Sally L. Palmer Music Studio
  • Home
  • Book
  • Lessons
    • Tuition & Schedule
    • What Does My Tuition Pay For?
    • Incentive Programs
    • Practice Guidelines
    • Missed Lessons & Termination Policy
  • About
  • Blog
  • Forms
  • Contact

In Trying Times

6/30/2020

0 Comments

 
Wow! This has been an unprecedented, and historical, year for all of us. A year ago we never even gave a second thought to the possibility of a worldwide pandemic. The learning curve on this one was so steep! One week we started asking students to be extra diligent about washing their hands when they came to piano lessons, the next week we thought to pick up some disinfectant wipes when we were at the store, and then BAM! Everything shuts down. Suddenly, those of us who have been happily teaching face-to-face piano lessons for many, many years, had to learn how to use technology in some very interesting ways. It happened so fast. 

When everything shut down, I took one week off to figure out what I was going to do. I learned how to use FaceTime on my iPad and was able to begin virtual piano lessons the following week. What an experience that has been! I've been teaching virtually for 3.5 months now, and will continue through the summer. The state of Washington has moved into Phase 2 of the "Safe Start" plan to open things back up, so some of my students are wanting to actually come to the studio for lessons. Teacher and student will be masked up, hands washed, piano sanitized between students, and only one family member is allowed to wait in the waiting area. We'll see how it goes.

It was interesting to me how difficult it was to teach a piano lesson virtually, especially with limited equipment. Some teachers, across the country and across the world, had their studio transformed into a tech studio with multiple electronic devices, monitors, keyboards, etc. It might have been easier for those teachers. I found that my studio, at the end of each teaching day, was a mess - a whirlwind of papers and music all over the floor, the piano, and the keyboard. Every day of lessons I would spend a half hour to an hour cleaning up and putting materials away. Then I would scan the student's assignment into my computer and send an email attachment. It was a lot of extra work. Music was dropped off and picked up. We had our first ever virtual piano recital!

I passionately applaud all private music instructors for their endurance during this trying time. We are all exhausted but continue to push forward. It is unknown how things will be come the fall this year, but at least now we know how to "do it" if we have to.
0 Comments

Super Supportive Parents

7/2/2019

0 Comments

 
“Children learn to smile from their parents.” 
Shinichi Suzuki, inventor of the Suzuki method of music education.

Parents can be a huge help and source of support when it comes to students
progressing in their music lessons.


Expose students to lots of music.
Parents can provide an atmosphere of music by playing different types and styles of music at home and in the car. It’s hard for a teacher to know a student’s musical tastes if he is not exposed to lots of different music. If you have access to musical theatre, the symphony, or concert events in your city, take advantage of those opportunities. Exposure is key!

Information is made available. Please read!
The best way to get information out to parents of all the students is through a website, blog, Facebook page, e-newsletter, or group email. It is very important for parents to read the information they are sent. If the teacher takes the time to keep you updated, and you pay for the teacher’s time, it makes sense to read what is being sent to you. Your student might believe you don’t care if you don’t know what’s going on.

Become friends with your music store.
A good relationship with the personnel at the local music store goes a long way for being able to obtain printed music and all other things music. Your teacher probably has a very close working relationship with the music store personnel, so when you do pay a visit to your music store, be sure to mention the teacher’s name. You might even get a discount!

Tech talk for the music student
Technology is being used more and more in music studios these days. Be aware of what your teacher uses as her teaching tools, whether it be Piano Maestro on the iPad, Finale composing software on her computer, theory game apps, or a variety of many other tech tools for teaching. Be supportive by supplying your student with access to these tools in your own home.

Parent time and effort is necessary.
Make the time to check in with your student every so often to see how things are progressing. Ask if you can listen to a piece she is learning. Take a look at the assignment book and ask questions. Have your student teach you something. Attend your student’s performances and bring grandma and grandpa along. Be supportive without being a stage parent, and above all else, don’t embarrass!

Parent-teacher conference for music lessons
Ask your child’s teacher for a parent-teacher conference at least once a year. This will give you the opportunity to discuss your child’s progress, attitude, behavior, and skills one-on-one with the teacher. Ask if there is anything you can do at home to help. Consider your music teacher as a part of your “village” and keep them informed of anything you think she needs to know to be supportive of your child.

Provide guidance and comfort when needed.
Help your student manage time, priorities and resources. No doubt your student has other activities that demand much of her time. Make time each week to talk to your student about her schedule and when she feels overwhelmed help her with adjustments and provide comfort as she learns about making sacrifices. Guide her through the struggles of the schedule and support her in her efforts.
0 Comments

Paycheck to Paycheck

3/12/2019

2 Comments

 
“I provide a service and you pay for that service. For ease of budgeting (yours and mine) I accept equal monthly payments from September through June.” (From the policies and procedures listed on the Sally L. Palmer Music Studio website – www.sallypalmer.com )

Independent music instructors live like most of the rest of the world: paycheck to paycheck. Imagine going into your human resources office on payday and being told that you will have to wait a week. Too bad the mortgage payment won’t wait a week.
​
Chapters 34 through 37 in my book Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons: 100 Lessons to Enhance the Parent, Student, Teacher Relationship address the issues of the private music instructor being paid. The last line of chapter 35 states: “With today’s technology, there are several ways to make sure that tuition is paid on time.” When the book was published in 2017 I honestly didn’t know how many options were available for parents to easily pay their kid’s music teacher, but I certainly do now!
Picture
​Because my book is full of bites of #snackablewisdom, there was no room to include the variety of electronic ways to pay. I was thinking about writing a blog post that described all the options and then, just like that, one of the piano teacher Facebook groups I belong to had a posted question: “Forms of virtual payment that you accept besides PayPal and Zelle?” How timely! The responses have been helpful to me and spurred me into action to learn what makes the electronic options different from each other. Let me share with you how the teachers responded. As of right now, 41 teachers have responded to the question.
  • A little over 50% said they use Venmo.
  • The next in line for the most usage is Zelle, right up there with PayPal.
  • Google Pay and Apple Pay had a fair amount of respondents.
  • Fons was mentioned once. I’d never heard about this one.
  • Square and Wave were also mentioned, as well as one called Stripe. Never heard of it.
  • One teacher said “cash or checks.”
There are obviously pros and cons to using these “mobile payment apps & services” but it’s often confusing to read online the differences. I hope I can help you out here. Oh, and by the way, I have a student family that pays using Zelle, another uses Venmo, and another uses PayPal. The rest pay by cash or checks. Believe me, I was afraid of any kind of app or Internet payment system, but my students began asking to pay that way so I began to educate myself, and to become less afraid.
Picture
VENMO – “Venmo has earned its status as the top mobile wallet payment app as an easy and trusted way to move money around and make payments.”
EASE OF USE – Very easy. All you have to do is create a Venmo account. https://venmo.com

