At the recent Piano Festival at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music I gave a presentation called ‘Teaching Digital Natives’, in which I discussed the ways in which technology has changed the learning styles of the current generation. There were 120 piano teachers in the room, of various ages and stages of teaching. We started 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 […]
Studies show that if you invest 10,000 hours of practice into pretty much any field, you will be a master in that field. This applies to musicians, sportsmen, chess players, computer geeks, anyone. This comes from a book called ‘Outliers – The Story of Success’ by the economist Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a fascinating book that […]
Four weeks ago, my Harry Potter-obsessed 11-year-old daughter suggested I implement a ‘house’ system with my students. She said she thought they would all practice more if they were earning points for their house and competing for the ‘house cup’ (something which happens in Harry Potter, in case you didn’t know that). Even though it […]
As with anything in life, excuses are sometimes genuine and sometimes a force of habit. For example, I have a friend who is alwayslate, and there is always a good excuse for why. When she tells me her excuse it tends to waft over me like a familiar yet slightly irritating smell. In contrast, I […]
This Friday afternoon my 11-year-old daughter will audition for Gondwana Voices, a national choral school run by Sydney Children’s Choir. To help her prepare, I downloaded some of the practice materials from the Gondwana website. I was particularly interested to find out the level of sight singing required, and was amazed to find that even […]
As the author of texts for each of these AMEB syllabuses, the question I am asked most frequently is, “What’s the difference between Theory and Musicianship?” For Grades 1, 2 & 3, the answer is: almost nothing. I find that by the time students finish Grade 3 in either one, they pretty much know the same […]
It seems that the latest Grade 3 Theory paper has caused a stir amongst teachers around the country due to the style of questioning of Italian terms. The format this year requested candidates to tick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to whether the English translation was correct. The translation given for ‘con moto’ was ‘with motion’. […]