Crafting an Expressive World through Repertoire

Creative Repertoire Groupings for Young Pianists

When planning repertoire for students, piano teachers usually spend time thinking about sequence. We carefully choose pieces that introduce new technical skills, reading concepts, expressive elements, and other musical demands in an order that is optimally challenging. Often, we also aim for contrast between pieces so that students experience different styles, characters, and moods.

This year, I’ve been experimenting with adding another layer to this process by grouping repertoire through shared themes and narrative connections, allowing multiple (and sometimes otherwise unrelated) pieces to feel connected as part of a larger musical idea.

I suspect some of my enjoyment of this process comes from the same part of my brain that loves the New York Times Connections game. Both involve looking at separate elements, noticing patterns, and asking what hidden thread might link them together. In repertoire planning, that thread might be narrative, atmosphere, gesture, character, motion—the list goes on.

I know I cannot be the only teacher who has been dying to incorporate Connections in lessons!

The idea of connecting pieces through narrative is not new. Composers have been doing this for centuries through collections like song cycles and character pieces that unfold across a larger expressive arc. For young pianists, thematic repertoire pairing allows them to experience something similar to a song cycle at an appropriate level and scale.

Sometimes narrative links pieces, and common threads may also stem from imagery or emerge from shared stylistic elements. Themes may even arise from starkly contrasting elements.

These are some real-life examples of repertoire groupings that students are enjoying this spring:

narrative

Arachne (Scott Price) and Tarantella Op. 14 No. 8 (Frank Lynes)

Arachne is inspired by the figure from Greek mythology who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. According to the myth, Arachne’s skill was so great that the envious Athena transformed her into a spider, condemning her to weave forever.

Historically, the tarantella is a fast Italian dance associated with the legend of tarantism—the belief that someone bitten by a spider needed to dance energetically in order to purge themselves of the venom. The pieces are connected by myth and imagery of spiders, and we are imagining that Arachne herself is the spider whose bite spurred the dance in Tarantella.

When students imagine connections like these, they give themselves a springboard for more vivid expression. The delicate gestures and woven texture of Arachne evoke the careful spinning of a web; the whirling energy of the tarantella suggests the frantic dancing following the spider’s bite. Thinking about this shared imagery encourages students to make interpretive decisions that highlight each piece’s individual character while illuminating the larger overarching narrative.

Imagery

Etude in A Minor, “Raindrop” (Phillip Keveren) and Water Lilies (Scott Price)

In one pairing, a short etude depicting raindrops leads into Water Lilies by Scott Price. When students play these pieces in sequence, the imagery begins to connect: the small droplets of rain gradually gather into a still pool where lilies float languidly on the surface.

Thinking about this connection encourages students to listen carefully for tone color and phrasing. The delicate, consistent articulation of the raindrops gives way to the more sustained, flowing sound world of the second piece, helping students explore how musical gestures can evoke different aspects of the same natural scene.

Character pairings

Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Catherine Rollin), Curious Cat (Teresa Richert), and Sleepy Little Kitten (Linda Niamath)

Character grouping also encourage students to explore a shared theme from multiple perspectives; they can begin to notice how performers can paint different shades of personality within an imaginative world.

In Tiger in a Tropical Storm, the character is dramatic and powerful, but controlled—we are tasked with creating suspense as the tiger hunts. By contrast, Curious Cat captures the alertness, playfulness, and quick shifts of attention that a housecat would have; it asks the student to think about both consistency and subtle changes in mood and tone color as the piece moves through different harmonies. Sleepy Little Kitten turns toward softness and repose, requiring a completely different kind of listening and touch while maintaining one aesthetic throughout.

MOTION and energy

Dream Journey (Christine Donkin) and Fire Dance (David Karp)

In Dream Journey, the sense of motion feels spacious, and ever-unfolding. The music suggests travel through an imaginative landscape with easygoing direction. It is gently propulsive, asking for forward motion that still leaves time to breathe and savor the end of each phrase. Fire Dance is immediately and perpetually energetic and acute—not only awake, but on-edge. Its rhythmic vitality and accents make for vivid, kinetic energy. The student must channel momentum differently, using precision, articulation, and controlled intensity to create drive.

By working on these pieces as a pair, students are broadening their understanding of how music can move and what that movement can mean—and even delving into the physical technical movements we make to achieve a certain sound. Together, they help students experience energy not as a single expressive category, but as something connected to musical character and to our bodies.

When we group repertoire through theme, imagery, or narrative, we give students a larger artistic world to inhabit. Not every repertoire choice needs to fit into a larger narrative arc, of course. But when a connection does emerge, it can enrich the student’s experience in surprising ways and pieces become part of a broader expressive landscape. When immersed in that landscape, students are more free to play imaginatively and discover details that give music meaning.

Keys to Connection

Building community in the private studio

A “less is more” approach to fostering togetherness—you do not have to do it all!

Doing More of What Works

Studio cultures naturally evolve over time, and mine is no exception. Several years ago, weekend group lessons were a cornerstone of community-building. Now, the individualized private lesson experience — augmented by occasional opportunities for collaboration — is what my students and their families tend to prefer. This structure resonates with me as well and leaves room to focus on what works best for my studio.

With that said, building a supportive and connected studio environment without relying on group lesson experiences has been a particular challenge over the past couple of years. After all, is literal togetherness—being in the same space at the same time—not the mainstay of community?

With one-on-one lessons being the focal point for this stage of my career, I still want students to feel like a part of something bigger, without venturing into different lesson formats that would stretch my current bandwidth. These are some simple, easy-to-implement ideas that have worked well to foster connection among students. And none of them require a group lesson dynamic!

Sight-reading card swaps

As an exercise in music notation, students create sight-reading examples for each other several times per year. Students are paired according to their reading level, so they often keep the same partner(s) for an entire school year or longer, helping each other grow at a pace that is appropriate for both individuals.

Initially, very clear parameters are set for what to include in student-made cards. As they progress, students can request cards that focus on a particular growth area (e.g. make a card with lots of intervals of fourths; make a card that uses triplet rhythms; make a card that starts on a ledger line, etc.). The many areas this exercise targets—music reading, notation, music theory, review of foundational concepts, collaborating with others—make it an incredibly valuable activity in my studio.

Tracking collective progress

This year, the studio-wide practice challenge involves learning all of the major and minor pentascales in eight variations. Variations include legato, staccato, contrasting touches, rhythmic speeds, and volumes between hands, primary chord progression outlines, rotational patterns, and home triad types (major, minor, augmented, diminished). That’s a lot of pentascales—192 ways to play them, to be exact!

When students master a variation, they may add a bead to the giant jar. This is such a simple reward, but watching the jar fill as the weeks pass has been a huge lesson highlight, and students feel a sense of connectedness without competition; they can focus on their progress and contributions without hyper-fixating on someone else’s.

Themed word clouds

This spring, I collected students’ definitions of practice and made a cloud of often-used words and phrases from their responses. Students enjoy seeing the commonalities between definitions and taking inspiration from others’ perspectives on practicing. The word cloud now hangs by the studio entrance and is reminiscent of a learning contract. Each time they walk into a lesson, students see their own words represented. I plan to continue this trend with other music-related words!

Compliment cards

At the past few studio recitals, students and their families have had the opportunity to write compliment cards for performers. These have been incredibly successful, with hundreds of cards being submitted at each event. Students (and their families) are always bursting with kind things to say to each other! Students may quietly fill out their cards during performances, which I’ve noticed encourages more active listening at recitals. Occasionally, I even find a compliment card written to me, which is an added warm-fuzzy!

In Conclusion

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a teacher is how to focus my energy wisely. Learning to assess what works, what doesn’t, and consciously choosing to focus on what is working has become an invaluable skill. As a highly passionate person with a perfectionistic streak (the classic archetype of musicians, it seems!), my default inclination is to try to do all the things, and I know so many fellow music teachers who feel similarly. I hope the ideas I’ve shared illustrate how doing less—with more focus and discernment—can be deeply impactful.

Meet The Makers

The artists behind my studio vibe

As a small business owner, I love supporting other small businesses. These are some makers whose work has lent joy and warmth to my studio over the years. Click their names to visit their online shops!

Erin Heaton

St. Louis-based artist Erin Heaton’s music note art is a staple in my studio.My studio is decorated with her prints, and students love spotting the musical symbols hidden throughout the artwork. They also love receiving her pins, magnets, stickers, and cards for special occasions.

 

Bob’s Musical Art

Florida-based artist Bob Richardson upcycles old pianos and other instruments, turning them into sculptures. The piano hammer keychains from his shop have been a huge hit with my students and make perfect recital gifts. The model piano action in my studio was assembled by Bob, and it’s one of my favorite teaching tools.

Lichia Liu/GOTAMAGO

Toronto-based artist Lichia Liu makes whimsical hand-illustrated stationery. Her work is always part of my rotation of student birthday goodies!

Susie Ghahremani/boygirlparty

San Diego-based artist Susie Ghahremani makes wearable art, including enamel pins, keychains, tote bags, and quite possibly the cutest pocket mirrors ever. Her style is vibrant and distinct, and I can always find a huge variety of inexpensive yet high-quality student gifts. Having a studio full of kids who love to read, I keep her book plate sets on hand.

Measuring Student Progress

Counting Steps to Parnassus?

How do we measure and track progress in such a subjective and vast art form as music? These are a few things that have been working for my studio.