Tuition can be paid with a Venmo account using money you have in your Venmo account or link your bank account or debit card. When money is sent using a Venmo balance, bank account, or debit card, fees are waived. Free! There is a 3% fee that applies to credit cards and used to send money.

MY EXPERIENCE - My student set up a Venmo account and I set up a Venmo account. He sends his tuition using Venmo. I receive an email stating that money is in my Venmo account. It gives me the option of leaving it in my Venmo account or transferring the money into my bank account, which is what I do. Very easy and convenient for both of us.


ZELLE – “Zelle is a fast, safe and easy way to send money directly between bank accounts.”
EASE OF USE – Very easy to use. Look for Zelle in your banking app or go online at www.zellepay.com to get started.

When using Zelle, you can quickly and easily send and receive money with just an email address or mobile phone number. No fee – Zelle doesn’t charge a fee to send or receive money. It is recommended that you confirm with your bank or credit union that there are no additional fees from them. If your bank or credit union doesn’t offer Zelle, you can still use it by downloading the Zelle app for Android and IOS.

MY EXPERIENCE – I have a student family that pays their tuition using Zelle. We both use the same bank, but I don’t think that makes a difference. I receive an email telling me that money has been deposited into my checking account. I really like the bank-to-bank concept that Zelle offers.


GOOGLE PAY / GOOGLE PAY SEND / GOOGLE WALLET – Okay, so this is one of the reasons I steered away from this app . . . names kept changing! But after a little research on my part, I learned that Google Pay and Google Pay Send are just mobile payment apps that can store your credit and/or debit card to use for payment. No fees attached to this service.

To use Google Pay Send you must have the app. Then, simply tap on the SEND tab on the task bar on the bottom right of the Google Pay app, then hit the SEND button. From there, all you have to do is select the “friend” (the teacher) you want to send money to, type in the amount, and press SEND once more. I would imagine that Apple Pay is very similar but used only with iPhones and other Apple products.
​
MY EXPERIENCE – I’ve never used this app so I can’t tell you if it’s easy to use or not, but it appears, in print at least, to be straight-forward. I found answers and how-to information at www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/google and www.pay.google.com.

BY THE WAY – you may be nervous about using these types of apps for sending money, but all the Internet payment options that I researched use encryption to help protect your account information.
Picture
PAYPAL – PayPal is a fast and easy way to send a payment, such as tuition for music lessons. An invoice can be produced and sent on-line and the payer of tuition has the option to pay by credit card, debit card, or from their PayPal account.

EASE OF USE – pretty easy to use.

When tuition is paid, for the “service” of music lessons, and the money your teacher receives comes from a PayPal account, your teacher pays a fee of 2.9% of the transaction amount, plus a fixed fee of .30 cents USD. For example, if you pay your teacher $190 a month from your PayPal account you, actually need to submit $195.81 to cover those fees. I asked the Facebook posting teachers who use PayPal how they accommodate for this. They all said they had to raise their monthly tuition to cover the fees of “fee-charging” payment apps.

MY EXPERIENCE – I’ve had limited experience with PayPal. One mother didn’t understand why I was not receiving the full amount of tuition. I tried to explain that there were fees attached to using PayPal but she said that had never happened with anyone else she paid with PayPal.

Just this week I created an invoice for a family from the PayPal app. They received the invoice in their email and paid from the invoice. There were no fees taken out of their payment, and I am confused about this. I did a little digging and this is what I found:

Perhaps the most straightforward way to send money without facing a PayPal fee is to send money as a “Personal” payment, making sure to select “Other” as the reason for payment. PayPal won’t add a fee to these types of transactions. http://www.techguidefortravel.com/2010/10/05/how-to-avoid-paypal-fees-and-send-money-for-free/
​

Teachers: PayPal invoices can be automatically set up to be sent out electronically to your families.

SQUARE, INC – “The Square device / chip reader allows the teacher to accept client credit cards to be used as payment via the mobile phone app.”

Using Square requires the teacher to purchase the hardware and set up accessories and software. The fees are as follows: 2.75% for “swiped” transactions; 3.5% + .15 cents for manually entered transactions.
https://squareup.com

MY EXPERIENCE – This product has evolved substantially since I first used it, which is good because I had difficulties with it. (I haven’t used it since.) You’ve probably used the Square Register or Square Contactless and Chip Reader (again, what’s with all the different names?) at a community market or fair, your local coffee shop, or your independent hair stylist. I asked my hair person if she preferred check or credit card (she uses Square) and she much prefers a check because of the fees involved in using Square.

WAVE – You can create and send professional invoices to your clients. Upon viewing the invoice online, clients can pay instantly by credit card or secure bank payment (ACH). The payment would go directly into your teacher’s bank account within 2 days when a credit card is used for payment, or 2 to 7 days for bank payments. The fees are as follows: 2.9% + .30 cents per credit card transaction, and 1% ($1.00 minimum) per bank payments. www.waveapps.com

MY EXPERIENCE – I have no experience with this payment method, but I think I would like it except for the fees. It seems, after the initial set up of the account, it’s fairly easy to use.

