Guitar/Ukulele Quick Tip

If you or your child attends lessons at Myriad Music School and Dance Academy, chances are you have received a "Quick Tips" email pertaining to your instrument. These are usually practice tips that you can work on throughout the week in addition to your assignment sheet. Please take the time to read these as they are written by our teachers specifically for you! Here is one that was sent to all of our guitar/ukulele students but can really relate to all instruments.

"Sharing your music with family and friends is a great way to practice the music you are learning. Get your family together once a week to share one or two of the songs you can play well. If you have friends who play an instrument, organize a get-together to share songs. You can learn a lot from sharing and listening to each other play music."

Please visit our Facebook page to see more useful tips and to keep up with what is happening at our school!

Professional Development Workshops: Learning Modalities

Here at Myriad we place a BIG emphasis on continuing education. One way we do this is to have clinics for not only our teachers but for interested teachers in our neighborhood! Our teachers had a great time together with author / educator / education clinician Susan Bruckner, from Cabrillo College. Her topic was  “Teaching Students with Different Learning Modalities". This clinic was part of Myriad's on-going Professional Development Workshops for our music and dance teachers.  Susan is a talented, seasoned teacher, with  a plethera of research and a great biblio to back up her findings. She presents clinics to educators at various conferences throughout the US. This is her second appearance at Myriad.

Her book is entitled The Whole Musician: A Multi-Sensory Guide to Practice, Performance and Pedagogy.  It's a great read for parents too, to better understand your child's learning modality.

DID YOU KNOW? A few highlights..

• We only know the world from our own experience. As parents and teachers, we have to determine how our child learns. 
• 
  Our culture values and rewards visual learners - what happens to the aural or kinesthetic learners? Do you know how to tell what kind of learner your child is?
• 
  If you learn to read the tell-tale signs, you can direct your child towards into activities, or learning experiences that will speak to them more authentically. Our teachers learned about some of the signs that can be typical of visual, aural, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory learners. We explored helpful, engaging strategies we can easily employ at the lessons / dance classes that will aid our students to take in information in a meaningful, lasting way.

Sincerely,
The Teaching Team, Myriad Music School and Dance Academy

The Benefits of Structured Movement

Did you know that structured movement is crucial for your child's development? Motor activity is valuable in that it provides the sensory input that helps to organize the learning process. The brain's mental and social functions are based on a foundation of sensory-motor processes (mind/body connection). The sensory integration that occurs in moving, talking and playing is the groundwork for the more complex sensory integration that is necessary for reading, writing, and good behavior.
Movement activities offer practice in balancing, crossing the mid-line of the body (using both sides of the brain simultaneously), visual perception, and eye-hand/eye-foot coordination. In addition, movement classes provide vestibular stimulation, which affects how efficiently the brain processes information.

Source: Sensory Integration and the Child. By A. Jean Ayres, PhD, Western Psychological Services.

Flute Students: Listen Up!

Myriad Music School’s very own  Flute Teacher, Melanie Keller, performed a  concerto with the Vallejo Symphony in April 2013. It was recently broadcast on KDFC on Sunday, Sept 21st. 

 

 It is still available for listening on the KDFC website until Oct 5th!  Here is the link:

http://www.kdfc.com/pages/17262965.php

Secret Octave Technique

Here at Myriad, piano ergonomics and the way you use your arm, wrist, hand and fingers is a big deal for how we teach healthy piano habits. 

For our students who have hands approaching almost adult size, here is a “how to play octave tip” that reiterates our belief in the perimeter fingers stabilizing the rest of the hand. If you get your thumb and pinky aligned and playing forward into the piano, the arc of the rest of the hand stays strong and relaxed. Watch this video if you are playing octaves.

 

http://livingpianos.com/how-to-play-piano/a-secret-octave-technique-for-piano/

Moving Around the Piano- Some tips!

This is what Myriad Music School Piano Teachers call "hovering helicopter practice – finding your hand positions quickly, when your hands need to move over a new position". 

 

 Robert Estrin from  Robert@LivingPianos.com says about the same technique –we at Myriad agree.

It’s always a great idea to be over the keys before you need to play them. It will help you relax and be able to concentrate on actually playing and not just where your hands are located. A great way to achieve this is by practicing your music right up until the moment where you need to move your hand. Keep practicing the same line over and over and when you get to the notes you need to play next just move your hand over them but don’t play them yet, just get your hand in position. Keep doing this until your hand effortlessly glides to the correct spot and keep doing it until it just feels natural. When you feel confident you have achieved a fluid and precise movement over the keys, play the notes. Continue to play the phrase and the proceeding notes until you feel confident enough to move on.

You can really do this for all your music – whether it requires crossing your hands or not. The best thing you can do is to stay relaxed and be ready over notes ahead of time. You should never play from a position in which you feel like you are constantly catching up.

When Did 88 Keys Become Standard on the Piano??

The original design of the piano evolved from the Harpsichord which had about five octaves of keys. Throughout Beethoven’s life, the piano evolved in its robustness as well as the keyboard range.

Learn More! 

Balancing Music and School

This is a very important topic that not only applies to school but applies to nearly every aspect of life. Learning to balance and manage your time is an absolute necessity to finding success and happiness in your life. I learned a long time ago through some personal struggles that sometimes it is necessary to give up things that are good for the pursuit of what is important. You can’t do everything.

Read more at http://livingpianos.com/general/balancing-music-and-school/

How to Add Color to Your Music

How do you achieve color and interest to the piano songs you are playing? One technique is how you balance the hands. Playing the melody stronger than the accompaniment immediately adds more flavor and color to the music. An easy way to achieve this is to simply apply more arm weight to the right hand while playing.

All instruments essentially imitate the human voice. However, with the piano, every time you play a note, it immediately begins to fade out. One thing I’ve noticed from listening to flute players is that they play higher notes with more breath and volume than lower notes. This is totally natural when singing or playing a wind instrument. One thing to be learned from one of the great piano teachers, Ruth Slenczynska is that you can mimic this effect on the piano. Playing higher notes louder and lower notes softer will add a lot of color and expression to your music. You can also take a bit more time when you reach the higher notes to add a greater effect. You will create the sense of a singing line on the piano!

But let’s not forget about the left hand in all this. If you were using the pedal you could meld the notes to create a nicer sound. Yet without the pedal you can achieve this by holding selected notes with your fingers! Try holding the bottom note holding the first note in each group so it overlaps the following sixteenth notes. You will be rewarded with a rich sound! ~ Living Piano, Piano Tips with Robert Estrin