Make them "play like a rock star" (play standing up)

This active seating disc is good for posture correction and fidgety students. Photo by R-M Arca.

I'm sure other teachers have come up with similar formulae:

• Do some stretches and warm-ups

• Play a scale

• Tweak a scale

• Move to the computer and watch a performance on youtube

• Back to the piano to play a song and tweak it

• Down on the floor to do theory exercises or games

• Make them sit on one of my active sitting discs

This week, I've made a new discovery: combine activities and work with their fidgety nature. While I was demonstrating something on the piano to one student, I made her stand on my Fitterfirst Classic Sit Disc. She loved swaying from side to side and I was astounded to find that she paid attention better.

Another student is not just fidgety but his hands are always moving. This week, I decided to keep his hands busy by having him use a couple of stress balls (from the good ol' dollar store) whenever his hands were off the keys. In addition to that, he sat on my new FitBall Seating Wedge and placed the Classic Sit Disc at his feet.

At first, I thought it was overkill but he moved to the music when he played and continued to move rhythmically in between pieces. I was delighted to see that he focused a bit better (I, in the meantime, was moving rhythmically and practicing active sitting on a FitBall Seating Disc).

On another note, one of my other students asked if he'd be allowed to bring an active sitting disc into his piano exam. Why not? People bring active sitting discs and core stability balls to work in the name of better posture, ergonomics and health. Musicians sit a lot and suffer from back pain, so to me, it's a no-brainer.

If anything, I bet his examiner will be jealous and want his or her own active sitting disc.

Here's a video about active sitting:

All three sitting discs are available at Fitterfirst, located in Calgary.

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada.

Using Video Tutorials in Your Studio, Starring Your Students

In my entry, Piano Pedagogy & Technology Musings, I unveiled my grand plan to create an online audio/visual library for my students to use to assist with their at-home practicing. So far, my students have enjoyed laughing at my How to Sit at the Piano video, in which I use one of Maestro's giant stuffed dogs to demonstrate. Likewise with my Troubleshooting video, which showed that even teachers need to drill trouble spots repeatedly to iron them out. A few of them actually ask, "Can we make a video clip of that?" so they can watch us working on one of their pieces at a later time.

I initially set out to make 12 videos but it looks like there will be at least 15 in all as I or my students get ideas of what else to shoot. However, I am sure that my students don't want to watch just me for all 15, so I've gone recruiting.

If this is something that you're thinking of trying your studio, I highly recommend having your students star in some of your video tutorials. Six students have eagerly stepped up to the plate to date with several more waiting for their turn. One student demonstrated how he practices his memory stations, one shared how she started learning a song in lead sheet form, while four shared stories they made up to go with their pieces. They're finding the whole experience a blast, while I am getting my share of laughs of smiles.

All you need is your digital camera (if it takes video) or a video recorder. Make sure you have at least 4 GB on your SD card (I have 8 GB). As far as movie editing software goes, I've just been using Windows Movie Maker, which has lots of tutorials and help menus. A tripod is a bonus.

As an alternative to posting them on your website, you could burn your videos onto a DVD-R or DVD/RW or share them with your students via memory stick or ftp. Mind you, if you and your students are on Facebook, all you'd have to do is create a group for your studio and post your videos to the group. Of course, there are sites like Youtube and Vimeo.

Next on the horizon are the videos on Outstanding Openings and Fabulous Photo Finishes. I think I'll go recruiting again to get students to demonstrate each of these.

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Music through the Ages Exploration Engages Students

This year, my students are exploring a different genre of music every month. Sometimes, it's a quick study. Sometimes it's just a case of listening to a CD or watching youtube and then discussing the music afterward. My student Namitha calls our exploration, "Music through the Ages". Last month, we explored the Classical period. Their comments on the music were colourful, ranging from "it sounds like someone's being chased" during Beethoven's 5th Symphony to "it sounds happy yet sad" for Mozart's Rondo alla Turk. The intermediate students have started to notice patterns that are similar to their pieces (sonata allegro form, anyone?).

This month, I've fast forwarded the timeline to the present for them to explore pop, rock and country. One student classified Carrie Underwood as "country", while the next day, one classified her as "pop". We listened to a couple of her songs and I asked them to tell me what madeJust a Dream more country than Cowboy Cassanova. A similar scenario happened with Taylor Swift.

(FYI: my students said it was the instrumentation and drum groove used that differentiated the styles).

After listening to The Beatles, I asked my student Tess what she thought of song and the style. "What am I supposed to say?" she asked me.

"The truth," I replied. "Did you like it? Love it? Hate it? Doesn't make you feel anything?"

She discovered that it doesn't make her feel anything and that it's a style she'll probably stay away from.

A few days later, I learned that young Gabe loves the 80s band Journey ("They're just cool!").

That's what it's all about for me, showing them what's out there. I hope by the end of the year, they will have a better idea of just how wide and diverse music is and along the way, find out what they would like to explore further (or avoid like the plague). If their active listening skills improve along the way as we discuss melody, timbre, rhythm, form and texture - all the better!

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Google Docs Makes Music Reports Easy

Two ways that my students can earn bonus points (and thereby Maestro Bucks) through my incentive program is to do a research project or concert report. One of my students, Grant, is pretty technologically savvy and has been using Google Docs to complete and submit his reports.

He simply emails me the link, I print it off to store in my Student Composition and Projects Binder and he gets his bonus points and Maestro Bucks.

Playing Fraction Pies - Help with Rhythm

Hooray! I've been looking for an online game that my students can play to practice their rhythm/fraction recognition. Here's what I found.

David provides a concise breakdown of the pie pieces and then has a game at the bottom of his page.

Happy playing!

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.