Any discussion of progress—measuring it, tracking it, communicating it to students and parents—has to start with a definition of what progress actually is. I like to keep my teaching philosophy simple and specific, and the basic dictionary definition of progress aligns well with that.

“prog·ress
forward or onward movement toward a destination.
”

I would add that acquiring new skills through repeated practice is what pushes us toward that destination. There is always a goal, be it short or long term, that I’m guiding students toward by curating different situations for them to practice skills.

When we know what progress means to us, we can begin to measure it. In the same way that repertoire is layered to include music of varied lengths, difficulty levels, and styles, the ways I measure student progress are layered.My goal is to use a well-rounded set of tools that are objective (based on what is clearly observable), include both formal and informal assessments, examine short- and long-term growth, and give students frequent opportunities to self-assess.

The YOYO (You’re On Your Own) Piece

Keeping tabs on what a student is able to do on their own is one way I track progress. A YOYO Piece is music to be learned completely independently with no guidance from me other than a single play-through during the lesson. Through this type of assessment, I can gauge a student’s reading accuracy, rhythmic accuracy, understanding of expressive terms, practice habits, and learn about how they approach a challenge.

Because students continually engage with the music over the course of a couple weeks, the YOYO Piece targets reading skills in a different way than simply sight-reading. Any weaknesses or misunderstandings in a YOYO Piece inform me how to better support the student and reveal areas that need review in the future—again, the path ahead is being defined.

Student Becomes Teacher

To gauge understanding, I need to see students generate ideas on their own—in a context where information isn’t being provided for them—so I can observe the flow of their thinking and the mental framework they’ve built. Since a child’s job is to play (not just to play the instrument, but to actually engage in play) we swap roles and the student pretends to be my teacher. Kids absolutely love assuming the teacher role, and this has become such a staple in our rotation of lesson activities that students will ask to “play teacher” on their own volition! It’s an activity that allows me to take in so much information about what a student knows without feeling like a test.

Festivals and Performances

At festivals, we get an outside opinion from a master teacher, which includes a confirmation of what we’re doing well and unique suggestions for how to improve. Festival performances are usually graded using a clear and specific rubric and provide an element of objectivity.

I ask my more self-aware students what they want to really see “sparkle” in their festival performances, or make a list of three (a.k.a. “The Big Three”) concepts that a particular piece emphasizes. We later use judges comments to gauge our progress in those areas and set new goals. Forward motion, again, is the theme.

It’s worth noting, though, that festivals and performances only represent one moment in time and one run-through of a piece; they are not the be-all and end-all. Additionally, if students don’t have the opportunity to regularly practice performing (e.g. practice playing under pressure), assessments that involve performing may not be as valid.

Videos

My favorite—and I think it’s safe to say my students’ favorite—assessment tool is videos. Watching videos of ourselves requires different listening and observational skills than performing in the moment. It’s valuable to practice both. There are a few ways we use videos:

Technique Tracking

When we begin learning a new technique or milestone concept, we take short, one-minute videos. Students enjoy saying a few words to their future self in these videos. Over the next several weeks, we take updated videos and eventually watch their progress from start to proficiency.

Flashbacks

Students absolutely love watching old performance videos, and Flashbacks always invite the best dialogue. We remember how learning an old piece felt, what the challenges were, what we were proud of in that moment. We take time to compare older videos to newer ones and notice our growth, enjoying what is often a warm, fuzzy moment of happy reflection that has less of an emphasis on goal-setting.

An example of a Flashback video from this spring.

What About Extramusical Progress?

Progress shows up in lots of ways and can be reflected in holistic development—not just musical achievement. Every year, I see students become more open to trying new things. They grow in self-confidence, self-compassion, and empathy toward others. They learn to practice patience, build resilience, manage their time, and set goals. Students also realize that two truths can exist at once (e.g., I’m doing a great job and giving it my all, and there is still room to improve.), learning to balance pushing themselves with resting and recharging. These more subjective ways of making progress are worth celebrating, too.

Resisting the Race

my search for slowness

We live in an era of speed, with more information available at our fingertips than ever before. The pressure to do more and become more at an astronomical pace is pervasive—something I’ve had to consciously resist in both my teaching practice and in life.

In an effort to resist the race from concept to concept, level to level, I have an ongoing goal to add more slow, exploratory, student-centered approaches to my teaching repertoire. Students remember new topics when they are actively involved, and my teacher burnout level stays the lowest when I spend my time creating learning experiences rather than simply telling students what I want them to know.

Three topics consistently pinged on my “this is not working” radar — a sure sign that my lesson planning needed more thoughtful preparation. Using the metronome, making clefs and landmark notes more memorable, and fielding questions about how a piano works are three topics that I have re-worked my approach to, favoring a slower and more careful way of introducing them to students—and it’s working!

Preparing for the Metronome

Different uses for the metronome is an entire blog topic of its own, but my short philosophy about metronomes revolves around a single idea: the metronome validates a student’s sense of steady beat, but it does not develop it. With that in mind, I ensure that students are able to do a variety of movement and chanting activities that require them to keep the macrobeat and microbeat both alone and simultaneously before they ever see a metronome. I also have students tap the macrobeat while I tap its different divisions. Then, it’s time to think carefully about the student’s first experience with the metronome.

First, we take our time exploring what a metronome can do. It’s so often the outwardly simple things that involve more than meets the eye. Of course, the metronome keeps a beat. But where do the numbers come from? Which beat or note value does the click represent, and why? Do we only use the metronome to keep a beat? How do we actually listen to the metronome while playing? I never introduce the metronome without anticipating the questions students will ask and what they will naturally want to experiment with. Some discussion points and activities that are worth the time include:

  • 60 BPM chimes exactly with the second hand on a clock; we set the metronome to that speed and watch the analog clock on the wall in my studio. We experiment with doubling that number (120 BPM), then cutting it in half (60 BPM) and talk about what we observe. I want this to hint at the idea that the metronome can be set to the half note, eighth note, or other divisions and elongations of the beat. The sound can represent more than one thing!

  • We tap common rhythmic patterns with the metronome set to adagio, andante, and allegro.

  • We play a familiar piece with the metronome set to the quarter note at a comfortable tempo, then experiment with playing the same piece much slower and a bit faster than usual, still with the quarter note as the beat. As a stepping stone to playing with the metronome set to the whole note, half note, eighth note, and so on, I simply tap those values on their shoulder while they play.

  • We tap rhythms from already-completed sight-reading cards with the metronome set to a comfortable tempo while counting aloud, then try this process with new sight-reading material.

We repeat variations of these activities for several weeks, taking the time to build students’ self-efficacy before students are assigned metronome work in at-home practice. The more confident students are in their ability, the more likely they are to practice it at home!

Exploring How a Clef Actually Works

I didn’t fully understand the underlying purpose of a clef until my first year of music school. Suddenly, I had to read, sight-sing, and complete music theory assignments in new clefs (alto and tenor clefs) that I didn’t even know existed! This changed the way I thought about reading music and became a lasting influence on my pedagogy, especially when it comes to sequencing music-reading concepts and skills.

A clef assigns pitch and letter name meaning to the lines and spaces on the staff, assigning a particular pitch to one line or space and, by association, all the other lines and spaces (including ledger lines). To ingrain this in a creative way, students have been designing their own clefs—and it’s a deep-dive activity that I have found to be more than worth the time.

A clef in which middle C aligns with the handle on a saber.

A clef in which the high A (A5) line goes through the pistil of a flower.

This activity has resulted in so many “aha!” moments—even in students who have been reading on the staff for quite some time—that I plan to continue using it every time I introduce clefs. Student-designed clefs would also add a wonderful layer of complexity to our next sight-reading card swap, where students notate sight-reading exercises for each other.

Exploring What’s Inside the Piano
Students are naturally curious about how things work, including what’s inside of the piano and the pedals—and they ask a lot of questions about what each part does. It’s easy to feel rushed when students have a lot of questions and limited lesson time. There is a lingering feeling of urgency to get straight to the music and spend as much time playing the instrument as possible, a remnant from my own experiences as a student and teacher in training. Rather than working against this curiosity, spending the time to lay a foundational understanding of how a piano works is worth it.

Allowing students to explore how an acoustic piano makes a sound very early in the lesson experience has become a cornerstone of my teaching philosophy. We take a peek at what’s inside the instrument; I open the lid and ask students to make as many observations as they can about the strings, hammers, dampers, pins, and anything else they notice. Students have been fascinated by the model piano action I invested in last year. Seeing the action from multiple angles and being able to feel all the parts helps students understand how their physical actions work together with the piano’s parts.

I’ve honed the language I use to discuss interacting with the piano mechanism: we don’t “press” the keys, we “strike” them to engage the machine inside; we don’t “hold” down a key, we “leave” our finger on the key, because once a sound is made, we can’t alter it, etc. These concepts are more easily understood, even by the tiniest of learners, when they can see and feel what I’m talking about.

Taking Time to Save Time?

The longer I teach, the more strongly I believe that slowness is one of the most powerful choices we can make, in the music world and otherwise. Taking time to explore, question, and interact with foundational concepts is an investment in lasting progress—one that ultimately allows us to use time more efficiently in the future.

Further Reading
A Long, Slow Look (on the blog)
In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

Perfect Practice Part 4: Help! I only have a few minutes to practice!

