World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 2 - Elena Kats-Chernin

This past week, my students and I explored Wild Swans and Alexander Rag by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. She was born in Uzbekistan in 1957 and received her musical training in Yaroslavl and Moscow before immigrating to Australia in 1975. Career highlights to date include: having her music featured at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games and the 2003 Rugby World Cup and having six published CD's under her belt.

Her discography is comprised of ballets, operas, piano concertos and commissioned works for many performers and ensembles, including Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Evelyn Glennie, Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

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

World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 1 - Aboriginal Dance

This year, my students and are embarking on a new "Music from Around the World" journey. Each month, my students will watch or listen to clips of the featured country of the month. I thought this would be a fun thing to share with fellow musicians, as well as give my students one central spot to find the clip that was played at their last lesson.We are exploring music from Australia this month. At the beginning of the term, we watched the following clip of aboriginal music, called Aboriginal Dance 1:

Their ratings were all over the map - as low as 1 star to as high as 5 stars.

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

A New School Year to Try out New Ideas in the Music Studio

Summer flew by far more quickly than anticipated. All of my plans to learn new repertoire, reorganize my home and just relax were replaced with...busy-ness. Now, we're in the beginnings of another year of music teaching. Last week was intense as I was burning the midnight oil to make all sorts of cool handouts for my music students.

After having my students take the VARK Learning Preferences questionnaire last year, I discovered that my students fall under three general categories:

1. Visual (mostly in combination, Visual-Aural or Visual-Kinesthetic)

2. Aural-Kinesthetic

3. Read/Write

Most admitted on their registration forms for this year that music theory and piano technique were their least favorite music subjects. I bore that in mind with this year's handouts.

This year, I incorporated more charts and diagrams (V). I was respectful of white space (V) and included succinct examples (K) and explanations (R). These were followed up by visual demonstrations (V) with the student copying me. My aural students and I discussed various sounds, my kinesthetic students and I discussed how our arms and hands should feel.

Feedbackhas been extremely positive so far. "It's easier" is the most frequent comment.

The trick is that I need to teach music theory and piano technique differently from how I was taught. I was taught written theory first. My students need hands-on, keyboard theory first. It's more fun this way.

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

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.