Yesterday, I pulled out my Italian Songs and Arias book. Popped the CD into the player and started singing songs that I performed in college. I'm now 34, that's been 12-14 years ago. Its amazing that when the accompaniment to Le Violette begun, I felt transported back in time, to the North Georgia College music department stage. Every word, pronunciation, breath, crescendo, decrescendo, rest....it all came back!
I sang and sang and sang through every song I had ever learned: Caro Mio Ben, Sebben Crudele, Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento, and many more.
My voice has definitely changed. My range is smaller, not as practiced as it once was. My breath volume has increased and my tone has matured. My singing passion has changed....so many other things to be passionate about.
But what an experience it was, remembering all the excitement of taking the stage and performing for my parents and then boyfriend Charles, now husband. It was awesome.
I think I'm going to have to pull that book out more often. :)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Burning Calories While Singing/Playing
Since its January, and tons of people make New Year's resolutions to get in shape, here are some musical ways to burn calories:
According to my new My Fitness Pal App on my Droid:
Spend 30 minutes:
playing cello/flute/horn/woodwind----BURN 72 calories
playing drums---BURN 145 calories
guitar-sitting ----BURN 72 calories
guitar-standing---BURN 108 calories
playing piano/organ---BURN 90 calories
singing-sitting---BURN 50 calories
singing-standing ---BURN 73 calories
practicing marching band with instrument ---BURN 145 calories
Awesome. So today, I will be standing, playing guitar and singing for 30 minutes. If I did my math right, I should burn 181 calories!!
According to my new My Fitness Pal App on my Droid:
Spend 30 minutes:
playing cello/flute/horn/woodwind----BURN 72 calories
playing drums---BURN 145 calories
guitar-sitting ----BURN 72 calories
guitar-standing---BURN 108 calories
playing piano/organ---BURN 90 calories
singing-sitting---BURN 50 calories
singing-standing ---BURN 73 calories
practicing marching band with instrument ---BURN 145 calories
Awesome. So today, I will be standing, playing guitar and singing for 30 minutes. If I did my math right, I should burn 181 calories!!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
3 snow days in a row
I can't believe that my kids had 3 snow days in a row! Today is Thursday and its the first day of school for the week. On top of that, Monday is Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, so they have off then also!
I'm all about spending some relaxing time, laying around in pj's watching tv, playing games, etc. But after the fourth day of that (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues) I'd had enough. I pulled out all the schoolwork and worksheets, crafts, projects, science experiment books etc.
Each of the 4 kids received a list of things that they had to complete before they got any "screen" time.
Of course, since I am a music teacher by trade, they had to do some music theory work. So I pulled out the list of music theory websites. They could pick any of them and they could spend 30 minutes on the computer playing the games on the sites. It was a win-win situation!
So, in case there are other moms who are ready for some academic achievement in the times of snow days, here's the list of websites again:
http://www.classicsforkids.com/games/
http://www.creatingmusic.com/
http://www.dsokids.com/2001/rooms/musicroom.asp
http://www.nyphilkids.org/main.phtml?
http://www.flashmusicgames.com/
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
Have a great snow day!
I'm all about spending some relaxing time, laying around in pj's watching tv, playing games, etc. But after the fourth day of that (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues) I'd had enough. I pulled out all the schoolwork and worksheets, crafts, projects, science experiment books etc.
Each of the 4 kids received a list of things that they had to complete before they got any "screen" time.
Of course, since I am a music teacher by trade, they had to do some music theory work. So I pulled out the list of music theory websites. They could pick any of them and they could spend 30 minutes on the computer playing the games on the sites. It was a win-win situation!
So, in case there are other moms who are ready for some academic achievement in the times of snow days, here's the list of websites again:
http://www.classicsforkids.com/games/
http://www.creatingmusic.com/
http://www.dsokids.com/2001/rooms/musicroom.asp
http://www.nyphilkids.org/main.phtml?
http://www.flashmusicgames.com/
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
Have a great snow day!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Organ-ish playing
What is organ-ish playing? I had no idea, but that was the concept given to me by the worship leader when she was explaining what she wanted from me.
After asking more questions, I inferred that she wanted me to play on the digital piano, strings setting, simple chords, holding down the keys that didn't change from chord to chord. Easy as pie, right?
Well, a smidge harder than I thought.
For years, I've been playing improv from chord lead sheets for church on Sunday morning. While I play though, my fingers stay busy the whole time. I've got arpeggios going in the left, chord changes from 2s to 4sus', passing tones, tidbits of melody, the whole nine yards! So to be asked to "downplay" all that was almost insulting. But I didn't "take the bait" (see footnotes for that meaning) and decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? Maybe I could even learn something.