Having limited practice time is something every musician—myself included—deals with at some point. Busy spring and summer schedules and the changes to routine they bring can make practicing a challenge. It’s easy to forego practicing altogether when we don’t feel like there’s time to show up to practice in the exact way we’d hoped. Here’s the truth: great practice is often imperfect. What matters most is consistency, simply showing up in whatever way we can. Practice doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

What We’re learning about practice this spring

My students spend quite a bit of their lesson time learning how to practice and replicating the practice techniques they’ll eventually use at home. Recently, we’ve been testing out different time constraint scenarios to see how much we can achieve in short bursts. Although longer practice sessions are usually ideal, I do think it’s important for students to know how to handle situations when time is limited. We’ve learned a lot from this process, including five big takeaways.

Don’t underestimate the power of just a few minutes

We’ve been experimenting with timing mock practice sessions within our lessons and have found that as little as five minutes is enough time to make improvements to a piece of music! Repertoire doesn’t have to become spectacular overnight. The steady culmination of small improvements over time is what ultimately creates the wow-factor we all strive for.

Instead of assuming, “I can’t get anything done in just ten minutes!” we can replace that thought with curiosity (e.g. “What can I do in ten minutes?”), we’re also nurturing a healthy mindset for practicing, improvement, and progress.

Focus less on what already sounds good

This is so much easier said than done—it’s fun and satisfying to play what we already know. However, if our repertoire always feels effortless and always sounds great during practice, it may be a sign that our time would be better spent in a less comfortable passage. Focusing on what is less stable could look like starting somewhere other than the beginning of a piece and resisting the urge to start every practice session with a full run-through of repertoire.

CHOOSE TECHNICAL WARM-UPS WISELY

This year, students have been learning to curate their own warm-up exercises for each piece they’re studying. Warm-ups are related to the key signature and technical demands of each piece, making them quick and targeted.

Have a toolbox of strategies

Having a collection of practice strategies that are clear, repeatable, and relevant to virtually any piece of music allows for efficient practicing in general, and especially when time is limited. Knowing exactly what to do and how to do it serves as a fantastic motivator.

MAKE USE OF HIGHLIGHTER TAPE AND PRACTICE SQUARES

When we can’t do it all in one practice session, having some tools on hand to mark sheet music or take notes helps plan future practice sessions. For example, my students draw a square around the measures that felt the most challenging in their lesson so that their next practice session can be planned around what needs the most effort. Because what feels challenging often changes from week to week, removable highlighter tape has become an essential tool for students across ages and levels. It’s comforting to know exactly where you left off, and we’re more motivated to return to practicing when we have more time if we know where to begin.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES

Scenario: 15 Minutes to practice

The Spider’s Masquerade by Christopher Goldston

Quick Warm-Up (~3 minutes)

D minor primary chord progression, left hand only

D natural minor scale, 3 octaves in triplets, hands together

Mini Task #1: Back-to-Back Practice (~5 minutes)

The student was working on memorization, so we practiced the three slow sections scattered throughout the piece (the introduction, transition in m. 40, and mm. 56-end ) back-to-back, highlighting how they are similar and different. When playing from memory, a potential pitfall could be simply repeating the material from the beginning in all the subsequent slow sections. It only took a few minutes to isolate those sections and create a solid framework for memorization.

Mini Task #2: Backwards Practice (~5 minutes)

To mentally break this whirlwind piece into bitesize sections, we practiced from m. 21 back to m. 6 one phrase at a time. Each phrase ends with a relatively long note, which we treated as a place to catch our breath. The sequence looked something like this:

mm. 20-21

mm. 18-21

mm. 16-21

etc.

Working in this order keeps the rapid eighth notes from getting too weighty toward the ends of phrases. Each phrase also has a different dynamic level—backwards practice encourages us to think about the dynamics in new ways.

Review (~3 minutes)

Finally, we returned to our first Mini Task for a quick review, then played mm. 6-21 consecutively to finish our practice.

Scenario: 10 Minutes to practice

Minuet K. 5 by W. A. Mozart

Mini Task #1 Over-the-Barline Practice in mm. 1-4 (~3 minutes)

We looked at the left hand alone to review where it shifts position (the first beat of m. 3 and m. 4), then worked toward playing mm. 1-4 hands together by starting one measure before the position change and playing only to the downbeat of the next measure.

Mini Task #2 Blocked Practice in mm. 5-8 and mm. 15-18 (~4 minutes)

We played the left hand as written, but played each set of sixteenth notes in the right hand as one harmonic block of notes to feel how the intervals get larger and smaller. This also helped ingrain when the right hand repeats the same group of notes (for example, 3 times in m. 6).

Review (~3 minutes)

We pivoted back to our first Mini Task for review, then felt ready to try playing the measures from Mini Task #2 as written, slowly.

Scenario: 10 Minutes to practice

Écossaise in G Major, WoO 23

Quick Warm-Up (~1 minute)

D Major Triad Inversions, blocked and broken, left hand only.

Mini Task #1: Back-to-Back Practice (~4 minutes)

Measures 7-8 and mm. 15-16 are similar, but not identical. Places like these can be tricky to memorize, so we practiced these sets of measures back-to-back, highlighting differences in the left hand accompaniment pattern and right hand finger numbers (first we use finger 1, then start the same material using finger 2 later).

Mini Task #2: Two-note Slur Practice (~4 minutes)

To hear the voicing and feel the gesture of the two-note slurs in mm. 13-14, we broke apart each hand into its individual voices, emphasizing which voice moves down and which one stays the same. This was a great activity to do in a time crunch because it created a clear aural target (what the melody is/isn’t) for the next practice session.

Review (~1 minute)

We jumped back to memory work in Mini Task #1 and made a goal to start a few measures before the tricky spots in the next practice session.

Scenario: Five Minutes to Practice

March (from 100 Progressive Recreations) by Czerny

Five minutes was just enough time to use a few eighth note practice strategies (staccato, long-short, and short-long rhythmic variations) in various parts of the piece.

At the end of the day, my hope is that students approach challenges with curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Happy practicing!

Piano Olympics Spotlight: Practice Streaks

building consistent Practice habits

Five of the tasks in the Practicing category of the Piano Olympics include practice streaks. Students can earn points for three-, seven-, 14-, 20-, and 30-day streaks, which they’ll track in their Piano Olympics booklets. Simply fill in one bubble (in pencil, so you can erase if needed!) with the date of each consecutive day you practice for fifteen minutes or more.

What counts toward a streak:

Any day that you practice thoughtfully to achieve a goal or improve something that you’re studying. You don’t have to practice for exactly the same amount each day to keep a streak. The goal is to build a sustainable, realistic habit of daily improvement.

What breaks a streak:

Skipping practice when you are able to practice.

What doesn’t break a streak:

  • If you’re out of town or on vacation and can’t practice.

  • If you’re very sick and unable to practice.

  • If you don’t have time to practice on a special holiday like Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

  • If a practice session doesn’t go as well as you wanted (use that as a learning experience!).

This year's studio incentive is…

The pIANO OLYMPICS

When I was a brand-new teacher, I told myself, “I will never create a fancy, complicated rewards system! It’s too much work, and I don’t even like rewards!”

And yet…here we are.

To reward or not to reward?

The New Yorker cartoon by Amy Hwang.

There’s ongoing conversation in education about the role of rewards. Research suggests that overreliance on extrinsic rewards (i.e., “if you do this, you’ll get that”) can sometimes dampen creativity, long-term thinking, and intrinsic motivation. Ideally, students grow to practice and improve because they find meaning and satisfaction in the work itself.

In a perfect world, putting in the work required to become an accomplished pianist would always be enjoyable and interesting. Drive would come effortlessly, without ebb, for everyone. Beautiful music alone would be enough to motivate us into countless hours of practice and unwavering dedication! But real life is a bit more complex than that.

The truth is that learning is not always fun, nor can it be fun every single moment of every lesson or practice session. Sometimes learning is uncomfortable. Sometimes keeping up with goal-directed habits is hard, especially when you’re a kid. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep the end goal in sight. This is where I believe the judicious use of rewards to be appropriate. Thoughtfully used extrinsic rewards can support students through the less glamorous parts of learning, nudging them toward the deeper intrinsic reward of musicking: confidence, exhilaration, and joy in accomplishing difficult things. Those positive feelings motivate students to continue putting in the work, creating a cycle of success that ultimately becomes the reward.

With all this in mind, my goal is to create rewards systems that:

  • Encourage depth of knowledge and mastery, which allow students to experience the intrinsic joy of making music.

  • Can be individualized to each student’s strengths and pace while still being a clear and fair system.

  • Foster confidence and allow students to see and reflect on their progress.

  • Are a realistic blend of long-term and short-term challenges.

  • Avoid instant gratification in favor of steady, long-term growth.

And thus is born the studio incentive I construct each year. This year, it’s the Piano Olympics!

Five Pillars of Musicianship

This year’s incentive focuses on growing five fundamental skills students need to be good pianists. Not every skill develops at the same time or at the same rate, but this system is structured in a way that follows the trajectory most elementary-level students (who are practicing well!) will make over the course of an academic year, focusing on activities that naturally occur in piano study. It also highlights how all the pillars are interdependent. For example, we can’t improve our technique if we don’t practice it. There is a simplified version for very young students, but the five pillars remain a common thread.

