Help Maestro Become a "Canada's Stuck on Band-Aid" Superstar

Family, friends and students are familiar with Maestro's singing talents. This summer, my little Lakeland Terrier is set to conquer the world: Maestro and I entered Canada's Stuck on BAND-AID(r) Brand Jingle Contest at Taste of Calgary.

Check out Maestro singing the BAND-AID(r) jingle on command and more impressively - stopping on command (a friend in the background did the choral gesture to stop). Feel free to share the link with family, friends and coworkers via email and all the social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to come back to the video starting August 31 to vote for Maestro!

Many thanks!

(c) 2010 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Useful Music Websites

A great big thank you to my teaching colleagues on LinkedIn for sharing their favorite music websites:

Children's Music Workshop: Music Education Online
Play Piano Today - a look at Pattern Play Piano
Music Learning Community
Susan Paradis' Piano Teaching Resources

Enjoy!

(c) 2010 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Singer in a Band Workshop Musings

There is a proverb that says, "To teach is to learn." To grow, music teachers must find ways to further their own music education.

 There are several professional development opportunities for music teachers. By exploring these options for continuing education, music educators can rejuvenate and develop their own musicianship.

As some of you know, I took singing lessons as my learning project for 2009/10. I've sung for years in choirs, but last spring was the first time I have ever sung a solo in public. It's a completely different ballgame. With piano, the performer faces his or her instrument. However, when singing, looking at the audience (or towards the audience) is critical to engaging them. If you cringe because of a missed note or lyrics, not only is it visible, but cringing affects tone.

My vocal coach, Sherry Kennedy, convinced me to take the Singer in a Band workshop she ran last week. Shortly after the singing workshop began, I thought, "What on earth was I thinking? Why did I pick two songs I don't know very well? Why did I pick a song in Spanish?"

Over three days, Sherry, along with my piano teacher Derek Stoll, worked with us eight adults taking the workshop. We had a such a diverse group, including two professional "shampoo bottle" singers and one singer who's had an up and down relationship with singing for several years. There were two piano teachers, myself and my friend and colleague Melodie Archer.

We went through breathing and stance ad nauseum. Many of us needed to "open up", so Sherry stuck foam rollers under our arms (those quickly became light sabers).

As a pianist, nay, as a VRK pianist, I found it especially challenging to have Derek play an intro and for me to just know how the correct notes should sound without me playing the note on the piano was difficult. Another challenge I faced was how to make each song my own so that I didn't sound like Consuelo Velasquez or Stevie Wonder.

Memorizing lyrics was a challenge for all of us however, we all pulled through. The nice thing about singing jazz is that if you forget the lyrics, you can simply scat your way out of a potential mess.

 All things considering, it was a wonderful night. All eight of us delivered our best performances. Our success can be attributed to several factors:

1. supportive and encouraging instructors

2. the fact that we were all tired from running around from 9:30 AM until 10:00 PM that we were too mellow to be nervous and

3. the fantastic and supportive energy backstage

We cheered whenever the person performing cleared a "trouble spot" as if we were in a hockey game. You can check out my performances on my website.

Many thanks to Sherry and Derek for their hard work and guidance. Hats off as well to Dave Marshall, our serious-looking drummer and Dave Hamilton, our guitarist who can play many a cool lick.

So what lessons did I take away from this experience? Singing lessons and this workshop reinforced the importance of singing and sight singing to develop one's inner ear. You can't beat the rush from performing in an ensemble and singers take artistry onto a whole new level.

Would I do it again? Most definitely.

(c) 2010 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, Alberta. All rights reserved.

Fun Music Recommendations for Summer

Hooray! It's the last week of lessons. My students and I are looking forward to some time off.This week, they've all heard me stress the importance of doing some music practice during the summer so they don't waste the time, effort and money that they, their parents and I as their teacher have invested throughout the year.

The following are some of the "fun music" suggestions I have given them to make their "Summer Learning Projects" as enjoyable as possible:

look inside

Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Tom Gerou. Piano - Five Finger Collection; Piano Supplemental. Five Finger Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 52 pages. Alfred Music #34451. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322311).

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Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Big-Note Piano. Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Tom Gerou. Piano - Big Note Collection; Piano Supplemental. Big Note Vocal Selections. Movies. Softcover. 48 pages. Alfred Music #34382. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322308).

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Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Dan Coates. Piano - Easy Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Easy Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 56 pages. Alfred Music #28304. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322093).

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Star Wars: A Musical Journey Music from Episodes I - VI. Composed by John Williams. Shows & Movies. Piano Solo Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 86 pages. Alfred Music #28303. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322092).

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The Twilight Saga - New Moon: The Score Easy Piano Solo. Composed by Alexandre Desplat (1961-). Easy Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 48 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.349015).

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The Twilight Saga - New Moon The Score: Music by Alexandre Desplat. Composed by Alexandre Desplat (1961-). Piano Solo Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 56 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.313487).

