Happy Autumn!

It's the first full day of Autumn, and it sure feels like it!  Here's a nice article including a video of violinist Julia Fischer with The Academy in St. Martin in the Field performing Vivaldi's Autumn. Hope you enjoy it!

http://musicmotionblog.com/2010/09/autumn-from-vivaldis-four-seasons/Vivaldi's Autumn

Just a note: there are still openings in SB1 and SS1 if you're interested, but time is of the essence! Email now for details

loris3@sbcglobal.net

New app for IPAD! And if you want to get a brand new one and give me your old "outdated" one, I'd b happy to take it off your hands! For now though, the Kindle Fire is near and dear to my heart.

Taking some time off to teach a few private students and do some composing of my own.....

http://gizmodo.com/5919717/piano-dust-buster-master-music-from-your-ipadTa-ta

http://gizmodo.com/5919717/piano-dust-buster-master-music-from-your-ipad

How Zentangle Can Influence Piano Playing

Last week we received this email from Ksenija Vojisavljevic, a classical piano teacher in Australia:

Dear Maria and Rick

Thank you for sharing this wonderful art method that you have created. It has been an enriching experience to get involved with Zentangle. It broadens the mind in many different ways.

I would like to share with you a little story that illustrates one fantastic moment that Zentangle can give a life to.
One piano student of mine is a little girl Vivien, 9 years old, disciplined and enthusiastic performer that plays intermediate level repertoire with a great technical skill and accuracy. What was missing in her performance, and what is not an unexpected moment with young child playing at that level, is the deepness of emotional involvement and richness of colours in a music interpretation.

To encourage the imagination of students I ask them to think what is music that they are playing telling them, and to present it in drawing and colouring. When I have got the illustration from my little student, it was a set of ten rectangles in mono colour. This actually was an adequate visual portray of her music performance. The same moment, without thinking twice, I advised her to go to tanglepatterns.com to find more ideas. I believe that enriching of the mind can always go in both directions between subjects. I expected that her effort in practicing patterns will improve her imagination and consequently inspire her music performance.

 

Surely, it did take place. I do not need to say anything more after showing you Viviens latest art work that she kindly allowed me to post. Her music performance automatically has improved as much. She would bring shapes and colours to the page of music representing the development of ideas and feelings along music lines. Once Vivien created those ideas in her mind they became alive in the performance as well. And this is all thanks to Zentangle.

Thank you Zentangle, Zentangle creators, and all Zentangle community.

All the best wishes and happy tangling!

Ksenija Vojisavljevic

Fabulous article about the value of music

http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall2009/music.html

May 1, 2012

It's SPRING! When the world is puddle-wonderful and mudluscious, as eecummings says in his poem "in just spring". We are winding down the school year, practicing feverishly for the recital May 12. Well, I don't know how feverishly, but I am trying my best to motivate the students to be as prepared as possible. The goal is for each of them to have a positive experience performing, and while there will be inevitable mistakes, we're trying to make them few and easily overcome. Practice does NOT make perfect, right? PERFECT practice makes perfect, and that is an impossibility. We can only strive to do our best. Myself included. I'm planning on playing a composition this recital, and am realizing how long it's been since I have played in a performance setting. It gives me a good idea of what the students face every year. Yet another reason to keep it light and fun. How many adults remember terrifying performances as children, and how often those contributed to either not wanting to perform, or even quitting the instrument altogether?  I see the value however, in the end of the year recitals, as last year I was sick with pneumonia and lost the entire month of May, plus the 2 recitals. There was no closure, no show-casing their talents to friends and family; the year just sort of petered out.  

I have been on a course of antibiotics and other allergy-fighting medications, and the "bugs" just seem to come one after another. At any rate, May 12 will come, ready or not, and we will make it through somehow.  More details to follow in weeks ahead...hopefully some video links to youtube performances as well. 

Break a leg, folks, just not any fingers! 

L

Tools of my trade- Yes, folks, the compositions are finished and off to the post office for their journey to Canada! Good luck to all of you! I think each and every one of them are TERRIFIC, whether or not they place in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Honorable Mention, or no rating at all. You are ALL winners just for submitting one, and I'm very proud of the hard-working students AND helpers who made them all happen. When we hear about Mozart composing at age 4, we're not nearly as impressed as BEFORE we've seen what nice work OUR 4 yr olds can do! Most of the current batch are 6 - 12, but for a few of them, it's their 3rd and 4th year submitting. Keep writing, kiddos, you have awesome ideas!

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Aim for 6 days of practice a week - if you miss 1, then you still have a respectable 5 days' worth to show at the next lesson/class.