FONS – All I know about this app is 3.4% + 30 cents for every credit card transaction.  www.fons.com

BY THE WAY – it is important to note that the fees, the amount that is taken out of your payment to your teacher, will likely cause your monthly tuition to be increased. That is why most people prefer to use one of the “money moving” payment apps that does not assess a fee.
Picture
THERE IS ANOTHER WAY

AUTO BANK PAY (Bill Pay) – the nice thing about an automatic bank pay to your music teacher is that once you set up the account with the parameters that you choose, you do not have to think about it again. Your tuition is paid automatically on the same date each month, with the check being delivered through the U.S. mail service. Most banks have a bill-pay option.

MY EXPERIENCE – I love this method!! The years that I had several families using an auto bank pay I absolutely loved getting paid on time, month after month after month. It’s a check, but I didn’t care because it was ON TIME!

​Continuing as the #1 teacher complaint is not receiving their “paychecks” on time. All of these “technological” methods of payment, as far as an independent music teacher is concerned, are designed for ease and convenience for families to make prompt tuition payments. You know the old adage, “Better late than never?” Well, for us independent music teachers, we say, “Better Never Late.”

Look forward to your comments and positive input.
2 Comments

Spaced Out!

2/21/2019

0 Comments

 
“If I don’t practice the way I should, I won’t play the way that I know I can.” ~ Ivan Lendl, professional tennis player and coach.

When I wrote my book, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons – 100 lessons to Enhance the Parent, Student and Teacher Relationship, I found myself wanting to write so many tips on good practice. In fact, I ended up with two full chapters, twenty-two lessons, just on practice tips!  It seems like a no-brainer that good practice would lead to progress, but I think we are just not always sure what “good practice” looks like.

I’ve been using some of the same techniques that I have been using for years, somewhat successfully. My last blog post on “repetitive practice” made a huge impact on the progress made by my students when I instituted it on a more consistent basis several years ago. But it began to feel like, to me, that it was suddenly not working as well as I wanted it to work. 
​
Being a student of psychology, I am always interested in human behavior and why some things work and some things don’t. Research on learning and memory is fascinating and fluid. As I read different definitions of techniques for learning, I realized that, as an independent music teacher, I was practicing some of these techniques but didn’t know they had special names! So, with the concept of repetitive practice from the previous blog tucked under our belts, let’s move on to how we can define “good practice” even further.
Picture
Picture
Remember when you were in high school and/or college and spent some sleepless nights cramming for an exam? In the short term, it worked! We got a good grade. But it didn’t last. I sure can’t tell you much about algebra, but I do know I passed the class. The crammed information for an exam quite literally leaves the working memory to leave room for more. I only invested in passing the test; I did not invest in learning. (Don’t calculators do all that work for me anyway?)

When it comes to learning a piece of music and, at some point, having it memorized, we cannot cram. We can put our efforts into repetitive practice, but if we do all of that repetitive practice the days before adjudications we may do well on adjudication day and then simply forget the piece. You know what I’m talking about. You take a difficult passage of music, practice it over and over and over until you have it “perfect,” but then the next day your progress is gone. “I played it better at home” is a great example of this. Your student probably did play it better at home, three times in a row like you asked, but that was two days ago, and practiced passively at that. Let’s look into this a little deeper because there is a better way.

Spaced Repetition Practice
Spaced repetition is a "learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect." (Wikipedia)
​
In layman’s language for a music student – spacing thoughtful, repetitive practice. One of the oldest and most secure findings on learning and memory is that if you want to remember something, you should use spaced repetition. So how does it work? First we need to address the difference between working memory and long-term memory.

Working memory is a cognitive memory buffer with a limited capacity that is responsible for the transient holding, processing, and manipulation of information. (Wikipedia) Again, in laymen’s terms, it’s the memory function where things are in a holding pattern, waiting to be told where to go, what to do. Most people can only hold about seven items in working memory. (Miller, George A. The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information.)

Researchers in the field of teaching and learning have found that to take something you’ve learned and make it into long-term memory, you need to practice recalling that thing from long-term memory. So how do we get our practice out of working memory and into long-term memory? Spaced repetition.

“In a spaced repetition approach, your goal is to review material just before you would forget it, so you’re practicing the skill of long-term recall the best you can.” (pianopracticeassistant.com/spaced-repetition)  Not a lot of research has been done for the learning and retaining of music, but the general concepts can be used by musicians aspiring to better performances.

​

Picture
​Interleaved Practice
Another term, closely related to spaced repetition, is interleaved practice. I’ve been doing this with my students for quite some time, but I didn’t know it had a fancy name! It’s basically spaced repetition with the twist of randomizing the passages you are working on. Putting different passages to recall in between the repeated passage you’ve been working on, you are forcing the relevant knowledge out of the working memory. Remember, the working memory can only hold so much, so something will get bumped. What you want to get bumped is the passage you’ve spaced in repetitive practice. You want it to go into long-term memory. By forcing yourself to recall things at random, you build stronger connections. Here's an example from a classroom setting:
Picture
Deliberate Practice
One more definition and we’ll move on. Deliberate practice actively and continuously is the practice of reflecting on and correcting one’s performance. Effective practice requires mindful engagement and conscious self-observation. This is how I’ve been saying it to students for many, many years: “I’m not at your house when you practice so you need to be your own teacher.” This is why having a piano teacher instead of being self-taught is so helpful. Teachers engage fully in the task of listening. We hear the mistakes and we stop and talk about how to correct the mistakes. We are not just teaching notes, fingering, counts, and dynamics. We, by our example, are showing students how to engage more in their practice time. The opposite of deliberate practice is the example I used in the previous blog (Repetition is the Mother of All Learning) where my student played through a piece and moved on to the next assignment. The opposite of deliberate practice can also be the “effortless enjoyment,” or slipping into the “flow state.” This is often where we continue practicing the same mistakes over and over until we have perfected them! It’s tricky though.
Picture
Effortless enjoyment is important for keeping up motivation and preventing burnout (mine and the student’s), but it’s like a state of diffused attention. From Dr. Cal Newport’s blog entry Flow is the Opiate of the Mediocre:

Avoid Flow. Do What Does Not Come Easy. “The mistake most weak pianists make is playing, not practicing. If you walk into a music hall at a local university, you’ll hear people ‘playing’ by running through their pieces. This is a huge mistake. Strong pianists drill the most difficult parts of their music, rarely, if ever playing through their pieces in entirety.”
(http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/23/flow-is-the-opiate-of-the-medicore-advice-on-getting-better-from-an-accomplished-piano-player/)


Research tells us nearly unanimously that it’s the amount of quality (deliberate) practice, not natural born talent and skills or the number of hours mindlessly practicing, that matters most in developing expertise.

