Being the co-author of the said Blitz Sight Reading books, this might be interpreted as rather a strange title for an article by me. You may ask, shouldn’t I already have KNOWN that the Sight Reading books work? Shouldn’t I have held off publishing them if I thought for a second they wouldn’t work? Well […]
For those of you who have been receiving the Blitz email newsletters, you’ll know that the much anticipated iphone app ‘ScaleBlitzer’ has finally been released. After more than a year of blood, sweat and [many] tears, Abe Cytrynowski and I have produced what we think is the ultimate tool for teachers and students in the […]
Vicious Cycle The vicious cycle of theory study goes like this: Student dislikes theory because all their friends do or because they ‘just want to play’ => student avoids theory => student does not do well at theory => student dislikes theory How did this happen? I believe the main reason this cycle comes about […]
When you practice a musical instrument by yourself, it’s a pretty solitary experience. There’s no team spirit, no friends at the training session, no coach to tell you what to do. It can be REALLY hard to be disciplined in practice – that is, to tackle the stuff that really needs work first and leave […]
In an effort to stimulate more practice and a fairer competition, I decided to refine the House Points system I described in December last year. No matter how I’ve tried to mix up the students and houses, for the last couple of terms one house has clearly run away with the House Cup. This makes […]
My daughter recently came home from her flute lesson with a great little system for correcting mistakes, which she called ‘IRC’. IRC stands for Isolate, Rhythms, Connect. Her flute teacher, Emma Sholl (of SSO fame), discussed with her that ‘Isolate’ means to figure out exactly where the mistake is. ‘Rhythms’ means to go over and […]
For all those of you who have embraced even the idea of offering the 50-piece challenge to your students, I’m here to tell you that it’s the best thing I have ever done with my students. Each week they come along to lessons eager to get more ticks on the chart, or at least more […]
With the May written exam series fast approaching, here is a series of tips that will help students and parents prepare for the big day… 1. Avoid cramming We all know that knowledge quickly gained is knowledge quickly lost. Take these last two weeks to do steady revision each day – don’t leave it all […]
This term I started the 50-piece challenge with my private students. That’s right, let’s see who can learn fifty pieces in one year! At first all of their eyes popped out of their heads. Fifty pieces? In a year? Most of them couldn’t fathom learning fifty pieces in a lifetime, let alone 12 months! So […]
In Part 1 of How Much Practice is Enough? I attempted to calculate, in real numerical terms, the amount of practice required to get through a certain AMEB exam. In this follow up article, I will explore some of the other issues surrounding exam preparation. Preventing boredom Boredom would have to be the no.1 reason for […]