The format may change from year to year, but the goal remains the same: to help students see their growth across multiple dimensions of musicianship:

1. Practicing

Practicing is a skill in itself, which can be honed over time. The amount of time we practice, how much time we allow to elapse between practice sessions, and how we structure our practice all impact how quickly we improve.

2. Aural Skills

Aural skills involve training our ears to not just to hear, but to understand music, develop our inner hearing, make musical predictions, and describe what we hear using musical terms.

3. Technique

Good playing technique equips us with the toolbox of pianistic touches and gestures we need to make our music sound the way we want it to (or the way a specific musical style deems appropriate).

4. Reading/Music Theory

Reading music is a long, careful, and systematic process. Reading music efficiently requires making a connection between the notated music, how the music will sound and—for pianists, at least—how playing the music will feel under the fingers. Music theory, simply put, includes the building blocks, structures, and rules that govern music.

5. Creativity

Creativity is a cornerstone of my entire teaching philosophy and purpose. Without it, life is just boring. Creativity is a thought process, not something we are born with or without. Students can learn creativity, and it’s an expectation in my studio that students will consciously grow their creative skills just as they would music reading or music theory skills.

How it works

  • Each pillar contains three tiers of tasks worth one, two, and three points, respectively. Most tasks build upon each other in length and difficulty. Students can track their progress by filling in bubbles on Task Tracker pages.

  • Students are grouped into three teams. At the end of the school year, every member of each team will win prizes based on how their team ranked. Any student, regardless of team, who earned a Gold ranking will also get to attend a special party at the end of the year.

  • Any student who has reached the Bronze ranking by the end of the fall term will earn a special treat at the Winter Recital.

  • The Junior League, comprised of the very youngest students, has their own points and rewards systems so that older, more experienced students do not have an unfair advantage.

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive. Canongate Books.

A Long, Slow Look: Music History Edition (Part 2)

A Long, Slow Look

Using Slow Looking Techniques to Discover Music History

As a trained musician, I always wonder what it would be like to go back in time—before taking years of aural skills courses, before knowing music terminology or the elements of music, before understanding music history in context—and hear a piece of music for the first time. What would it be like to hear Brahms’ Fourth Symphony anew, or hear the sound of a harpsichord for the first time? What would I think or feel? What would my descriptions of the music be? I don’t have a time machine, but I have a diverse group of young students with varied musical backgrounds, so that’s the next best thing.

I have found that there is power in having students describe things is in their own words first, so we began with taking a slow look at art, then describing it with as much detail as possible. Then, we transitioned to listening to music with the same level of detail, only using students’ own words. Sometimes students used music terminology they knew, but they often didn’t. Interestingly, this aligns with research on how children describe music—more on that later.

Discovering Baroque and Classical Music

As established in Part 1, I presented the eras of music history in pairs, focusing on how they were alike and different rather that who wrote the music or when it was written. Those are things we’ll spiral back to in the future when students have more context for composers, dates, etc. Instead, I mentioned which era came first chronologically and about how close or far from 1776 (a date lots of kids know from American history) the music was written.

We focused on Baroque and Classical music first. I chose music that was representative of the era, aurally distinctive, and potentially easier for students to describe in concrete terms. We made predictions about how the music from the same eras as the artwork we viewed could sound based on the art pendulum we made (see below). What does “ornate” sound like? What does a “main character” sound like? What words and phrases—musical or not—could go on our music pendulum?

Baroque and Classical Art Pendulum

We listened first in silence, without commenting, but I gave students pencils and paper to write down words and phrases to help them remember their thoughts. When we listened again, students said their ideas aloud, rapid-fire, as I wrote them down on sticky notes.

To keep the focus on discovery, I put the sticky notes on a giant pad of paper with some musical elements on it under the category where I thought it fit best, with no mention of formal definitions of each element yet. We took notes on one era at a time, eventually comparing them. This is what students had to say about a few of the pieces.

Baroque (J.S. Bach and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre)

  • Free, flowing, continuous (Jacquet de La Guerre: Les pièces de clavecin: I. Prelude)

  • Ideas blend together (Jacquet de La Guerre: Les pièces de clavecin: I. Prelude)

  • Driven, steady, energetic, bouncy, repetitive (J.S. Bach: Brandenberg Concerto No. 3)

  • Complex, lots of voices, like a conversation, like an argument, interrupting (Bach: Little Fugue in G Minor BWV 578)

  • Frilly, fancy, intricate, busy

  • The vibe/mood/atmosphere stays the same throughout each piece, but moods change between pieces (Jacquet de La Guerre: Suite No. 1)

  • Sometimes it’s hard to sing the melody, know where the melody is, or remember the melody

Classical (Mozart K. 332, first and second movements)

  • There’s a main voice with a supporting voice, a high voice and a low voice, a loud voice and a soft voice, etc.

  • Contrast, more louds and softs, lots of different moods

  • It’s easy to tell where ideas start and end and if the idea is short or long

  • Simple, light, clean, bright

  • It’s easy to sing, sounds like a song

  • Melodies have a clear shape like “hills and valleys”

It was fascinating to see students describe things like the doctrine of affections (one mood), phrase/period structure (clarity of short and long ideas), continuo (steady, driven), and imitation using their own words and observations, long before we attached formal terminology. Our pendulum for Baroque and Classical music wound up looking something like this:

Baroque and Classical Music Pendulum

I have more thoughts about how these activities went, what felt effective, what I’d refine, and how we’ll continue weaving this special summer topic into private and group lessons in the fall…but that’s a blog post for another day!

Examples of Pieces We Heard

Seeing the Forest and Trees of Music Reading

Learning to see the forest and the trees

Two reading skills and how to use them.

We’re in our ✨music-reading era✨

So many students are making their transition into Piano Safari Level 2 this fall! This is such an exciting time. Students will start learning their first unabridged classical music, expand their music reading skills, and dive into even more interesting harmonies, textures, and forms through longer, more substantial repertoire. I can hardly wait!

Since we’re on the cusp of a music-reading boom, it’s the perfect time to talk about exactly how students will expand their reading skills. But first, I want to explain why I don’t typically use traditional mnemonic devices to teach note reading. There are always exceptions, but as a general rule, I take a different approach.

The limitations of Traditional Mnemonic Devices

Mnemonics like Every Good Boy Does Fine or All Cows Eat Grass (see below) are a quick way to identify the letter name of a note, but they don’t allow us to read music—they allow us to decode music. Reading and decoding are very different processes.

“It’s a crummy commercial!” Source

It’s not unlike the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie uses the decoder pin to reveal Little Orphan Annie’s Secret Message. Decoding required so many steps! Ralphie had to remember where to set the pin and write down the string of numbers to be translated, then translate each number to a letter (only to find the secret message was just an Ovaltine ad! Ha!).

Similarly, trying to use a mnemonic device to decode music requires too many steps. We have to remember the mnemonic device itself, which clef it belongs to, which line or space it should start on, then we have to count up the staff, name the letter of that line or space (which has the secondary requirement of being able to spell the words of the mnemonic!), locate it on the keys…and then we have to start this process over again for the next note, overlooking the relationship between pitches entirely. Because of this, mnemonic-based reading may not fully support the kind of flexible, relational skills we’re aiming to develop. Traditional mnemonics:

  • offer limited guidance for reading ledger lines

  • tend to separate treble and bass clefs rather than preparing students to read them simultaneously

  • focus primarily on letter naming rather than intervallic relationships

  • don’t inherently connect the written symbol to its sound

Another potential obstacle is that students can appear confident identifying individual notes long before fluent reading is truly established. Like most good things, learning to read music well takes time. And it’s worth it to take the time to lay a solid foundation that will empower students to be capable, independent music readers.

The Forest and the Trees

So, I’ve admitted that I don’t like mnemonic devices. But that doesn’t mean that individual note recognition doesn’t have its place! My students and I have nicknamed individual note identification as “Tree” Reading and the big-picture, intervallic approach to reading as “Forest” Reading. It’s stuck so well that there’s even a poster of this concept on the studio bulletin board. We use Tree Reading to figure out where to start, and Forest Reading to travel from that point.

Tree Reading is important because it prevents us from having to go back to the beginning of a piece each time we need to start fresh during practice. We can simply choose a starting point and go! This is really helpful in longer pieces. Tree Reading also helps us place written music in the correct octave on the keyboard. We use Tree Reading only a small portion of the time.

To this point, students have been seeing landmark notes (easily memorizable notes on the staff) as the starting note of most reading pieces. As students advance, our reading pieces may start on unfamiliar notes instead of landmark notes—this is where Tree Reading will come in handy!

Forest Reading is important because it allows us to see and think of music in phrases, or musical sentences. We don’t read individual letters when we read a book; we read words that make up sentences. Reading music is similar. We look at a broader level for the distance between notes (intervals), the contour, or shape, of the phrase, any patterns that we see or feel under our fingers. We use Forest Reading most of the time.

As students expand their understanding of larger intervals, Forest Reading will help them to read intervals quickly, just as they read whole words and sentences in books.

activities to boost “forest” reading

  • Always do Pencil Work first. Trace the contour of the melody, label the different intervals, mark repeated notes. Take the time to spot any patterns and soak in the music notation before making any sounds.

    • Students are already accustomed to finding patterns anywhere and everywhere because we’ve spent a sufficient amount of time learning music by rote!