All of this – spaced repetition, interleaved practice, and deliberate practice – takes effort on the part of the teacher as well as the student. It takes the setting of goals, analyzing the music to be able to break it down into workable passages, and setting a schedule. Goal-directed practice and targeted, timely feedback is a must.
  1. Set specific goals. The goal to “practice better” or “practice more” will likely not work. It’s better to be very specific, such as, “I want to do the phrasing in section A correctly, at allegro tempo, without stumbling.”

  2. Continue to refine your goals. Once you have achieved the goal listed in #1, set another specific goal such as, “I want to produce a sotto voce sound using dynamics and touch when I perform section A.
Continue with the practice variables discussed in the previous blog post. Push yourself. To master a skill, master something harder. Change up the rhythms, use a different accent pattern . . . complicate it in order to master it. 

​Now, let’s see if we can look at an example in a real-life situation. I have a student, we’ll call her Christy, who is preparing for a future adjudicated opportunity. She will be performing two selections in the piano solo event and one piano concerto. She will also be taking a theory test.
Picture
Mozart's Concerto in B-flat major, 1st movement (first two pages)
Picture
Picture
The first thing Christy and I will do (after she freaks out over the amount of work this looks like it’s going to take to learn and memorize!) is to divide each piece into small sections that she can work on. We will make them small enough so that she can see some progress in a minute or two of practice time. I would not expect her to learn all of these pieces starting at the same time, but I would definitely begin with the hardest one first. So, let’s take a look at the concerto. I would likely assign her the first four measures, hands separate to learn (especially that bass pattern), and then put the hands together, slowly at first. This might be what would appear in her assignment notebook with the way I do things currently:

Mozart concerto – learn and practice m. 1 – 4 (leaving out the last 1.5 beats of m. 4)
Practice hands separate – RH 2x/day, LH 3x/day - slow to start to catch problem areas
Put hands together and build up speed.

As teachers, we have to remember to tailor the goals and assignments for each individual student. Their learning capabilities are unique. This is just what I would do for Christy. To that assignment I might also have Christy start on one of her piano solo pieces. I usually go for a piece that is completely different from the other one she is working on, so let’s figure out an assignment for Journey in the Night.

Journey in the Night – learn and practice the first 8 measures of the first page, LH only. Work out the fingerings in those runs; write them in if necessary. Make sure you count as you are practicing. Do this LH practice 3x/day, carefully. Try playing it as fast as you can after it’s learned. Play it on different octaves of the keyboard.

To this piano practice assignment, I might add one thing to work on in preparation for the theory test.

I expect Christy to practice for 45-minutes a day, but sometimes that is just not possible for her. She is in high school and is involved in school leadership and on the tennis team. She has a tendency to either not practice when her schedule is full, or more than likely, she will practice the day before her lesson and usually only practice one assignment.

The two sections within the two pieces are probably enough for her already overloaded working memory. The direction I would give her using the concepts of spaced repetition and interleaving would be as follows. Remember, breaking up your practice in this way has the additional benefit of keeping focused attention on goal-directed skill building.

Day 1:  Practice m.1-4 of the concerto. Start practice hands separately to think about what you are practicing.
             Practice LH 3x; practice RH 2x. How is it counted? What are the dynamics?
             Practice hands together 5x. Where are the problem areas? Practice those areas 5x more.

Day 2:  Practice the first 8 measures of Journey in the Night, LH only. Figure out your fingerings & counts.
Practice this 5x slowly.

Day 3:   Practice the concerto passage with the metronome for steady beat, 5x
LH practice of Journey in the Night, 2x/very fast; 2x/very soft

Day 4:   Christy won’t practice this day because she is at school until 8:00 pm and then will have homework
to do.

Day 5:   Practice any section of Journey in the Night that you want to. Practice it 3x
Practice LH Journey, 3x
Practice concerto passage with correct tempo and dynamics. 5x

Day 6:  Practice the last 4 measures of the concerto. Go through it 3x
Practice the original concerto passage, w/metronome, checking yourself. 3x
Practice LH Journey, first 8 measures, up to tempo, 5x

Day 7:   No practice as Christy will come right to lessons from school.
 
If I understand the definitions of spaced repetition, interleaving, and deliberate practice, I think I covered it all in this sample practice assignment. Ultimately, wouldn’t it be great if students would just be smart enough to do this on their own? Some of my past students who have gone on to do wonderful things with their piano performances have done this on their own. But let’s face it, most of our students really do need our guidance. We also know that the above example of an assignment for a week might not happen once the student leaves the studio. We can only do what we can do, and that’s to do our job to the best of our ability.
​
** After I first wrote this blog post and before I posted it, I tried an abbreviated format of this technique for practice with one of my 4th grade students, on just one of his pieces. I asked him about it at his next lesson and he said he felt like he had an easier time and an easier time remembering what he had practiced from the day before! 
Picture
Photo provided by Merriam School of Music, Ontario
I don’t break my student’s practice assignment down day by day, but I think I’m going to try it for the students that have real anxiety about learning a piece and getting it memorized. I probably wouldn’t break things down day-by-day for beginner students, but I would certainly still use the repetitive and interleaving techniques and lots of variety.
​
This won’t be easy to establish unless a teacher is already doing something akin to this kind of practice process. We have to remember that piano is more complicated than memorizing historical dates or how to divide fractions. After all, if you can only hold seven things in working memory, which seven do you choose? Individual notes, chords, phrases, dynamics, fingerings, etc.? Acquiring the skill of playing the piano is complex, but all this complexity means we have to be even more deliberate in applying these processes. Teachers do their work, students do their work, and the brain does its work. You’ll never know if it works for you or your students unless you try it!