So I practiced. I practiced at home, at the group practice both during the week and the morning of and this is what I discovered. I don't like organ-ish playing. I find it boring. BUT I also realized that during that scurry of notes that I usually play, I'm not taking the time to appreciate the similar notes and suspension pitches that carry from chord to chord.
It was really neat. But boring. No more organ-ish playing for me.
*footnotes. Don't Take The Bait is the name of a book/Bible Study that I did a couple years ago. The premise is, don't get offended. Period.
After asking more questions, I inferred that she wanted me to play on the digital piano, strings setting, simple chords, holding down the keys that didn't change from chord to chord. Easy as pie, right?
Well, a smidge harder than I thought.
For years, I've been playing improv from chord lead sheets for church on Sunday morning. While I play though, my fingers stay busy the whole time. I've got arpeggios going in the left, chord changes from 2s to 4sus', passing tones, tidbits of melody, the whole nine yards! So to be asked to "downplay" all that was almost insulting. But I didn't "take the bait" (see footnotes for that meaning) and decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? Maybe I could even learn something.
So I practiced. I practiced at home, at the group practice both during the week and the morning of and this is what I discovered. I don't like organ-ish playing. I find it boring. BUT I also realized that during that scurry of notes that I usually play, I'm not taking the time to appreciate the similar notes and suspension pitches that carry from chord to chord.
It was really neat. But boring. No more organ-ish playing for me.
*footnotes. Don't Take The Bait is the name of a book/Bible Study that I did a couple years ago. The premise is, don't get offended. Period.
Tune my heart
So as the piano tuner was tuning my piano...my body language changed, convulsed actually, and it was completely involuntary.
There's something about a pitch that's almost right, almost in tune that is unnatural and hellacious to my ears. I blame that on pitch matching and intonation.
But I can also attest that my heart isn't always on pitch, and sometimes it is quite unnatural and hellacious to God's ears.
What is the solution?? Sadly a heart-"wrench"-ing appointment with the pitch tuner.
What's more beautiful than a perfectly tuned piano?? A perfectly tuned heart.
There's something about a pitch that's almost right, almost in tune that is unnatural and hellacious to my ears. I blame that on pitch matching and intonation.
But I can also attest that my heart isn't always on pitch, and sometimes it is quite unnatural and hellacious to God's ears.
What is the solution?? Sadly a heart-"wrench"-ing appointment with the pitch tuner.
What's more beautiful than a perfectly tuned piano?? A perfectly tuned heart.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
And the Teacher becomes the Student...
As a piano teacher, I've had a handful of adult students and have often been frustrated by my teaching capabilities with adults. Many times the students last less than 6 months and frustration seems to be the main reason (or it really could be me, they just don't tell me!).
Well today I got a taste of what it must be like to be an adult piano student. I met with a friend, who is a swim instructor, for a swim lesson. Right off the bat we started working on drills to improve my freestyle kick. I struggled. All of a sudden I was hit by a wall of embarrassment, frustration, and discouragement. It was difficult to keep going. I'm an intellectual person, have a college degree, not afraid of the water, have "swam" for 30 years now....and couldn't get my kick, stroke and breath coordinated correctly. It was the great battle of knowledge vs. ability. I understood what she was explaining, it made sense, I knew what to do but now it was teaching my body to respond in that way, and that was frustrating. There was actually a moment in there when I really wanted to just slink away out of the pool and hope she wouldn't notice.
But I kept going. 45 minutes later I had a better understanding of not only breath sequencing for freestyle, but also the rhythm for breast stroke. It will take many hours of practice, but I think I might get it.
How can this apply to adults learning piano. Once again its the struggle of knowledge vs. ability. Adults are intelligent, logical beings that understand the words written in the book, the words coming out of the teachers' mouths, but now have to teach their fingers, hands, wrists and arms to respond correctly. Wow. That's an undertaking, and one that will be laced with feelings of inadequacy, frustration, embarrassment and discouragement. I hope that I can learn how to empathize with future adult students and help them work through those emotions and fears to experience success like my swim instructor did for me today.
Well today I got a taste of what it must be like to be an adult piano student. I met with a friend, who is a swim instructor, for a swim lesson. Right off the bat we started working on drills to improve my freestyle kick. I struggled. All of a sudden I was hit by a wall of embarrassment, frustration, and discouragement. It was difficult to keep going. I'm an intellectual person, have a college degree, not afraid of the water, have "swam" for 30 years now....and couldn't get my kick, stroke and breath coordinated correctly. It was the great battle of knowledge vs. ability. I understood what she was explaining, it made sense, I knew what to do but now it was teaching my body to respond in that way, and that was frustrating. There was actually a moment in there when I really wanted to just slink away out of the pool and hope she wouldn't notice.
