Consultants Ursula Newman and Julie Lovison reconnect in the booth

“It was  a mad scramble to catch a session here and there in between visiting with colleagues, friends and other exhibitors,” said Julie.

Julie and Reno Lovison enjoy a reunion with Consultant Donna Edwards.

Why is a big ear hanging on our wall in the studio?  This reproduction of Michaelangelo’s David’s Ear sculpture is a fun way to bring focus to a favorite activity at LSMS – finding “ear tunes.”   Ear Tunes is a term coined by us to represent a song that one has found strictly by ear – in other words trying various notes until your ear finds the right keys for a tune.    Often students will bring in an ear tune of a song from the radio, a song from music class at school, or choir or church, or the ever popular Ode to Joy or Happy Birthday.  We write them down on our Ear Tunes of the Week chart to give other students ideas for songs to try to find. 

We actively encourage students to use their ears to find songs  – Music is experienced and enjoyed with the ears. Therefore, the better your ears can discriminate the sounds the more rich your experience of music will be and the easier time you will have playing piano.

In the words of our mentor, Dr. Robert Pace, we want to develop “The ear that sees and the eye that hears.”  That means, when you hear music, you form a mental image of the notes going up or down, and when you see printed music, you can hear the music playing in your head..

 Some people naturally begin with an ability to play by ear well.   Others may have a good relative sense of some notes’ relation to others. We find our students can improve this skill to a large extent through practice. 

 How do we develop this?  We begin on a simple concept.  Beginning with a 3 note range (we use 3 triplet black keys) –we develop the ability to hear whether the notes go up, down or repeat.  Once this is secure, we add discriminating between a step (an adjacent key) or a skip (skipping over one key, making a larger interval between the first and second.) Once success within a 3 note range is achieved, this can be expanded to 5 finger positions (a range of five notes, and then to an 8 note scale.)  

Some songs are easier because the intervals are smaller, and they stay within the 8 notes of the scale.

Others meander more and are more difficult.

Here are some “ear tunes”  to try, to begin developing your ear. 

3 note range (use three triplet notes or CDE) 

Mary Had a little lamb on CDE *Hint – it starts by going down , not up (so play EDC or High Middle Low first)

Hot Cross Buns (also begins going down)

5 note range (CDEFG)

Ode to Joy  (begin on E)

Alouette 

6 note range

Twinkle Twinkle

Frere Jacques 

Pentatonic (black keys only)

Amazing grace

Old MacDonald

Those Were the Days (from All in the Family, by Charles Strouse)

The Farmer in the Dell 

Other popular starter ear tunes

Lean on Me

Happy Birthday 

If you insist on beginning with Take Me out to the Ballgame or Star Spangled Banner

remember, you were warned, some songs are more complicated.

Little kids love them, older students want to throw them against the wall and are sure they are conspiring against them.   Just what is a metronome? 

Metronomes are devices that keep a steady beat.  The first metronome was invented, according to the Harvard Dictionary of Music,  in 1812 by  Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel but named after Johannes Maelzel, who took the idea and popularized it.  Beethoven was the first to publish suggested metronome numbers as a guide to correct  tempi for his pieces.   A metronome marking of 60 to the quarter note would mean each quarter note would equal a second.  Most Sousa marches are played at 120, (imagine Stars and Stripes Forever at two beats per second.)

  The original mechanism was a pendulum whose speed could be altered by moving a weight up or down.  The familiar triangular shape was popular for many years.  In addition to the original pendulum type, electronic, quartz and digital metronomes are also popular today, and many keyboards and software programs have built in metronomes.  Many play along jazz educational CDs have built in combos as a very cool way to feel the beat.  In our Moppets programs, we build  “human metronomes” into our playing in the form of a partner playing a steady beat duet to our songs.