0 Comments

Repetition: The Mother of all Learning

2/3/2019

0 Comments

 
Many years ago, and I remember it vividly, I had a teenage student come to his lesson and he hadn’t practiced at all that week. In this situation, I asked him to “practice” during his lesson time. My desk is in the studio, so I sat at my desk and intended to do some lesson planning. One of the main reasons I did this was because I wanted to hear how he was practicing. Even the weeks when he said he did practice, he didn’t seem to be progressing much.

He took out his assignment book and played the first assignment on the list. I remember thinking, “That could certainly use some work,” only to have him, after playing it once, move on to the next thing on the list. At this point I had to ask, “Is that how you would practice it at home?” He responded with a firm “yes.”

I was glad that I had that opportunity because it opened a conversation about playing versus practicing, and about repetitive practicing. I have realized, with some students, I must write in the assignment book, “practice 3x/day” or whatever number I feel is necessary. Sometimes I’ll even ask a student, “How many times do you think you should practice this each day?” Often, they come up with a higher number than I would have! (I’m pretty sure they are trying to say what they think I want them to say.) When a student sees “10x/day” written in their assignment book, they understand that they really must work on it to progress. There have been times when I’ve written “1,000 x/day” and give the student that look that means I am dead serious. They know I don’t mean it literally, but they get the message loud and clear.

Repetitive practice has always made sense to me. Athletes practice this way, military operations are practiced this way, and physical therapists expect it in their patients. Think about it – practice IS repetition. When practicing any instrument, repetition is the most common method used to learn a piece of music. Repetition helps to build your muscle memory. When something is practiced over and over and over, the muscles begin to memorize what they are supposed to do, and how they are supposed to move. (Lesson 46, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons, page 64) Pretty soon, tricky fingering passages become natural. The great Sam Snead, professional golf player, once stated, “Practice puts brains in your muscles.”

The Double-Edged Sword
Repetition in practice does indeed work. But what if whatever we repeat puts errors in our muscle brains? If I practice the same thing over and over, my muscles will slowly learn what it is I am practicing. That being said, if I learn and practice incorrectly and continue to repeat it over and over incorrectly, not only will I not progress, but it is quite difficult to go back and fix it later. In this case, repetitive practice becomes a hindrance to my progress.
 
As a teacher, it’s quite painful sitting through a song that a student, once again, has obviously put no thought into her repetitive practicing. She comes back with the rhythm still incorrect, so you ask her why it’s still wrong. After all, you wrote it boldly and underlined it three times in her assignment book to “count out loud” so she could get it right. (And you’ve circled it so many times in the piece that you can hardly see the notes anymore!) She then looks at you like she never set eyes on her assignment book. She did play it through 3x/day – exactly the wrong way she’s always played it! The key lesson learned here is “practice makes permanent.”
 
It’s So Boring
Several repetitions done correctly in a row is essential for progress. “But it’s so boring,” is what most students will say. Therefore, as teachers we need to constantly come up with new ways of repetitive practice techniques to try and eliminate some of that boredom. There is a caveat though. If a student really cares about progressing these ideas will be helpful. If a student does not care about getting any better at playing the piano, it won’t matter how creative you get with the practice ideas.

“Whenever you are using repetition to practice, you want to be sure you are using it in the most beneficial and productive way possible.” (Graham Fitch, practisingthepiano.com.) No two students / musicians are the same, so a practice routine that is unique to each student is critical.  Here are a few ideas that I have used:
  1. Divide a piece into small phrases or passages that you can practice individually. Make them small enough that you can see progress in a minute or two of focused, repetitive practice on each.

  2. For younger students, you can design a fun way for them to keep track of how many times they have “repeated” the assigned section. I had several of my younger students make “star counters” for repetitive practice. Every time they played the measure or measures, they moved a star bead over to the other side. It’s a good visual aid.​You could also create a spinner or make your own dice with different ways to repeat, such as High as a Kite, Fast as a Cheetah, or Soft as a Lamb.

  3. Make sure you don’t always just practice your repetitive sections as isolated sections. Remember, a piece is not one single thing. It is made up of many small parts. As different sections receive their repetitive practice, remember to join the sections and practice those repetitively for smooth transitions. It is important to think about how the parts combine into the whole.

  4. Challenge yourself. One technique to use in repetitive practice is to play your designated section until you make a mistake. Once you make a mistake, go back to the start and see if you can play to get past the place where the mistake was made. Keep repeating this technique until you can fluently get through the section without any mistakes. (Lesson 60, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons, page 80)
    This method of repetitive practice is explained in scientific detail (yes, it involves the brain) in “The Talent Code – Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown” by Daniel Coyle.


  5. Franz Liszt said, “Think ten times and play once.” Obviously, if one takes a conscious moment to think, to reflect in between each repetition, one can have a clearer understanding of what they actually want to accomplish. “What is the purpose for repeating this section over and over?” Have a specific goal for what is intended to happen when the passage is played again. This type of repetitive practice allows the learner to dig deep and explore his music.

  6. There is always a point in practice where the mind begins to wander and productivity decreases. How can this be overcome? Changing how you express a section can make it feel less repetitive while retaining the same familiarity. Repeating the same section but giving it a different sound, keeps the attention of the learner. Take the same passage and play it at a different octave. If it’s straight eighth notes, change up the rhythm to a dotted rhythm just for fun. If the dynamic marking is soft, play it loud or vice versa. If it’s a fast tempo play it slower. (That’s a good practice technique in and of itself.) Try staccato instead of legato. How about writing lyrics to the melody line? The trick with repetitions is to focus the mind on something specific, varying the focus with each repetition.

I am reminded of a student who felt like every piece of repertoire I gave her was “too hard.” I wanted her to learn Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum from The Children’s Corner. I knew if I showed her the music as a whole, she would freak out. Even though I could see the different sections, I knew she would not. I found a section that I figured would be the hardest one for her to learn (measures 37 – 44, six flats) and I made a copy of that section.