But I kept going. 45 minutes later I had a better understanding of not only breath sequencing for freestyle, but also the rhythm for breast stroke. It will take many hours of practice, but I think I might get it.
How can this apply to adults learning piano. Once again its the struggle of knowledge vs. ability. Adults are intelligent, logical beings that understand the words written in the book, the words coming out of the teachers' mouths, but now have to teach their fingers, hands, wrists and arms to respond correctly. Wow. That's an undertaking, and one that will be laced with feelings of inadequacy, frustration, embarrassment and discouragement. I hope that I can learn how to empathize with future adult students and help them work through those emotions and fears to experience success like my swim instructor did for me today.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Question and Answer Time!
Question and Answer time! Here are some recent ones:
How old should my child be to start piano lessons?
The easy answer is kindergarten or 1st grade. The reason that this answer is given so often is because by kindergarten/1st grade, children are expected to be able to sit for 20-30 minutes at a time and can follow simple instructions.
The more difficult answer is, it depends on the child, the parent, the desire, the ability, the amount of time to practice. To determine that, let's talk further...off the blog. :)
I feel my children's piano teacher is rushing off to go to an appointment, so if the lessons are running behind and my kids' lessons are at the end of the day and they're still finishing on time, they aren't getting the 30 minute lesson that I'm paying for. How would you approach this or bring it up without offending?
> A direct way would be to ask if the teacher could please begin the lesson closer to the starting time.
> A less direct approach would be to ask if the teacher thought the prescribed 30 minute block of time was enough for your child's lesson. This might clue the teacher in to the fact that she's not actually spending 30 minutes with them teaching. If he/she doesn't follow the clue, follow up by saying that when other lessons run over into your kids' time, then they aren't getting the full 30 minutes. You can add that you feel like your child needs the full 30 minutes in order to grasp the new concepts each week.
> Another option would be to arrive promptly at your next scheduled lesson and stand somewhere visible to the teacher from the time that your child's lesson should begin. When its finally time for your time slot, mention that the lessons seem to be right on top of each other and suggest that she builds a 5 minute window of time into her schedule between lessons for transition time.
Is it ok to only own a keyboard and not a real piano?
Hmm... that's a tough one. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it here. Check it out!
Are there any music game websites for kids?
Why yes, yes there are! Here are some of my favorites:
www.classicsforkids.com/games/
www.creatingmusic.com/
www.dsokids.com/2001/rooms/musicroom.asp
www.nyphilkids.org/main.phtml
www.flashmusicgames.com/
www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
If you have any music related questions, let me know! If I don't know the answer, I bet I can find someone who does!
How old should my child be to start piano lessons?
The easy answer is kindergarten or 1st grade. The reason that this answer is given so often is because by kindergarten/1st grade, children are expected to be able to sit for 20-30 minutes at a time and can follow simple instructions.
The more difficult answer is, it depends on the child, the parent, the desire, the ability, the amount of time to practice. To determine that, let's talk further...off the blog. :)
I feel my children's piano teacher is rushing off to go to an appointment, so if the lessons are running behind and my kids' lessons are at the end of the day and they're still finishing on time, they aren't getting the 30 minute lesson that I'm paying for. How would you approach this or bring it up without offending?
> A direct way would be to ask if the teacher could please begin the lesson closer to the starting time.
> A less direct approach would be to ask if the teacher thought the prescribed 30 minute block of time was enough for your child's lesson. This might clue the teacher in to the fact that she's not actually spending 30 minutes with them teaching. If he/she doesn't follow the clue, follow up by saying that when other lessons run over into your kids' time, then they aren't getting the full 30 minutes. You can add that you feel like your child needs the full 30 minutes in order to grasp the new concepts each week.
> Another option would be to arrive promptly at your next scheduled lesson and stand somewhere visible to the teacher from the time that your child's lesson should begin. When its finally time for your time slot, mention that the lessons seem to be right on top of each other and suggest that she builds a 5 minute window of time into her schedule between lessons for transition time.
Is it ok to only own a keyboard and not a real piano?
Hmm... that's a tough one. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it here. Check it out!
Are there any music game websites for kids?
Why yes, yes there are! Here are some of my favorites:
www.classicsforkids.com/games/
www.creatingmusic.com/
www.dsokids.com/2001/rooms/musicroom.asp
www.nyphilkids.org/main.phtml
www.flashmusicgames.com/
www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
If you have any music related questions, let me know! If I don't know the answer, I bet I can find someone who does!
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