  • Create a story to follow the shape of the melody. Maybe you hike up or down a mountain. Maybe you’re playing leap frog and skip over one key to get to the next. How far does the melody travel from the “home” note? What’s happening in the story when notes or patterns repeat?

  • Transpose a piece to as many different keys as you can.

  • Sight-read in alto or tenor clef (this one is for during our lessons with teacher guidance).

  • Practice interval flashcards (sorted by interval in the Studio Resources Google Drive folder) by simply sorting the interval into like piles.

    • Practice a thinking routine as you do this. For example, “I know this is an interval of a fifth because it moves from line to line, skipping one line in between” or “I know this is an interval of a third because it moves from one line to the very next line.” Don’t worry about note names yet.

Preparatory Activities for “Tree” Reading

I’ve been sneakily preparing students for Tree Reading for some time now! This spring, many of us discovered that there was a Skips Alphabet by decorating the piano keyboard with letter tiles and removing every other one. The letters F, A, C, E, G, B, and D remain! There’s a word hidden in that pattern: “face.” The other letters don’t spell anything—we simply call them GBD (gi-buh-dee), which is silly enough to remember on its own. Students like to see how quickly they can say “GBD!” The Skips Alphabet can be spelled “FACEGBD” or “GBDFACE” and it will help us immensely with Tree Reading. To help prepare:

  • Get to know the Steps Alphabet (ABCDEFG) extremely well, both forwards and backwards (most students are at this point already).

  • Get to know the skips alphabet in both its iterations (FACEGBD or GBDFACE) extremely well, both forwards and backwards.

    • Try using the Spin the Wheel app that we use in lessons to choose a random letter, then recite the skips alphabet up or down from that letter. Try playing the skips alphabet up or down from that letter on the keys, too.

If you’d like to read more about the approaches I take to teaching students to read music, the Mini Essays written by the authors of the Piano Safari method are wonderful—their approach is the basis of my music-reading pedagogy.

A Long, Slow Look: Music History Edition

A Long, Slow Look

Using Slow Looking Techniques to Discover Music History

Because our summer schedule includes two group lessons each week, it’s my favorite time to take a deeper dive into concepts we don’t always explore extensively in private lessons. This summer, we built upon slow looking strategies that students have already been using and listened to music from different historical eras to discover the broad characteristics of each one.

A new way to think about music history

Does memorizing dates, composers, and representative works from different eras really build functional knowledge of music history? That was my guiding question for the summer. While factual knowledge certainly has its place, I’m especially interested in giving students the opportunity to discover stylistic differences through carefully designed activities that allow them to experience concepts before diving into factual details.

Some considerations for Teaching Music History to Children

  • Musical eras did not exist in a bubble or start and end as abruptly as timelines make them appear. Beethoven is the quintessential example of this, having bridged the Classical and Romantic periods.

  • At this stage, I’m less concerned with memorizing specific dates. For many eight-year-olds, grasping the scale of 300 years is still abstract — which is entirely age-appropriate. Instead, we anchor our conversations in reference points they understand. We use 1776, thanks to a catchy line in the musical Hamilton, as a familiar marker and talk about eras as either before or after the United States became a country.

  • We know what something is by what it’s not. Contrast sharpens perception. Teaching musical eras independently of each other doesn’t make sense to me; there’s too little room for comparison and contrast.

With all this in mind, I wanted to create an immersive group lesson experience that could be taught non-chronologically, used the elements of music as a springboard for discovery and discussion, had virtually no lecturing, and enabled students to make their own predictions. I actually wanted the class to teach itself.

Start with Art

Music, art, and architecture are embodiments of what was valued and seen as beautiful at the time they were created. As such, we can look at them conjunctly to learn about an era. We started all of our discussions by slow looking at artwork and architecture from two adjacent historical eras—it’s easier for kids to describe the concrete things they see in art first. We used the Ten Times Two strategy:

Look at the image quietly for at least 30 seconds. Let your eyes wander.

  1. List 10 words or phrases about any aspect of the picture.

  2. Repeat steps 1 and 2: Look at the image again and try to add 10 more words or phrases to your list.

The images below show Baroque and Classical art. Take a slow look at them, then keep scrolling to see what my students had to say.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Triumph of the Name of Jesus, ceiling fresco, Church of the Gesù, Rome, 1661–1679

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, oil on canvas, 1784-1785

Some of the words and phrases that my 7-13 year old students came up with include:

Baroque

  • a lot going on, busy, etc.

  • you can find lots of details in one little part

  • many students noted that things were nested “there’s a square, with a circle in it, with a flower in it, with carvings on it, etc.”

  • “it must have taken a long time to make”

  • extravagant, extreme, detailed, frilly, fancy

  • “everything is gold”

  • things look “heavy”

  • and, of course, everyone asked how they got paintings onto the ceiling! :)

Classical

  • fewer things, simpler, “the room is simple and clean”

  • balanced

  • bright

  • more contrast, “the people stand out more”

  • not everything is equally important; many students thought the man in the middle was the most important character

  • a few students noticed the symmetry of the arches in the background or recognized the style of columns (doric)

  • many students imagined what could be in the background behind the arches

  • students also wondered why the women on the right looked sad, tired, etc.

We even looked at keyboard instruments from the Baroque and Classical eras to see how the different aesthetics were realized. The ornate decoration of the harpsichord contrasted sharply with the cleaner lines of the early pianoforte, reinforcing what students had already observed in the artwork.

A Baroque harpsichord. Image source

Reproduction of a pianoforte; original was built ca. 1800. Image source

The Pendulum of Style

Students started noticing on their own that that there were a lot of “opposites” between the artworks, which is exactly what I wanted them to notice! That’s not to say that there are not similarities between Baroque and Classical styles—we’re just thinking about the very big picture. This is when we grouped their words and phrases on either side of a pendulum. Each era reacts, in some way, to what came before it, so a pendulum that swings between extremes felt like a fitting visual.

From here, we started learning how all these words and phrases translate to the elements of music…but that’s a blog post for another day!

Project Zero is a goldmine of thinking routines, slow looking strategies, question starts—all the tools you need to nurture a culture of curiosity, inquiry, open discussion, and discovery.

The concept of Slow Looking is explored in Dr. Shari Tishman’s book, which you can read more about here.

Music Memorization Strategies

Making sense of memorization


Although memorization is often thought of as the final step in preparing a piece for performance, the process of learning new material requires memorization to some degree. Our brains immediately begin memorizing the motions we use to play a piece, whether or not we realize it! The question isn’t whether we’re memorizing, it’s what we’re memorizing.

Starting with Accurate Repetition

A strong foundation for memorization is built in the earliest stages of learning a piece. When we take our time and work in small, manageable sections, we give our brains the best chance of encoding accurate information.

The goal is simple: make as many correct sounds and movements as possible. Even when the music is still unfamiliar, careful work helps prevent incorrect motions from settling into muscle memory.

To keep repetition interesting, students each have a die in their piano binder pouch, which they can roll to determine how many times to repeat sections of their music. Does every repetition have to be absolutely perfect? Nope! Instead of hyper-focusing on perfection, I ask students to focus more on how repetitions begin to feel easier—not perfect—as they move forward. Ease is often the first sign that learning is taking hold.

Using the senses

As helpful as accurate repetition is, it’s only part of the memorization picture. When we rely solely on repeated motions, our memory can feel fragile. To build confidence that lasts beyond the practice session, we need to involve the whole body and mind.

The more senses we can involve in the memorization process, the more secure our memorization becomes. I like to focus on sound, sight, movement, and touch. Before applying memory strategies that focus on a given sense, it’s important to know how to “tap in” to that sense in a clear, mindful way. Of course, it’s really hard to completely isolate just one sense—there is definitely some overlap of senses in the strategies below.

How it sounds

To tap into your sense of sound, go outside and listen closely to the ambient noise. How many sounds can you hear? Birds chirping? Traffic? The wind in the trees? List as many as you possibly can! This is how detailed we want to be when making music. Then, try these tasks with the music to be memorized:

  • Sing the melody while playing the accompaniment.

  • Sing the accompaniment while playing the melody.

  • Play small sections with your eyes closed, focusing on what you hear.

  • Sing either the melody or accompaniment alone, away from the piano.

How it looks

To tap into your sense of sight, take a look at your music. Look for patterns, changes in texture, parts that are similar, and parts that are contrasting. In what ways does the music look the way it sounds? Does it have a shape or contour? After practicing seeing the music with increased attention to detail:

  • Imagine small sections of the score with your eyes closed. Can you paint a picture of it in your head? The picture doesn’t have to be note-for-note accurate!

  • Try to play a small section without the score, using your mind’s image. Notice what feels easy and what feels hard.

  • Put the music back in front of you and play the same section with the score. What feels easier now that the music is in view? Take note of that—does it give you any clues about what to practice more?

In addition to focusing on the written music, you can look at your hands while playing from memory. Some things you might notice include:

  • Patterns of black keys and white keys.

  • Shapes of chords and intervals.

  • How close or far apart the hands are in a given section.

This is a neat video shot from lots of different angles. Notice how the performer’s gaze often falls to his hands!

How it feels (Movement and touch)

To tap into your sense of touch, take a deep breath through your nose and feel the cool air on the back of your throat during the inhale. Put your feet flat on the floor and feel the ground under them. At the piano:

  • Play very slowly and feel each key under your finger. How does the distance between intervals feel? How does the shape of chords or triads feel?

  • Feel the pattern of black and white keys under your fingers. Can you feel that the black keys sit higher than the white keys?