Young students are captivated by the original metronome mechanism, and enjoy keeping the beat with rhythm instruments or with body movement as they enjoy their songs.   A typical use for a metronome for an intermediate level student would be to practice a piece like a sonatina a bit under tempo, with very deliberate attention to staying with the beat of the metronome.  The metronome identifies which passages a student might be rushing or hesitating on, and helps pull these passages into steadiness.   It very often FEELS like it surely must be the metronome that is off, thus causing frustration for students who are not used to working with the metronome.  A good way to become friends with the metronome is to begin practicing 5 finger patterns or scales.  These are easier to keep a steady beat with initially than a piece which has many types of musical and technical complexities involved.  A general feeling among music teachers is that metronomes help students in many ways, but that students also need to establish a good natural sense of  internal beat that can be relied on without a metronome’s help.

For more about metronomes see www.en.wikipedia.org/metronomes

Soccer, basketball, baseball, chess, swim, track … our students have much familiarity with these teams.  Did you know your children are also members of a “piano team?” 

We began this term with inviting students to think of their class as a “piano team.”  Just like any sport, our team requires practice. All team members are responsible to the others to come to their lesson sufficiently prepared through their weekly follow up at home, to move on as a group. This means they need to have assimilated, memorized or mastered the requisite skills and concepts.  This could be physical mastery of technique or memorizing some fundamentals such as note names, chords, scales, or key signatures (the structures of music.) Our curriculum layers new concepts upon previous ones every week in a systematic structure. The student’s assignment sheet gives them the “game plan” for practice every week. 

The practice “game plan” includes many components beyond simply playing through their new piece once or twice.  Each component is budgeted into a few minutes of concentrated practice per day, with the new piece being one aspect of the total practice time.   Students need to budget ½ hour of practice time minimum at least 5 days a week to accomplish the required practice for our programs (6 and 7 year olds may begin with 20 minutes). 

Each team member makes sure the whole team “gets” each new concept, by helping to explain it in their own words, then by evaluating each other. Teaching one another crystallizes their own knowledge. 

As in any team activity, when players miss practices, it fragments the team’s cohesion. This is why it is important that attendance at lessons is a priority.  It is better to come to even a portion of the lesson, or leave early, if your schedule has to be adjusted for some reason. 

As team members we celebrate each other’s victories such as when we achieve success with a new piece, master a technical skill or memorize important fundamentals. 

Yes we are a team.  We do not have weekly contests to “win” against outside opponents. Nevertheless, we do have challenges to meet against two opponents – - discouragement and commitment as we challenge ourselves to improve. Our score is kept by evaluating our growing musical knowledge; our improving skill level; and our ability to perform and enjoy beautiful music. 

The improvement in student progress since focusing on our “piano teams” this year has been dramatic.  Students have been eager to share their accomplishments with their team members.  Each lesson is infused with a creative, dynamic energy that has made teachers and students excited to be in this piano sport together.

 When competing against ourselves we are often facing a formidable adversary. All teams thrive on energetic cheerleaders and fans. Parents, friends and family can help our teams and players by recognizing their efforts, supporting their activities and enthusiastically appreciating their exhibitions.

I can’t read that clock – cry the 7 year old students in dismay about our clock in the studio.  Why does it have letters instead of numbers?

We love our “circle of fifths” clock.  The circle of fifths represents the construction rules for music (structure) that began with Bach and has continued as our basis for traditional music for over 300 years.   In simple terms, music follows a structure of chord and melodic progression.  

The circle of 5th begins with C – counting CDEFG brings you to G – GABCD brings you to D.   etc.  Each key is 5 notes up from the previous.  Since we are using scales, the key of B takes us up to F#;  would also involved some sharp and flat keys. 

hierarchy of chords. If you are in the key of C, you would resolve through G to C.  Further down the circle, you would progress through d  minor to G 7 to C. 

Previous to this compromised and equalizing of notes, you could only play in one key at a time.  If you tried to transpose the piece into another key, the intervals would be different and present unpleasing sounds. 

Bach wrote the Well Tempered Clavier to give people a body of pieces to learn to play in all keys.  As you progress through this book, the first is in C the second in c minor, the third in C#,  and so on.

What happened was application of a certain interval in the  7 chord  developed a sense of gravitational pull toward the home key.