Of course, if you aim low, you'll hit it every time! :-)

http://www.flixxy.com/12-year-old-music-prodigy.htm

Jan. 24, 2012

The last full week of January, and winter STILL hasn't decided to arrive. The flower bulbs are coming up already, and I hope they'll be ok, or at least won't die when the real Cleveland winter arrives. We've had some hints of it, but our 6" of pretty white stuff was gone in one day. One day of 55 deg and rain. It would be nice to see the sun again. BTW, I read yesterday that the yolk of eggs contains Vit D - something sorely in need of here.

Our composition season is in full swing, and even I'm getting the bug. My dad, (William Buelow) gave me a CD for Christmas of a 2 piano duo piece he wrote and performed with Russell Wilson in 1965, the year I was THREE years old! It was when he was right out of college, and he had no recollection of even writing it! It's fantastic! The bad news is: the music seems to have disappeared. I hope and pray that it's in a box buried somewhere in his attic, and this summer I'll go down and help him look for it. Otherwise, those two men are the only people that will have the pleasure of playing it. Luckily, there is a nice recording of it for the rest of the world to enjoy. (thanks to Russell Wilson!)

That said, WRITE down your music! No matter how small the fragment. For that matter, write down your stories or record it, so that it's not lost. Even a small pocket size recorder is better than nothing. I suppose the same goes for visual arts, whether it be sketches or scratchings on a napkin in a restaurant. If you can imagine it in your mind, get it out of there as soon as possible in some fashion! And send me some good "vibes", thoughts or prayers for my current piece "Dreams", in which I'm stuck in a never-ending loop. I need a way to get out! :-) It would help to have some good quiet composing time, uninterrupted, but that last word is one that is rarely applied to my life. :-)

Thanks for reading, and hang in there. Spring is coming!!!!

Still trying to figure out how to put this in as a clickable video and not just a link.

This is for students learning the triads and inversions, and of course, the fingering that goes along with it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdeI4bss6MM&feature=share

http://www.teachpianotoday.com/2012/01/09/if-kids-dont-practice-put-their-piano-in-the-park/

From MYC founder Frances Balodis

"When we’re teaching we sometimes expect students to practice in one time period…and they find this challenging. Our own daughter practiced in short bursts of time, and it worked for her. This used to frustrate me, but now I understand! One does these things when one can!

In MYC some children practice every time they “see” the piano, other children are more methodical and practice at a scheduled time. Parents and children (and teachers) can work this out together. What works for one household, may not work for another. What works for one learning style, may not work for another. What works for one age and stage may not work for another. Everybody finds their own system!"

I find I work better this way, at EVERYTHING, mostly because I'm scattered in the many areas of my life needing attention. I do a little here, and then run to take something there, and while I'm there I see something I forgot to do yesterday, so I do a little of that, until another "fire" ne

eds attending to. I don't WANT my life to be like that, but it is. Our students go from subject to subject in school, and then activity to activity after school, then homework, family activities, practicing.....you get the picture. (Side rant: when to kids just get to be KIDS? to be taken another day) What Frances has said is wise - what works for you and your student may not work at all for someone else. I think a regular daily time of at least 20 min would be best so as to develop the HABIT of including practicing, though, since by now we've all probably learned that you can't make up for 6 days of no practice with one 90 min cram session the night before class or lesson. At least not every week! (OK, I'll be honest, sometimes you CAN fool the teacher with one cram session!) Best to have a longer, more focused practice time soon after class or lesson, while the info is fresh in your mind, and then get smaller chunks to reinforce throughout the week, and then another longer session before class. I saw the poster shown above today, and it spoke to me, Hope it speaks to you too!

Lori

gulfnews : Why writing is right for children

Written by Austen Grace Dellinger (see bottom of page)

I see black marks on my sheet

Meaningless to the untrained eye

Do I see scribbles

Or do I see something that could rise above Vivaldi, Handel, Bach?

My music is a battlefield

Pianissimo is the sly, the shrewd

Who looks ahead and debates what to do next

Fortissimo leaps before he looks - Bam!

I unveil my music with each note I play

I find a new meaning, a word to describe

To define the genius

The refinedness of the notes I play

Like poets

Beautiful words roll off their tongues

Like music off my fingers

I look into my music

I feel inspiration, pride, sadness, and mortification

Because my music is a battlefield

This poem was written by a child who is now ten years old. She wrote it when she was NINE!


Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/11/09/790432/pianists-ode-makes-her-a-published.html#storylink=misearch#ixzzbQz4wSwx

http://www.pbs.org/parents/creativity/np_lessons.html

BTW, if anyone knows how to actually put the link to the page (other than the url underlined) I'd LOVE to know how - help?

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1066822--birds-humans-share-musical-habits-researchers-find

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-musical-self/201107/does-singing-your-baby-really-work

Does singing to your baby really work?

Art class or music class?



http://www.miller-mccune.com/education/music-training-enhances-childrens-verbal-intelligence-36701/