  • Notice how quickly or slowly your fingers sink to the bottom of the key and how they relax after the sound is made.

  • Are there any moments that you lean from the hips to reach very high or very low keys?

  • In what shape does the forearm move when traveling around the keyboard?

Off-the-bench practice

Not all practice has to happen at the instrument. Mental practice is a powerful memorization tool that can be used anywhere. A few mental practice strategies include:

  • Pretend-playing your piece on a tabletop.

  • Pretend-playing your piece in your mind, imagining all the movements involved.

  • Looking at your music away from the piano, imagining all the sounds involved.

These are just a handful of memorization strategies focusing on using the senses. There are lots of other ways to approach memorization to explore!

Other resources

Preparing for a Recital

Perfect Practice Part 3: Interleaved Practice (interleaved practice lends itself well to memorization!)

Assignment Sheet Overhaul!

New Year, New Assignment Sheets!

From now on, you’ll see two new categories on our weekly assignment sheets: Replay and Remix.

Replay

Occasionally, students will choose a “Replay” piece to review. They may choose any piece they’ve played in the past—all lengths and difficulty levels are possibilities. For example, a student working from Book 3 in their method could choose a favorite piece from Book 1 and replay it, applying the skills and knowledge they have now that they didn’t have before. A heartfelt thank you to fellow piano teacher Christina Whitlock for sharing her concept of a Replay Week, which inspired this new weekly assignment category—her podcast can be found here.

REMIX

Students will also have an periodic “Remix” assignment that goes beyond review by playing an in-progress or previously-mastered piece in a new, creative way. Possibilities include:

  • Transposing the piece to another key.

  • Playing a major-key piece in its relative minor key.

  • Playing all the articulations or dynamics oppositely from what is written.

  • Playing the piece in a different meter. A current student favorite is going all the way back to Charlie Chipmunk (the first piece in Piano Safari Book 1) and playing it in 3/4, 5/4, 6/8, and even 7/8 time.

  • Composing a new section of the piece, transforming it to ABA form. For example, the original piece could serve as the A sections, and the student would compose a short, contrasting B section.

  • Activities from the “Do it Again!” menu are also great for remixing pieces.

Other Additions

Since Google Drive has become such a huge part of tracking assignments, student progress, and practice reminders, the last addition to the weekly assignment is a Google Drive column. A simple checkmark indicates when online resources are available to support practice at home.

Here’s to a new year and a more streamlined way to track assignments!

Making Continuous Fluid Motion Part of At-Home Practice

rhythm:

Latin rhythmus, from Greek rhythmós; “to flow”

What is continuous fluid motion?

Continuous fluid motion involves moving the body in a smooth, uninterrupted way. The concept is rooted in dance and movement education, and music educator and researcher Edwin Gordon coined the phrase “continuous fluid motion” to help introduce the activity to the music-teaching realm. Continuous fluid motion (CFM) is an important activity for young musicians because it prepares them to move rhythmically (i.e. to a beat). It precedes formal rhythmic training, which is why my youngest beginners often go home with unconventional piano lesson assignments like “pretend to stir soup” or “pretend to push something heavy across the room” These playful movements are doing important work!

Why incorporate continuous fluid motion?

  • Develops body awareness.

  • Helps children explore balance and directionality.

  • Is a basis for syncing the breath with movement, musical thinking, and singing (Westervelt).

  • Large purposeful movements prepare students for small purposeful movements.

  • It’s fun! Continuous fluid motion is a great off-the-bench piano lesson activity.

Continuous fluid motion is fundamental in internalizing pulse, meter, and rhythm. Rhythm moves through time, and movement exploration helps students “measure the amount of time in and between beats” (Valerio). One of my favorite things about implementing CFM is that students who have experienced this kind of purposeful-yet-free movement grow into comfortable and natural improvisers!

Laban Movements

Rudolf Laban (1879–1958), a movement educator and dance theorist, developed a system for describing movement using four elements:

  • Space – the direction we move

  • Weight – how strong or gentle the movement feels

  • Time – how quickly or slowly we move

  • Flow – how controlled or free the movement feels

By exploring these elements in different combinations, students experience a wide spectrum of expressive possibilities—long before we name those qualities in musical or technical terms.

Examples of continuous fluid motion

These are just a few examples of CFM that can be done easily at home while listening to music, singing, or chanting.

  • Pretend to push something heavy up a hill.

  • Pretend to swim through water. What about swimming through mud? Through jello? Can you dive down deep? Can you splash at the surface of the water?

  • Paint the room by flicking imaginary paint off your fingers. What if you painted the room with a different body part, like your nose? Can you imagine what you want the painting to look like, then create it with your movements?

  • Stir an imaginary pot of soup. As you add ingredients, does it get harder to stir?

  • Pick up an imaginary teacup, feather, brick, or other objects of varying weights.

  • Move as though you’re an elephant, a cat, a hummingbird, a snake, a cheetah, a hippo, a sloth, etc.

    • Students in the Piano Safari method especially love moving like each of the animals represented in rhythmic patterns (Leo Lion, Tall Giraffe, Charlie Chipmunk, etc.) before imitating the patterns themselves.

  • Pretend to be a flower growing.

  • Pretend to be a tree swaying in the wind.

  • Pretend to drive a car. Go fast, slow, or in-between. Is the road straight or curvy? Smooth or bumpy?

Once students become comfortable with continuous fluid motion, their creativity expands quickly. What begins as playful movement becomes intentional expression—and that expression transfers naturally to the keyboard.

Sources:

Valerio, W. The gordon approach: Music learning theory. https://www.allianceamm.org/resources/gordon/

Westervelt, T. G. (2002). Beginning Continuous Fluid Motion in the Music Classroom. General Music Today, 15(3), 13-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/104837130201500305

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Preparing for a Recital

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9 practice strategies for a solid performance

The Winter Recital is quickly approaching! As students prepare to showcase their hard work, it’s helpful to incorporate performance-specific strategies into everyday practice. Here’s a quick list of things to do (and not do!) in the weeks before a performance.

What to Do

Practice Slowly (Sloth Speed)

Accurate slow practice prevents us from practicing mistakes into our muscle memory. How slow is slow? I typically tell students to find a tempo that they think is slow—then make it even slower! Playing slowly and intentionally helps build restraint and mitigate the tendency to rush under pressure.

Quiz the Beginning

Several times a day, walk to the piano as if it were the day of the recital. Take your time, ensuring that the bench is at a comfortable height and distance from the keyboard. Find the starting position of your piece, play the first few measures, then stop. This practice strategy only takes a few moments, and playing the beginning of the piece at varying times throughout the day will cement the process of beginning a performance into the long-term memory.

Work Backwards

It’s also helpful to emphasize the end of a piece to ensure a strong and confident finish. Spend time with the few measures of your piece. Listen closely to your sound: does it tell the story or communicate the idea that you have in mind? You may also do cumulative backwards practice. For example, play the last line of the piece, then the last two lines, the last three lines, etc., until you’ve worked back to the beginning.

Create Landmarks

Use the structure of your piece (e.g. ABA form, binary form, etc.) to create several reliable starting points. The beginning of each formal section is a great starting point; from there, individual phrases or changes in dynamics, texture, rhythmic patterns, or hand position are suitable landmark locations. If you make a mistake and have difficulty moving past it, you can go forward (never back!) to the nearest landmark rather than the beginning of the piece. Landmarks are especially helpful when working from memory! Some students even give creative names to each section to make landmarks memorable.

Mock Performances

Students can practice performing for family, friends, and even pets! Be sure to include walking to and from the piano and bowing into at-home performances!

Things to think about in a mock performance:

  • How will I approach the piano?

  • How will I start and end the piece?

  • What will I do if I make a mistake?

  • How will I bow?

  • How will I leave the stage?

Record yourself

Recording your playing allows you to listen to yourself in a new, objective way. The recording might reveal parts of the music that need a bit more practice. For example, perhaps some dynamic contrasts are not as pronounced as you thought, or there are passages where the melody isn’t projecting enough. Being aware of any issues uncovered in the recording can help guide practice in the weeks before a performance, ensuring smart use of time.

Becoming comfortable listening to our playing can also help us to look on the bright side; if you made a mistake while playing for the camera, you might realize upon listening that the blunder isn’t nearly as big as it felt in the moment. This awareness builds resilience!

Practice “in Your Brain”

Mental practice is a powerful tool, and you can do it anywhere! Think through your piece from beginning to end, singing it in your head. Where are the loud parts? The soft parts? What is happening in the musical story?

Create a Mantra

As I prepared for my graduate recital, I developed a mantra to recite when anxious or negative thoughts crept in. My mantra was “you’ve done the work,” referring to the countless hours of practice and care I poured into my recital program. Creating a mantra that addresses your unique challenges can help control pre-performance jitters and steady your thoughts before you walk onstage.

Mindfulness Exercises

Take a deep breath through your nose. Feel the cool sensation of the inhale in the back of your throat. Focus on that feeling. Repeat this process, adding a predictable rhythm (e.g., breathe in for four beats and out for four beats). This exercise can help you feel less nervous and distract you from worried thoughts.

What Not to Do

Practice too much

Over-practicing before a performance can lead to fatigue, burnout, and even repetitive stress injuries—especially if you suddenly increase the amount of daily practice to “cram” for a performance. If you’ve exercised good practice habits leading up to the recital, there’s no need to add excessive time to your practice routine.