After 300 years of conditioning our ears, when we hear a 7 chord, we have a urgency in our ears for resolution to the I chord.  If unresolved, we feel unfulfilled.   (Think through Happy Birthday, all the way to the end, but stop at TO – you really feel the pull to You.) 

Anyone who has played the the guitar may have noticed that in the key of G, other frequently used chords are D7 and A minor.

In fact G A minor D7 G is pretty typical – perhaps even G E minor, A minor,  D7 G or G C D7 G.    This is the circle of fifths in operation.  E minor, A minor, d minor, G7 and C are all resolving downward through the circle of fifths. 

Some common songs using this formula are Heart and Soul,,Blue Moon, Can’t Help Lovin’ that Man of Mine.

Jazz players practice the ii V I progression religiously in all keys. 

In the Pace method, we learn to play in all keys from the early levels of study. We experience the thrill of playing a simple song in another key and hearing the same sounds coming from a new position.  We get accustomed to playing in all keys.  This makes reading in any key easy.  Instead of having to remember continually which notes need sharps or flats, we just know they do because we have internalized the key and it is  familiar to our fingers. 

When we transpose, we place our fingers in the new scale (first five notes) and rather than think note names, we think finger numbers or intervals – repeat, step up step, step down, etc. 

We learn that each 8 note scale is comprised of  whole steps and half steps.  (a half step is the distance from one key to any adjacent key (C to C#, C# to D, etc.)  A whole steps equals two half steps C to D, D to E, E to F#…)  In what is known as the ”major scale ” pattern, there are whole steps between each key except 3 and 4 and 7 and 8.   The last four notes of the C scale are the same four notes as the beginning of the G scale; the last four notes of the G scale are the same as the beginning of the D scale.  Thus every scale shares 4 notes with the scale directly before and after it in the circle of 5ths.  We learn that as you go through the circle each new key adds a sharp; after the middle of the circle each new key drops a flat, until you return to C.

 Knowing the scales and chord formulas allow us to apply an accompaniment to melodies.  We simply use the chord formula.

In the five finger pattern songs, we say if your melody is on 1 3 or 5 use the I chord - if  mostly 2 and 4 use the V chord.

Some popular familiar songs to try this with are Mary Had a Little Lamb, Lightly Row, Alouette, Ode to Joy, Jingle Bells, or the Olympic Theme Song (fresh in our ears this month).

Knowing about chord structures help us interpret music more intuitively.  We might feel  that a home chord would require playing with a sense of arrival, perhaps a slight hesitation, or easing into the note, or a definitive strong accent - whereas a V chord would bring a sense of going somewhere — perhaps a crescendo or intensification of tempo.

It helps us memorize with confidence – we know with predictability what our last three chords will be.   It helps us sight read because we know what chords typically follow other chords . 

Next time you see our clock, if you still can’t read it, don’t worry, there are little tiny numbers on the side!

Everyone loves to hear the polished pieces performed by students with confidence at the recitals.  This is an easy measure of what students have accomplished at the piano.  What is not as well known is the depth of comprehensive musicianship students are gaining as they work through the years at LSMS, and the methods by which this is achieved.

We have an ongoing curriculum of study of applied theory and technique.  Every week we present new concepts.  We rely on students to follow up with daily study and digest this new information and skills to be ready to add a new layer of understanding to the previous concepts and skills the following week.  Students take home a weekly practice plan which outlines the expectations for practice in many areas (technique, sight reading practice, theory fundamentals, creative reading and improvisation, transposition, new and review pieces).  Students need to spend a small amount of time working in each category every day.  The purpose of the check off boxes is to help students keep track of which categories they have completed so they make sure they get to everything every week. Each student must pull his or her own weight to enable the group as a whole to move on. 

Parents, you can help students get organized by asking your child to explain the assignments to you and show you how they do them,  then checking to make sure they do them.  The goal of LSMS is to create independent learners, that is students who know how to ask the correct evaluative questions as they practice to achieve results on their own and make new discoveries unaided by a teacher.  This will ensure a personal lifelong relationship with the piano.