We worked on those eight measures, hands separate, then hands together, then a phrase at a time, then a line at a time, then the whole section. I encouraged her during her repetitive practice at home that she “mess around” with the dynamics and the tempo. Just letting her know that she had the freedom to play it different than what was on the written page gave her a sense of empowerment and desire to “try it out.” Repetitive, thoughtful practice made a huge difference. I continued to make copies of small sections to work on repeatedly, all in random order. When it came time to put two sections together in order, she felt such a sense of accomplishment. Of course, we had to work on the transitions, which required more thoughtful, repetitive practice, but when she discovered that she had learned the whole piece, she was overjoyed. I never heard her once say, “This is too hard.” Mission accomplished!
 
“Spaced Repetition Practice” is a concept that is being studied, and I’ll have more on this technique of repetitive practice in my next blog post.
0 Comments

An Olympic Performance

2/22/2018

0 Comments

 
Like many people around the world, I’ve been glued to my television, watching the Olympics. I am in absolute awe at the athletic ability these young people exhibit. My favorite events to watch are the figure skating and snowboarding, and while watching this year I’ve picked up on a few comments made by those critiquing the athletes. It dawned on me that these are some of the same comments I use with my students, especially as they prepare for an adjudicated festival or competition.

“Muscle memory” is a two-word phrase that was used during the pairs figure skating event often. Muscle memory originates in the brain, so it’s not that your muscles have their own special memory, but your brain and your muscles work together. Think typing on a keyboard, or riding a bike. Muscle memory is the retention of motor skills upon repetition of the action. I really picked up on the whole muscle memory issue as I watched a couple of snowboarders prepare for high air jumps. They stood at the top of the slope and moved the upper part of their bodies in the motion they would be doing in the air. Another time I saw muscle memory in action was in ski jumping. The athlete (who won the gold medal) moved his arms during his rotations in the air so precisely that I knew he must have done those arm movements so many times that it was an ingrained part of the jump. Repetition, repetition, repetition. That is the key to muscle memory. The figure skaters know it, the snowboarders know it, the skiers know it, and pianists know it. Imagine repeating the same flips on the ice for four years in preparation for the Olympics! So, when a music teacher says, “play it again” or “play it 10 times a day,” it is to help solidify that muscle memory. Another Olympic commentator said, “She’s got everything locked down.” The only way to do that is to practice until you feel like you can practice no more, and then practice again.

A really important reason to practice, practice, practice, and develop that muscle memory, is to allow the performer “to focus attention synchronously elsewhere, such as on the artistic aspect of the performance, without having to consciously control one's fine motor actions.” (Wikipedia) My favorite figure skating programs to watch were not the finely tuned technical ones, but the very expressive ones that made me feel something. The figure skaters who used their music and their athleticism to tell a story – those were my favorites. I tell my students all the time, “Don’t just play the piece, tell a story. Make people wonder what comes next.” Many years ago I took on a student who did not need any help with notes, counts, or fingering, but listening to her play was boring. We worked on phrasing, dynamics, and even considered how to interpret the rests and fermatas. Her muscle memory allowed her to focus solely on her story telling.

As a medal-bound snowboard participant headed down the halfpipe, the commentator stated, “Let’s see how he can make his run different from what we’ve already seen.” That made me think of what I tell my students before they sit in a room of other students who may be performing the same piece for a panel of adjudicators. I mean honestly, how many times can an adjudicator listen to Fur Elise without falling asleep! I ask my students, “How can your performance stand out above the rest?” Then we work on not just the dynamics, but the dynamic contrasts – can the louds be louder and softs be softer? We analyze the phrasing by asking the question, “How does this sentence read?” And we always discuss what story we believe the composer was trying to tell with his composition. For instance, when you read about Chopin’s Prelude in D-flat Major, you learn that Chopin had a dream involving drowning and rain falling, which totally helps a student interpret the very repetitive middle section, where a left hand A-flat is played so many times you could be hypnotized to sleep! Listen to the rain hitting your roof and pick up the nuances. Those drops do not sound all the same. Speaking of repetitive, the question is always asked, “How can this repeated section be interpreted and played differently than the first time you played it?” It’s the same thing with the snowboarder. Those that were assigned to judge his performance had seen the same flips and turns over and over and over throughout the course of the competition. This particular athlete needed to add something different – more amplitude, softer landings, etc. – in order to impress the judges. Same with piano performance.

It was so hard to watch some of the figure skaters make a mistake and hit the ice with an ungraceful thump. Time and time again I thought, “How do they get up and keep going?” These athletes work for four plus years for their three minutes on the ice and they take a fall? Devastating. When awards are determined by one-hundreths of a point, once tiny mistake can mean the difference between being on the medal podium or watching from the stands. But I saw every single one of those skaters get right back up and continue their skate, most with a smile on their face. I call that “mental toughness.” The word used for this kind of mental toughness is “resiliency.”  Performers are always going to be nervous and mistakes are always going to be made. We rarely witness a perfect performance. Stuff happens. I teach my students that it’s not about whether or not you make a mistake, but it’s how you recover from that mistake that makes the difference. When I adjudicate piano festivals, I do not comment on the mistake, but I always comment on the mental toughness displayed by being able to continue performing. A performer cannot get inside their head and analyze or self-critique during the performance. They’ve got to be tough to shoulder on and complete, and complete with a flourish!

One last thing that I noticed while watching a half-pipe snowboarding event. When the athlete had pretty much cinched the gold medal but still had another run she could take, not only did she take it but she performed it with ease and style. What a difference it makes to enjoy what you’re doing versus concentrating so hard on competing. That particular snowboarder just got to “strut her stuff.” We’ll see it during the figure skating exhibition at the end of the Olympics. We’ll see more smiles, more relaxed shoulders, and more than likely, less falls. They will be enjoying the experience. Imagine how it would be for the athletes, as well as piano performers, if, during the competition they could perform as if they were doing it purely for the love of it.

Bottom line, this is what I’ve learned from watching the Olympics that I will impart to my students:
  1. Repetitive practice is the key to developing muscle memory.
  2. Once that muscle memory is in place, it becomes easier to tell a story.
  3. How can your performance stand above the rest?
  4. Develop mental toughness.
  5. Perform as if the end result does not matter.
0 Comments

Why Write the Book?