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Harry Potter Magical Music From the First Five Years at Hogwarts (Five Finger Piano). Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, and Nicholas Hooper. Arranged by Tom Gerou. This edition: Five Finger Piano. Piano - Five Finger Collection; Piano Supplemental. 5 Finger. Movie. Book. 60 pages. Alfred Music #00-32710. Published by Alfred Music (AP.32710).

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Harry Potter -- Sheet Music from the Complete Film Series Easy Piano. Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Alexandre Desplat (1961-), and Nicholas Hooper. Arranged by Dan Coates. This edition: Easy Piano. Piano - Easy Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Movie. Book. 140 pages. Alfred Music #00-39075. Published by Alfred Music (AP.39075).

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Harry Potter -- Sheet Music from the Complete Film Series Piano Solos. Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Alexandre Desplat (1961-), and Nicholas Hooper. This edition: Piano Solos. Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Movie. Book. 144 pages. Alfred Music #00-38970. Published by Alfred Music (AP.38970).

I also compiled a listing of websites in a recent article Where to Find Free Piano Music Online (new link to come). An honourable mention goes out to Piano Squall's website with loads of video game and anime theme songs. I wanted to put his site on the list but there are constraints on article length.

Students can also check out the RCM Popular Selection List and Conservatory Canada's Contemporary Idioms Syllabus online for suggestions of graded popular pieces.

(c) 2010 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada.

Bringing the Groove Back into Music Studies with Pattern Play

Yesterday, ARMTA Calgary hosted a workshop on Pattern Play with piano pedagogue Forrest Kinney. He and his wife Akiko developed this extremely aural-kinesthetic approach to music playing. Seeing as I've been incorporating more of the VARK Learning Preferences into the music lessons I teach, I was looking really forward to this session.In a nutshell, students are taught two patterns. These are imparted in a "talking drum" fashion: the teacher improvises a short motif using one of the patterns (e.g. E, G, A, B). The student answers with their own improvised motif. With young students, perhaps that is all you want to give them for that lesson as their "pattern play project".

Once the student has gotten the hang of that, the teacher can show the student a simple accompaniment pattern and they switch roles at the keyboard (e.g., E, B). (BTW, the pattern I just described is called Japan).

The next step is to get students to jam hands together. Forrest advises to have them start by playing the same pattern in both hands. When one hand is bored, melodic and rhythmic variation start to creep in.

With this approach, the feeling drives and shapes the music (not the brain) just as equally as boredom does. Forrest said that "boredom makes us receptive to new ideas and to change."

That was an extremely condensed version. Check out Forrest and Akiko's website and their books for a more in-depth explanation.

Two very important points to keep in mind when working on Pattern Play - eyes closed and tap the heel. Yes, that's a very jazzy approach. When Forrest said that, it made me recall my jazz lessons last year when Derek Stoll said the exact same thing.

Pattern Play can be used to help develop students' inner ear, phrasing, and rhythm and flow. Wait a minute, didn't I write about rhythm and flow at some point?

Hiyoshi is a Japanese concept called "rhythm-timing". In his Book of Five Rings, 16th century samurai Miyamoto Musashi said, "In the field of martial arts, one finds rhythm-timing in the techniques of shooting an arrow, firing a gun and riding a horse. The concept of rythm-timing should not be ignored in any profession or art."

Forrest said that somewhere along the way, we lost our hiyoshi. We lost the groove. In the quest to reach a certain playing level by age X and our quest for perfection, we lost the tamashii (soul) and the kokoro (heart)of music. This isn't the first time I've heard this. I heard this during my jazz lessons too and variations of this in my Iaido training.

Pattern Play was developed as a way for musicians, music students and music teachers to get back their groove. To just close our eyes and feel the music. Feel the beat.

Now Kinney's approach won't work for all students or all teachers and Forrest is the first to admit that. However, there are many nuggets teachers and students of all walks can take and use form the Pattern Play approach.

For those of us teaching Royal Conservatory students, we have to follow the syllabus for technical requirements. As supplemental material for the traditional exam students - Pattern Play will be a life saver. Conservatory Canada students do get to improvise in their exams. Pattern Play is a great springboard. Pattern Play will inspire students of all levels who want to go home and be able to play something "cool" each week.

Final thoughts? I jammed on D Dorian last night (eyes closed). I selected one of the "golden chord progressions" and started with one octave arpeggios in my LH and single melody notes in my RH. I soon tired of that and remembered that Forrest jammed on doubled thirds. I hate doubled thirds and normally avoid practicing them. Jamming on double thirds? Much more do-able....and fun. Soon, I tired of that and tried parallel 6ths and the "Mozart trill". I haven't tried transposing the pattern yet into all the Dorian modes, but I know I'll get to it eventually.

When playing back the recording, I got the sense my "inner child" was having a blast. I was giddy in the recording and as I listened to it. I can't wait for my Pattern Play books to come in just so I can play.

Ditto for when I checked out the lesson videos I uploaded yesterday. The kids were pumped and they're stoked that we're going to jam "lots" this month. How apropos that this month's focus in our Musical Exploration is jazz, blues and ragtime.

September 3, 2020 update: The Pattern Play series is available at most local music stores. Online, you may find them at Sheetmusicplus (affiliate link)