I often get asked from prospective students what I teach, and how I teach.

It’s quite simple:  I teach skills.  I teach students how to fish.

A couple of months ago, I was hired as a substitute organist at a very big church in town.  You know, the ones with the massive organs front and center of the church, so that everyone can see me fumble with an instrument that I am not used to playing day in and out.  It’s quite intimidating, to play in front of so many people in that type of situation.  They are used to their organist–who is there daily to practice, to work with their choirs, and who knows the ins and outs of the instruments in the church.  This was an emergency situation too–there was a death in the family, so I was called in to play the evening before, meaning I had no practice time on the instrument.

I walked in, 6 am on Sunday morning, music in hand, ready to practice before the 7:30 choir rehearsal for the first 8:30 service.  I walked out at 1 pm, after playing 3 services with 2 different soloists an 2 choirs, exhausted from the work, but with a warm feeling of what I had accomplished that day.  So as a pianist and a piano teacher, what did I have to do that morning?  How has my career prepared me for this type of work?  In the scope of 7 hours, I had to:

1.  Prepare service music that fit the instrument–I chose 2 Baroque organ pieces, meaning that I had to register the organ, an instrument that I wasn’t familiar with, to fit the pieces, and practice pedal lines (with my organ shoes half eaten up by my golden retriever puppy!) that I usually don’t encounter on a day to day basis as a piano teacher.

2.  Prepare traditional hymns for the services–again, figuring out how to register the organ for congregational hymn singing.

3.  During the choir rehearsal, I was handed 2 pieces to sight read.  Both pieces were upbeat, fast pieces with changing meter and key signatures.  I had never seen these pieces before–I had to jump in and play them with a 50 person choir who had been rehearsing them for 2 months (this was a festival Sunday).

4.  Accompany an Irish fiddler on his solo piece.  Again, I had never seen this much, nor am I very familiar with Irish fiddle playing.  This gentlemen that played with me was an impressive violinist, who also plays in the Austin Symphony and worked abroad in chamber music groups over the past 10 years.  I wasn’t playing with a slouch–he knew if I was making a mistake!

5.  During the middle service, the music was “contemporary church music.”  I had to step out of my organ shoes, away from my Bach prelude, and into contemporary Christian music.  What does this mean from a musician standpoint?  I had to read chord charts.  There was no printed music in front of me, only chord symbols.

6.  For the solo during the contemporary service, the soloist was feeling a little under the weather and wanted to sing at a lower pitch.  I had to transpose her solo on the spot for her.

7.  During the last service, a entire rhythm section of drums and bass accompanied us throughout the service (remember, this was a festival service!)  The rhythm section was behind me, the conductor and the choir in front of me.  I had to work with unfamiliar music, with musicians spread out over the room, and the acrostics of the room making the sounds go everywhere.  I followed that conductor’s beat like crazy.

Did I walk out of those services with an adrenaline rush?  Absolutely.  Do I feel like I walked out successfully doing my job, earning my paycheck?  Absolutely.  Would traditional piano lessons have prepared me for such an encounter?  Doubtfully.

And that’s why I teach the way I do.  Not only is every single one of my students different, with different personalities and different interests and talents, but every situation as a “real life musician” is different.  Sometimes you get called 20 hours before a performance like I did.  Sometimes you have to compose, sometimes you have to teach, sometimes you have to transpose for a sick singer, and sometimes, just sometimes,  you might have to play a  Beethoven Sonata.

Speaking of Beethoven Sonatas, I was you to listen to this sweet recording by one of my 7th grade students.  She’s playing a Beethoven sonata, 1st movement, for the spring recital.  She’s playing it well.  She’s at the point in her lessons where she gobbles up music as fast as I can give it to her.  But last fall, I had her step back from the musical notation, and I had her work on chord charts.  I showed her (and she figured out a lot on her own!) how to play a chord based on a symbol on the page–how to fit that chord into the melody line.  In her case, she took it a step further and learned how to sing the melody line while she was playing the chords.  Bravo.  You are learning how to fish.

For the purpose of the give-a-way, I counted the facebook comments (21) as numbers 1-21, and the blog comments (7) as numbers 22-28:  top to bottom, in the order that they were received.  Make sense?  I hope so!  Makes sense to me, and I’m a bit tired–it’s almost midnight here, and I have 3 university music classes to teach tomorrow at St. Edwards, private piano students to teach from 3:00-8:00 p.m., and my six year old’s cello lesson in the middle of it all.  Better do this before my brain shuts down for the day.