Last-minute changes

Changing fingerings and major interpretive elements close to a performance isn’t ideal. Last-minute changes can disrupt pre-performance practice routines and be a distraction during the performance itself. Stability fosters confidence!

Trust in the hard work you’ve put in and know that everyone at the recital is rooting for your success! I look forward to all the beautiful performances we’ll enjoy on December 10!

Perfect Practice Part 3: Interleaved Practice

What is interleaved practice?

Interleaving is the process of structuring practice so that students move frequently from one topic to another. As opposed to blocked practice, which repeats the same skill with little interruption, interleaved practice rotates concepts frequently, even if they’re not yet mastered.

At first glance, this approach can seem counterintuitive. Wouldn’t it make more sense to finish one thing before moving on? Research suggests otherwise. Interleaved practice increases long-term learning and retention—a phenomenon known as the contextual interference effect. Contextual interference has been studied in a variety of fields—most notably in sports—and, more recently, in music. In addition to enhanced learning, interleaved practice has been shown to boost executive functions like goal-setting, planning, and focus. (Carter and Grahn 2016).

How do we implement interleaved practice?

Understanding the benefits of interleaving is one thing; implementing it is another. Some students feel uneasy switching tasks quickly. There can be a sense of incompleteness when a passage isn’t fully polished before moving on. Many musicians were trained primarily through blocked repetition, so deviating from that model can feel unfamiliar—even uncomfortable.

As with any practice strategy, the most natural way to introduce interleaving is to model it in the lesson. When students experience frequent, intentional shifts between tasks, the structure becomes familiar rather than jarring. My personal challenge with interleaving the lesson structure is trusting that learning is happening despite a student’s in-the-moment performance occasionally decreasing. According to the literature on context interference, this is to be expected!

A Basic Interleaved Structure

Interleaving works best when practice has clearly defined topics. Each topic calls for different practice strategies, and rotating among them keeps the brain engaged and prevents practice from becoming automatic.

Common practice tasks to interleave might include:

  • Technical work (in exercises or within repertoire)

  • Memory work

  • Improvisation

  • Performance preparation

  • Note and rhythm accuracy

  • Sight-reading

  • Voicing

  • Increasing tempo

  • Expressive refinement

An hour-long interleaved practice could look like this.

Student-Led practice plans

Students don’t need a formal explanation of the term “interleaving.” When the structure is modeled consistently in lessons, they quickly internalize the rhythm of shifting focus. I’ve incorporated interleaved practice even with my youngest students, and they adapt to it quickly when it’s presented as a normal part of our routine.

This student noticed that the pattern of repeated notes ends in the last two measures, so he put a practice square around them.

Marking specific practice points has been especially helpful when structuring interleaved work at home. Students identify and mark challenging passages—often with a square or removable highlighting tape—and explain why that section needs extra attention. However, the word “difficult” is something that we avoid in this context. Rather, we call difficult passages “the fun part,” “the impressive part,” or, as one of my students puts it, “the spicy part.” This reframes challenges in a fun way that fosters a positive attitude toward practice.

Students can cycle through the practice squares from all their pieces, creating context interference. The key is to practice each section only until it begins to feel easier—not until it is note-for-note perfect. This allows the brain to stay engaged and prevents autopilot repetition. From there, students can work on integrating the practice squares into the larger context of the piece.

“With blocking, once you know what solution to use, or movement to execute, the hard part is over. With interleaving, each practice attempt is different from the last, so rote responses don’t work. Instead, your brain must continuously focus on searching for different solutions. That process can improve your ability to learn critical features of skills and concepts, which then better enables you to select and execute the correct response.”
— Steven C. Pan

Real-life Results

Since actively encouraging interleaved practice, I’ve made some general observations:

  • less frustrated by making mistakes and more self-compassionate

  • more reflective on their work, verbalizing what they missed and why they think they missed it before moving onto the next repetition of a passage

  • more thoughtful before playing rather than diving headfirst into a piece

Although a great number of factors can shape these positive behaviors, I believe that the de-emphasis on perfection inherent to interleaved practice might play a role.

Further Reading

A Short Read: The Interleaving Effect: Mixing It Up Boosts Learning

A Deeper Dive: Optimizing Music Learning: Exploring How Blocked and Interleaved Practice Schedules Affect Advanced Performance

Carter CE and Grahn JA (2016) Optimizing Music Learning: Exploring How Blocked and Interleaved Practice Schedules Affect Advanced Performance. Front. Psychol. 7:1251. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01251

A Long, Slow Look

Using the practice of slow looking to tell musical stories

What is slow looking?

The phrase “slow looking” simply means taking intentional time to look closely at something. In her book Slow Looking: The Art and Practice of Learning Through Observation, Shari Tishman elaborates: “The term slow looking uses the vernacular of the visual, but it is important to emphasize that learning through prolonged observation can occur through all the senses” (Tishman 2). Unlike mindfulness, a state of being that also draws our focus to the present moment, we slow look with the intent to gain knowledge.

Tishman’s book, bolstered by findings from her educational research, walks us through slow looking strategies and the positive impact slow looking makes in educational settings. It aligns naturally with discovery learning, in which students construct knowledge through exploration rather than passive explanation. When students uncover patterns and meaning for themselves, their learning is both deeper and more memorable.

Slow Looking in Action

Visual art provides a natural context for slow looking. When observing a work of art, we might ask:

  • What do I see? What do I think about what I see? How do I feel about what I see?

  • What did I notice first? What did I notice after looking for a while?

  • What words come to mind as I look?

  • What more would I like to know about the artwork?

  • Do small parts create the big picture?

  • Does this remind me of something else?

  • How do I think this artwork was created? Were elements added in a certain order?

Ruth Asawa, Desert Plant, 1965

Using Slow Looking as a Springboard for musical Improvisation

In music, slow looking helps students notice patterns, structure, character, and contrast; students train their brains to notice the layers and details that comprise a tapestry of sound. Slow looking lends itself well to two activities that have been met with enthusiasm in my studio: telling a story through music and improvising or composing new music using ideas from an existing piece. I’ve found that combining these two activities is an effective way to encourage students not only to listen slowly but also to improvise with less inhibition. By placing parameters—like improvising using rhythmic or tonal patterns we discovered through slow looking—students can create with clarity and confidence.

Part One: Introduction to a new piece

To encourage students to think about character and mood, I perform a piece with the title hidden and have them guess what it could be about. Students use the practice of slow looking to find patterns and identify how the elements of music (e.g. melody, harmony, form, texture, dynamics) are at play in a given piece.

Next, we compare the title they brainstormed with the original title. It’s amazing how well students capture the essence of a piece! For example, “Floating,” “Dreaming,” “Soaring,” “Kite Flying,” and “Skating” are all common titles students give to “Gliding” by Elvina Truman Pearce.

After thinking about the title, we learn the piece as the composer intended. Learning the piece by rote deepens this process, as listening becomes foundational rather than secondary.

Part Two: Use the Title to Create a New Story

These are real-life examples from a recent lesson in which we studied “Gliding” by Elvina Truman Pearce. We slow listened to the piece to identify patterns and other characteristics, then learned to play it. In the following lesson, we did a creative activity.

I started by asking the following questions:

  • Who or what is gliding?

  • Where are they going? Why?

My student decided that Link from the Legend of Zelda was using his glider to travel to Kakariko Village to see Impa (another game character).

Then, I elaborated with these questions:

  • Are they close, or in the distance?

  • Does anything happen along the way?

  • When in the music do they arrive at their destination?

The observations the student made through slow looking appeared in many of his answers. For example, he decided that Link was far in the distance because the piece started softly and that the dotted half-notes in measures 5-6 (see below) sounded like the giant footsteps of monsters.

Finally, we thought about what musical aspects we might change to fit the story. This is what the student added:

  • he played mm. 5-6 loudly to signify the monsters

  • he added a ritardando in the last measure to show that Link was slowing down and landing gracefully

Part Three: Use Patterns to Improvise and Compose

These are the patterns this particular student identified:

  • The melody alternates between the CDE group on the white keys and a group of three black keys.

  • C’s, D’s, and E’s (white keys) are played as single notes while the black keys are struck together.

  • The melody always goes up.

  • Each phrase sounds like one upward line.

  • The hands work together to create the melody. Each hand is equally important.

From there, he began improvising an “opposite” version by reversing the melodic direction. Gradually, the improvisation became freer, grounded in patterns he had consciously observed.

““When you look for a while, you become aware of how a thing might look to somebody else; you also become aware of your own lens...students come to an understanding of the multi-perspectival nature of knowing things in our world.” ”
— Shari Tishman

The benefits of taking a slow look

Through her research on slow looking, Tishman identified four themes that appeared in students’ slow looking practices. Three themes pertain to how we relate to our environment:

  • Seeing with fresh eyes (interacting with the familiar as if newly discovered)

  • Exploring perspective (looking at things from multiple viewpoints)

  • Noticing detail (allowing observations to unfold from broad to specific)

A fourth theme was philosophical well-being. Students reported that slow looking reminded them of the important things in life. Students also noted that experiencing nature at a slow pace promoted a sense of well-being. The connection between slow observation and mental well-being invites thoughtful consideration of how slow looking might relate to performance anxiety.