1/8/2018

0 Comments

 
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked this question since last June when my book was first published. The answer has never varied – because I wanted to assist teachers in helping the parents of their students understand the nature of the business of independent music teachers, and to help the parents understand how they can help their children have a successful experience. By the way, I love being asked the question!

So much has changed in the music teaching industry from the time I took private lessons. Most often the teacher was a man or a woman “teaching on the side” to earn a little pocket money. That may be the case for some teachers still today, but in general, more private teachers are supporting themselves and/or their families with their teaching income. That changes the playing field, at least it did for me.

I take my responsibility to teach music in a private setting far more seriously than when I started out in 1980. Because I handle my teaching career as a business, and charge tuition accordingly, I have a dedicated responsibility to be the best teacher I can be. That responsibility includes, but is not limited to, continuing my education, taking advantage of today’s technology in the teaching environment, being organized in my business, and produce students who achieve the goals they want to achieve.

What has been a struggle over the years is, a lot of parents grew up in the same environment I did where music lessons were just kind of “something to do.” Plop the five-dollar bill down on the piano and wait in the car while Junior took lessons with Mr. Smith. Everything has changed, which is what precipitated my desire to write a book. I call it a “conversion” book – helping parents with the conversion from the old way of doing business to the new way of doing business. My goal was to market the book to independent music teachers, so they would, in turn, sell or give books to the parents of the students in their studio.  

Not every teacher works the way I do, but the principles and philosophies of the business pretty much ring true for all of us, especially those of us who make a living doing what we love but also have the responsibility of supporting ourselves. My truest desire in writing the book was to help maintain healthy relationships between teachers, parents and students through the understanding of how the business works. I firmly believe that reading the book and following the principles within, as well as understanding the “why” behind policies and procedures, will eliminate confusion and frustration for teachers and parents alike.

That is only part of the book though, and that was the main focus behind writing it. But as I began writing, I found myself wanting to include helpful tips on things such as getting the most out of a practice session, how to have the most beneficial environment at home for practicing, the importance of good equipment, and how to stay focused and positive through the process of teaching and learning. I am so appreciative of the parents who really invest not just their money but their time and energy to making sure their child(ren) succeed so I found myself writing to those parents with additional ideas on how to continue and enhance what they are already doing. I also felt that those same ideas would be so helpful to parents who may have never learned an instrument themselves or had to deal with practicing and the struggles in learning music. What started as a book to help teachers help parents understand the nature of the business, also became of book of suggestions and encouragement.

The last chapter ended up being a love letter to my colleagues, whether I know them personally or not. I wanted independent music teachers everywhere to know that I know what a great job they are doing. We private music teachers are quite busy and don’t seem to ever have time to sit down and talk about our trials, failures, and successes. We don’t take enough time to share our ideas and encourage each other. That’s how the last chapter came about – my desire to sit and talk to other music teachers.

It is a wonderful opportunity in this life to be able to do what you love and make money at the same time. No one talks about the struggles and pitfalls along the way though, and that’s what I was hoping to address, and help alleviate, by writing the book. I am grateful for all the support I have received and for all those who are helping me achieve my own goals.

0 Comments

This is your brain on piano.

11/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Many may remember the old television commercial where the narrator would hold up an egg and say, "This is your brain." He would then crack the egg into a sizzling, hot frying pan and say, "This is your brain on drugs." He would then ask, "Any questions?" It was an extremely effective commercial which is why so many remember it even years later.

Playing the piano (or any instrument for that matter) is fun, but it has also been proven how incredible the brain functions and develops while learning to play the piano. "This is your brain on piano."


​
Picture
​Classical FM, an independent radio station in the UK, posted this information on Facebook recently. There have been several articles written about brain development while learning how to play the piano, but I especially liked the example shared by Classical FM as it relates to the different lobes of the brain. Here are just a few examples:

  • Sight-reading on the piano involves reading two lines of music, each in a different clef. This activates the visual cortex located in the occipital lobe. 

    65% of us are visual learners. (http://www.vistacollege.edu/blog/featured/the-7-best-careers-for-visual-thinkers/) Typical skills possessed by visual thinkers are strategic planning, attention to details, spatial reasoning and artistic abilities / hands on skills. Career options for those who are strong visual thinkers could be photography, business consulting, graphic design, and construction technology, as well as today's hot career - robotics.
 
  • Both hands often play intricate rhythms independently from each other. This activity stimulates the primary motor cortex located in the frontal lobe of the brain.

    People with good hand-eye coordination handily use their visual senses to assess a situation, then use their hands to execute the given task. (http://work.chron.com/careers-those-good-handtoeye-coordination-12465.html) Some careers would include physicians and surgeons as well as commercial airline pilots and all creating and building occupations.
 
  • Pianists listen to notes being played and adjust their playing accordingly. Listening involves the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe.

    According to Tech News, the breakdown of learning styles varies, but a typical K-12 classroom contains 25 percent auditory learners. Possible careers for those with strong auditory skills are judges, postsecondary foreign language teachers, broadcast and sound engineers, interpreters, speech pathologists, and counselors.

  • Pianists know where all the notes are without having to look at the piano keyboard. This shows strong spatial skills which are developed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

    The development of the prefrontal cortex plays a significant role in maturation. The brain develops in a back to front pattern, and the prefrontal cortex is the last portion of the brain to fully develop. This does not mean that children do not have functional prefrontex cortices. Rather, they do not develop the complex decision-making and planning skills adults have until later in their development. Experience can play a role in the development of the prefrontal cortex, and children exposed to a variety of stimuli and challenges may develop more quickly. (www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/prefrontal-cortex)​

    The prefrontal cortex is involved in a wide variety of functions, including:

  • Coordinating and adjusting complex behavior
  • Impulse control and control and organization of emotional reactions
  • Personality
  • Focusing and organizing attention
  • Complex planning
  • Considering and prioritizing competing and simultaneous information; the ability to ignore external distractions is partially influenced by the prefrontal cortex
One can see the distinct advantages to developing and strengthening the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Careers in science, design, visual arts and manufacturing are optimal for those with strong spatial abilities.