Getting Organized

The night before the lesson, help your student organize all books and the practice sheet into his/her music bag and put it wherever it will go to make sure it gets to the lesson.  Students need their own books for the lesson.     We do make important personal notations in the books, and also with several students in a group studying the same book, we would not have enough spare studio copies if several students forget the book on the same day.  Another important concept in building success is continuity of attendance.  Although our policy does allow students to visit other classes when unable to attend their own, students need to feel that their weekly input into their own group is important.  The spirit of cohesiveness that develops with a group is sometimes the one thing that keeps our students happily involved in piano study.  Arriving on time is important as well, as the teacher plans the curriculum around a particular agenda, and a student who arrives consistently late will miss a significant aspect of the lesson.  However, it is better to come to a portion of the lesson than miss it for the week.  Even 20 minutes of contact time will secure a new forward direction of practice for the student. 
If you have to come late or leave early, please come anyway.  If you forgot your books, come anyway.  If you didn’t practice all week, come anyway.  If you jammed a finger, broke an arm, sprained an ankle, have drops in your eyes from the eye doctor, come anyway.  We can work with all those.  However, if you have the flu, it might be best to stay home!

A very happy surprise came to me Saturday in the form of last minute tickets to the Simon and Garfunkel concert at the United Center.   Hearing these beloved icons of my teenage years was a visceral reminder of the intense feelings people have at this age – - feelings of belonging to a group — yearning — elation — frustration — hope and sadness.  From a musical standpoint, I loved the close harmony of the duo and the intriguing orchestrations. These days nothing floats my boat more than an hour of my favorite Artur Rubenstein Chopin CD, or some favorite piano stylist’s arrangements of Ellington or Gershwin.

I was glad when one of my parents asked if there was a way we could incorporate into the lessons some of the music that her 7th grade son  Gabe particularly related to. I was thrilled when he showed up with a CD of his favorite songs.  We listened, and found there were quite a few parts we could play by ear. We then extracted the bass lines, the guitar chords and drum parts and orchestrated them on our  sequencing program.  We were also finding relationships to the classical songs, theory and technique skills he was working on already.  Gabe might not always be so specifically interested in this music, but for now it is speaking to him in a real way.

Allie was haunted for years by the theme song in an Asian movie she had seen with her parents.  She finally found the right connection that led her to find and download the sheet music off the Internet.  She is thrilled to be playing this song which has so long been in her emotional memory bank. I still have the memory of  Kyra’s rendition by ear  of Watermark by Enya. Last week Emily  brought in a beautiful arrangement of Scarborough Fair she had fashioned from the basic tune and chords presented in the Robert Pace Level 3 books. Cody  has been bringing in ear tunes by Kiss.  Steven  has found a resonance with the classic jazz sounds of Misty and Autumn Leaves. Claiborne  is excited to be able to play Twist and Shout, and also is crazy about Oklahoma and Sousa marches.

The music that feeds the soul of a person may change from age to age, but there is no doubt that it fills a real longing for that person at that moment. I challenge all of our students to bring in a piece of music that moves them –let’s find a way to approach it or learn from it.  If you don’t have one, then, for heaven’s sakes, let’s keep looking until we find one .  Everyone needs a music soul mate to help them through this crazy world. Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water it will ease your mind.

Julie Lovison, Director of The Lake Shore Music Studio in Chicago presents Essential Music Concepts that can be introduced to piano students (or general music education students) using the simple tune Frere Jacques (Brother John) . The idea is to see that you can explain important music theory at any level of learning and also that simple melodies and music phrases are found within more complex pieces as the student’s repertoire advances. This was presented as part of the Lee Roberts Music Publications Showcase at the MTNA Conference Milwaukee 2011. 

This is just a 10 minute “taste” of her longer program “One Stop Shopping With Brother John – Exploring 35 music concepts using the tune Frere Jacques.” By focusing on only one melody it is enlightening for teachers and students to see the various concepts within the structure of one simple musical theme.