In the context of piano lessons, slow looking strengthens both musical and personal development. Students learn to observe carefully, interpret thoughtfully, and make intentional creative choices. Just as importantly, they practice slowing down—an increasingly rare and valuable skill.

More Resources

Tishman, S. (2018). Slow looking: The art and practice of learning through observation. Routledge. 

Thinking Strategies that Support Slow Looking

The Art of Slow Looking in the Classroom

Out of Eden

Project Zero

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore

Slow Looking by Peter Clothier

Slow Looking How-Tos by the National Museum of Women in the Arts

The Parent's Guide to Rote Pieces: Part 2

Listen up!

A look at listening skills and how to develop them at home.

Listening is the first step in learning a rote piece—but listening itself is a skill. Over time, students develop the ability not only to describe what they hear, but to think musically and anticipate what might come next in unfamiliar music. Because rote learning is a core tenet of my teaching, listening skills are practiced at home as part of weekly assignments. The following is a realistic guide to get started with independent listening activities.

Types of Listening

There are different ways to listen, and each one has its place in musical development.

Active listening occurs when music is our primary focus. When we actively listen, we make a deliberate choice to listen to music. We may also try to use what we know about music to understand what we hear.

Passive listening occurs when music is not our primary focus, but we are aware of it. We passively listen to the radio while driving or while performing other tasks.

Unconscious listening occurs when we have little awareness of the music around us. We unconsciously listen to background music at the grocery store.

Active and Passive Listening Within Rote Pieces

While working on rote pieces during at-home practice, we primarily use active listening skills. However, passive listening still has its purpose in rote music learning. I have students listen to rote pieces for several weeks before we learn them. The beginning stages of listening are often passive—we listen to a piece in the background while we unpack the student’s materials, complete a theory assignment, or play a game. This way, when it’s time to actively listen to the piece, the student is already familiar with it. Outside of lessons, a great way to passively listen to rote assignments is to play them in the car on the way to or from school.

Easy ACtive Listening Activities

Draw a Listening Map

Students might draw the direction of the melody, draw short lines for short notes and long lines for long notes, or create a combination of their own symbols to represent dynamics, form, and articulation. As they learn formal musical symbols, students may also include these in their listening maps. The youngest of students may simply draw what they think the piece is about.

An example of a listening map of “Robots” from Piano Safari Level 1 by a 7-year-old student. This piece has three distinct sections, each one at a different tempo. The melody remains the same throughout, but moves up an octave in each section. The student shows that the pitch gets higher by drawing upward lines, uses different colors to show the three different tempos, and drew a similar shapes throughout to show that the melody is the same in each section.

Move with the Form

After listening to the piece a few times, students can brainstorm movements to accompany each section. Simple movements for a piece with ABA form might look like this:

A: clap hands to the beat

B: tap knees to the beat

A: clap hands to the beat

Guided Listening Questions

Open-ended questions:

  • How does this piece make you feel?

  • What do you think this piece is about?

  • Do you think the piece sounds like its title?

  • What story do you think the music tells?

Objective questions for beginners:

  • Is the piece a slow, medium, or fast tempo?

  • What dynamic levels does the piece use?

  • What animal rhythms do you hear?

  • Does any part of the piece repeat?

  • What is the form of the piece (e.g. ABA)?

  • Is the piece in duple meter, triple meter, or something else?

Objective questions for more advanced students:

  • What meteris the piece in (duple, triple, uneven)?

  • What is the tonality (major, minor, something else)?

  • Can you name some of the musical terms you hear (e.g. crescendo, ritardando)?

  • What is the texture of the piece (e.g. melody with accompaniment, melody only, melody over an ostinato/repeating pattern)?

Creative Ways to "Do it again!"

Repetition is a fundamental part of piano practice, but it’s not always a favorite part of practicing. These are ways that I ask students to “do it again” with flair. Each item is designed to be musically meaningful and to keep repetition intentional.

Every variation below targets a specific skill. For example, playing a passage “oppositely” highlights its intended character, and shifting octaves helps students hear something familiar in a new way. These strategies work best after students have spent time establishing accurate notes and rhythms.

  1. Play while singing the melody.

  2. Play the right hand one octave higher and the left hand one octave lower.

  3. Play small sections with your eyes closed.

  4. Play the piece at different tempos (e.g. largo, adagio, andante, allegro, presto).

  5. For primer-level pieces written for one hand, play the right and left hands together in parallel motion.

  6. Make the piece sound like different animals (e.g. play it high like a bird, or low like a whale).

  7. Play all dynamics oppositely (e.g. loud becomes soft, etc.).

  8. Play all articulations oppositely (e.g. legato becomes staccato).*

  9. Play and sing the accompaniment.

  10. Play and say each downbeat (beat 1) out loud.

  11. If the piece has multiple voices, play while singing or humming the soprano, alto, tenor, or bass line—alternate which voice you sing with each repetition.*

  12. Transpose the piece to another key.

*These activities are best suited for more advanced students

An easy way to incorporate strategic repetition is to gamify it. I write different repetition strategies on popsicle sticks and allow students to draw one at random, selecting only those appropriate for their level and stage of learning. The mystery of which stick they’ll pull keeps students eager to build the habit of repetition. The best part is that this game is easily replicated at home. Students may even get creative and brainstorm their own ways to repeat a section!

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Perfect Practice: Part 2

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Five More Strategies for Successful Practicing

Positivity is Contagious

The tone of a practice session matters. There will be days when your child feels reluctant to practice—and days when you do, too. Even so, the atmosphere adults create has a significant impact on how practice unfolds. Announcing that it’s time to practice with a friendly—not demanding or nagging—tone is a good place to start.

Although part of piano practice is identifying and correcting mistakes, it’s also important to focus on what the student is doing well. Without giving excessive praise, aim for a healthy balance of constructive. comments and positive feedback: for every correction, acknowledge one or two strengths you observe during the session.

Avoid Mirroring Tension

Sometimes, tension will build in at-home practice sessions. Perhaps your child is reluctant to practice altogether, or is frustrated with challenging parts of their assignment—no matter the issue, tension will escalate when met with more tension. Young children are still developing emotional regulation skills, so adults often need to take the lead in diffusing tension. Diffusing tension may including pausing for a moment to tell joke and have a laugh, offering praise for effort if the student is working diligently on something challenging, or keeping communication open by having the student evaluate their own work. What do they feel is the hardest part of a particular practice session? In what areas do they feel like they are excelling?

Be Fair and Follow Through

Students thrive when expectations are consistent and reasonable. To feel safe, communicate openly, and be freely creative, students need to trust that their teachers will not give them more than they can handle, hold them to unrealistic standards, or be inappropriately picky.

At home, parents temporarily step into a teaching role, and fairness matters just as much there as it does in lessons. Avoid asking the student to do more than is listed on the weekly assignment, and be consistent with requests—it isn’t fair to have a student play a passage ten times if five times was the agreement. Consistency builds trust, and trust supports effort.

Deep Dive: Give Rewards—But Know How to Use Them

Some families choose to use rewards to encourage practice. When used thoughtfully, rewards can acknowledge effort without replacing intrinsic motivation. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink distinguishes between two types of rewards:

  • If-Then rewards (“If you practice, then you earn…”), which are anticipated and tied directly to task completion.

  • Now-That rewards, which are unexpected acknowledgments of effort, focus, or persistence.

Research suggests that frequent If-Then rewards can shift attention away from enjoyment and toward the reward itself. Over time, they may need to increase in size or frequency to maintain the same effect. Now-That rewards, by contrast, recognize qualities such as focus, independence, and perseverance.

If-Then rewards ultimately stifle creativity and inhibit deep thinking. This is because the focus is on the short term and the reward itself. Pink also explains how If-Then rewards can deflate motivation: “If-Then rewards require people for forfeit some of their autonomy…And that can spring a hole in the bottom of their motivation bucket, draining an activity of its enjoyment” (36). When an enjoyable task becomes a job, our motivation to perform the task out of genuine excitement interest declines.

If-Then rewards are also hard to maintain because they are anticipated by recipients, who come to then expect rewards upon completion of similar tasks. Pink notes, “…before long, the existing reward may no longer suffice. It will quickly feel less like a bonus and more like the status quo—which then forces [the use] of larger rewards to achieve the same effect” (53).

Now-That rewards, on the other hand, foster intrinsic motivation because they allow students to see the relationship between their behavior and rewards. What do Now-That rewards look like in the context of piano lessons and practice? Here are a few examples:

  • When the student accomplishes their practice goals before their practice session is finished, reward their focus and effort by allowing some time for games via music apps. Explain that the surprise app time is a result of their focus.

  • When the student successfully uses visual aids included in their take-home pouch (e.g., fuzzies, picture cards), reward them with some fun, affordable manipulatives like Iwako erasers or finger puppets. Mention that since they know how to use those aids so well, you got them some new, cool ones!

  • When the student uses practice strategies independently, reward their ownership with a treat.

Because they are a surprise, Now-That rewards should always be followed up by explaining why the reward was given—this will get the student eager to show off their good attitude and effort in the future!

What I Don’t Use as Rewards

Creative activities—such as improvisation or musical games—are integral parts of music learning in my studio. For that reason, I do not use them as rewards or withhold them as consequences. They are part of the learning process itself.

For more a in-depth look at rewards and motivation, I recommend reading Daniel Pink’s book or giving this episode of Dr. Ashley Danyew’s podcast, Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning, a listen.