Eyes, ears, hands - these are only a few areas where those who learn piano can excel and accelerate brain development. Also to be taken into consideration are the use of 10 fingers, two feet, keeping time, touch, and artistic interpretation, all using different parts of the brain.




​

​
0 Comments

Fill our cups with kindness

11/7/2017

0 Comments

 
I was so moved by this inspiring article in my college alumni magazine, that I want to share it with you. Part of the motto of the university I attended is "Enter to learn, go forth to serve." We musicians are given many opportunities to serve but sometimes we get so caught up in teaching, performing and earning a living, that we forget we have the abilities to brighten someone's day and lighten someone's load. Here is the article, written about alumni Karen Merrill Larsen from Elkhorn, Nebraska.

A Dance for the Mind

The ballerina winces as the nurse inserts an IV into the pale crook of her arm, releasing a cocktail of drugs into her body. The middle-aged patient leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. But before she falls asleep, a chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" erupts from the 30 other patients in the cancer-treatment center. She opens her eyes to see a maplewood harp entering through the door, wheeled in by a smiling Karen Larsen. Larsen moves her harp to an empty space in the room, next to the woman's chair.

Larsen's fingers begin to strum, pluck, and dance across the strings, and conversations quiet as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" fills the room.

Larsen says she is amazed at music's power to lift the spirit. In her own experiences coping with death and illness, music gave her strength to carry on. Helping others receive the same comfort "is a great privilege," says Larsen.

An hour and a half later, Larsen stands to leave. "Thank you," the dancer tells her. "I stayed awake the whole time, dancing in my mind."


Lesson 100 in my book Six-Word Lesson for Exceptional Music Lessons is "Teachers, fill your glass full first." The chapter addresses getting enough rest and not skipping meals or routine exercising so to be the "best for your students." Many studies have been done, with astounding and positive results, on how general happiness and "feeling good" can be a direct result from being kind and serving others.

In a study, published in the Journal of Social Psychology, researchers created and administered a survey which measured life satisfaction. After the survey was completed, one group of participants were instructed to perform an act of kindness, on a daily basis, for 10 days. Another group received no such instructions. After 10 days were up, the life satisfaction survey was administered again to all participants.

The group that practiced kindness showed a significant boost in happiness; the other group didn't express any different level of happiness from when they took the first survey. "The findings suggest that good deeds do in fact make people feel good - even when performed over as little as 10 days . . . " (Acts of Kindness and Acts of Novelty Affect Life Satisfaction Kathryn E. Buchanan & Anat Bardi Journal of Social Psychology Vol. 150 , Iss. 3,2010)

Teachers and musicians, let's remember to fill our glasses first by providing kind service and compassion to others using the talents with which we have been blessed.


0 Comments

MUSIC EXPOSURE - Can't get enough of this good thing!

10/19/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureClapping enthusiastically for a junior high school orchestra
“I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music early, but most kids don’t get that kind of exposure.”  Joshua Bell, American violinist (picturequotes.com)

Chapter 9: How Parents Can Be Super Supportive
Lesson 82: Expose students to lots of music

At one of my city’s local malls, there is a little stage where some sort of musical performance happens every Friday night. While my granddaughter and I were having dinner at a café near the stage, the music started up, a little jazz ensemble, and she hopped down from the bar stool and just started dancing. Her mom used to do the same thing. I decided at that moment that I was going to expose this little one to as much music as I could whenever we had the opportunity to “hang out.” This is where being a “super supportive parent (and grandparent) becomes a whole lot of fun!

One weekend I took my granddaughter into Seattle to the Experimental Music Project Museum to see a Hello Kitty exhibit. While we were passing from one area to the next, we encountered a junior high school orchestra playing in the large area off the entrance. I thought my granddaughter would just hurry right through on her way to see more Hello Kitty stuff. Contrary to what I thought, she wanted to sit down and listen, so we did. She sat very politely, listened intently, shushing me at one point when I said something to her, and clapped loudly when they were finished. I don’t even think she knew what classical music was, but she knew it sounded pretty and wanted to listen.

We have seen a couple of animated musical movies together – Moana, Sing, and the recent dance movie, Leap. There is no way we can leave once the credits start rolling because she wants to get in the aisle and start dancing . . . until the music stops. And that “dancing to the music” doesn’t just happen at the movies. When she was around three years old, she would jump off my lap during church and dance as the congregation would sing the hymns.

She has attended a few of my studio recitals, loves to sit in the front row, and is pretty attentive for a six-year old! One of my students was performing at a park with another studio and I wanted to go hear him but I was caring for my granddaughter at the time. I told her I wanted to go hear some music in the park and she started jumping up and down and clapping. The weather was not very cooperative, but she stood and listened to the music, and was joined by a friend who was at the park that day.

And most recently I took her to see Aladdin at Seattle’s historic Paramount Theatre. We had tickets two rows back from the stage, right in the middle of all the more mature season ticket holders. I was a little nervous about the wiggles and nonstop talking that is characteristic of a first grader, but she did great sitting for those 2.5 hours. I was watching her reactions almost more than I was watching the show! She loved the music and as we were walking back to the car, she was skipping and humming.

The cherry on top? Just this week she asked her mom if she could take “singing lessons” from gramma!

Kids won’t know all the styles and genres of music unless they are exposed to them. Granted, they get exposed, possibly overexposed, to what’s playing on the radio or their phone’s playlist, but the world is so much wider than what they are listening too. Be a super supportive parent and open their musical world. Check out your local listings of entertainment and arts events. Just recently I saw an ad for a Halloween Children’s Concert produced by the Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra, including an instrument “petting zoo.” Can’t wait to take my granddaughter to this event. Fun times!
    


Picture
Listening to music in the park with a friend
Picture
Enjoying an instrumental jazz ensemble at the mall
Picture
Aladdin at Seattle's Paramount Theatre
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Sally L. Palmer

    I have been a private music instructor for almost 40 years, and currently own the Sally L. Palmer Music Studio. I have an educational background in psychology which really helps me understand what makes people - including students and parents - "tick." Enjoy the blog and feel free to leave comments.

    Archives

    June 2020
    July 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.