So without further adieu, the winners are:

#11: Erin Byrns-Cutts   and #2: Melissa Jackson Matias

You can register online, or call us tomorrow (Monday) from 9:00-noon to get everything set up!  You can choose either the 10:00 Tuesday class, or 10:00 Saturday class.  We’re glad to have you with us!

This is from Raul, one of our adult students.  Nicole recorded him on her cell phone!  He’s playing Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Scenes from childhood)  No. 1

 Another one of Nicole’s students, Tristan.  Also recorded on Nicole’s cell phone

 And here’s a piece called “Dream Memories”.  Megan (a 7th grader) is playing it on the piano, but wanted to recording it using a guitar sound on garage band.

And one of Sue’s students, Kylah, recorded on our Kawai digital pianos:

Below is an assignment that I had one of my students do.  We’ve been studying the waltz pattern, and she has played several waltzes in the past month.

Here is her wonderful waltz composition, appropriately titled “Thao’s Waltz.”  Congrats Thao, it’s a beautiful composition with lovely handwriting!

But why record?  Why bother?  (even if it only 1 minute taken out of the lesson?)  Every minute of lesson time is valuable time that is needed to polish and work on pieces and musical concepts.  Every minute of lesson time is time that is being paid for.  So why do this?

Here’s why:

• Recording bridges the gap from lesson to recital.  What makes recitals intimidating?  The one shot mentality.  You have only one shot to be on stage and get your piece right.  How do we practice for recitals?  We practice to perform.  Those mistakes that students are eager to let slip by during a lesson or at home become huge elephants in the room when they are recording.  When a student is recording, they will often do 5-10 takes of their piece, concentrating at a level that they haven’t expressed in their lesson.  Often, when frustrated that they can’t get it right, they take the piece home to practice for another week and bring the piece back more polished than before.  They want to get it recorded on the first try.  They often tell me how their hands sweat and they are nervous during recording.  This is so similar to performing, that it gives students a chance to practice what a recital feels like.
• Timeline of progress.  There’s nothing like pulling out an old MP3 file from last year and showing the students their progress.  Remember when?  It’s a wonderful pat on the back to all of their hard work.  It’s also a wonderful way for us as parents to file away in a secure spot, just as we carefully folded their first birthday outfit, or filed their first grade handwriting papers.
• Sharing.  Instead of keeping the files on my computer, I now ask that my students all have portable USB memory sticks.  That way they can take home their pieces every week and e-mail the recording to grandma overseas.  Or their best friend who just moved across the country.  Or just put it on their MP3 player to show their friends at school.
• Analyzation of technique.  More often than not, it is difficult for us (any of us!) to hear what is going on while we are caught up in playing a piece.  We are reading the music, we are feeling our fingers moving, we are concentrating.  I can point out a half note that was not held long enough.  ”What do you mean?” responds the student “I always hold that note long enough!”  With the recording, there is one simple way to find out.  We move the mouse pointer to the beginning of the piece and listen.  And watch.  We watch as the notes are show as MIDI data lines on the program.  All of a sudden that too short half note become more apparent than ever.
•  Joy.  There’s noting more rewarding, as a teacher, than seeing a look on a student’s face when they have put all of the pieces together, and hold the recording in their hand.

Here are some recordings that my students have been working on this week.  We hope to showcase weekly student progress on this blog throughout the school year!

Just a few samplings of the wonderful recording that has gone on in my teaching this week.  It’s why we do what we do!

This was such a student (and he has such a dedicated mother!). I remember working on him with two hand pieces when he was 4 and 5, working through both traditional piano method books and using the repertoire from the Suzuki piano books.

Now little M has grown up and is a 7th grader! It’s so difficult for me to imagine that so much time has passed since I have not seen him since he was 5. It was a shock to me as a teacher to see a young man walk through the door, and not a little 5 year old! M played several pieces for me: Mendelssohn and Haydn. He was preparing for a concerto competition.  His technique was flawless, and he played though pieces as if he owned the piano–proudly showing me the medal that he had been awarded last year for his playing at a festival. I was proud, of course I was! The best part of the afternoon visit was M’s summary of his past years of studying the piano: “the most important time in learning anything is laying the foundation. Thank you so much for providing a foundation for me to continue my music study!”

Yup…I had tears in my eyes.

Thank you M for visiting!! I hope to see you again soon.

The truth about piano lessons.

As both a parent and a teacher myself, I too often forget.  There is a lot of work, a lot of daily diligence in practicing and concentration.  But the joy in accomplishment that comes at the end of hard work is an experience that you won’t want your child to miss.  My advice?  Set daily goals, set weekly goals, set monthly goals, set yearly goals.  Encourage the hard work and praise the results.

Here’s to a school year of diligent work and rewarding beautiful music!