Commitment and Consistent Effort at Every Level

So, you've been in classes for a month now, and the shiny newness of practicing is morphing into the actual habit of music practice. Another of our Let's Play Music Core Values is: We expect commitment and consistent effort at every level. 

How Do I Become a Master?

In a recent blog post, I wrote about helping students crystalize dreams for future musical study by taking them to all kinds of musical performances. They have a chance to hear different instruments and styles and discover what they want to do with music. Those performances are also a sneaky time to open this discussion I hope you'll have with your child: "How do you suppose those performers became master musicians?"

Students are relived when I tell them it's way easier than they think. Becoming proficient at an instrument is easy because, first, you don't have to be born naturally great. There's a load off your mind! I'll admit that there are some who learn things more quickly, but the vast majority of us find a new instrument to be a huge challenge.  No matter! Humans were designed to create music.  You can do this.  As long as your feet are pointed in the right direction, you're on track. Hooray! 

The Magic of One Little Stone

The second reason it's easy to become a master is because any progress is still progress.  I send my LPM students home each week with the confident message that they can accomplish the practice assignments by the end of the week. Parents and students are surprised when we learn Bounce and Roll in the 3rd year of class, and at first I ask them to learn only the first line!  That's so little, they say.  Yes, if every day you get marginally better at playing one line, or one tricky measure, or one drill, you're that much better.  After days and days, these little bits add up. Soon you know several songs.  Then you start learning more challenging songs.

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Playing a tricky song (like this Debussy piece by 9-yo LPM grad, Truman) can seem as crazy as moving a mountain.  Here's an analogy for you to share with your child: If you wanted to move a huge pile of rocks from the front yard to... the piano room (no excavating tools allowed), it might seem impossible.  But if you take a small stone or two from the pile each day and carry it to the piano room, and repeated every day for three years, you will have moved that mountain!  

The Hard Part

If everyone started from zero and took increments of progress, everyone would eventually become a fantastic musician. What happens? Other things come along and we forget to save time to practice (or help the child practice).  Often moving single stones is too small for our commitment. The day-to-day progress is too boring, not to mention challenging. "Why should I sit and practice for 10 minutes? I'll hardly improve!? What fun is that?" 

The hard part of mastering any skill is consistency to keep at it, even when the progress is incremental.  It takes commitment and consistent effort at every level to master an instrument.  Looking down at the small stone (or listening to the simple song) might seem hardly worthwhile. And maybe boring. And possibly frustrating. "I'm working so hard, and I hardly seem better."

What we must cultivate is the ability to see past the small task asked of us today and recognize the greater whole it creates.  Perhaps the next time your child want to skip practice, remind her of the analogy of the stones- you may even want to keep a jar of stones in the piano room!  

"It seems like today you don't feel like you can do a boulder, but could you do a 5-minute pebble? It will really help the jar of stones fill up."  "Even if you only have 5-minutes, I bet you could help your fingers get better at playing the chords on this page...and the muscles will be that much stronger." 

I adore recitals (read our post) because they let us look at the hypothetical pile or jar of stones and bask in what has been accomplished! Recitals get students motivated and excited to move the next big pile.  These moments prove to the students that the cycle of effort and reward does work.

Body Building

I just realized that my stones analogy may have a little flaw.  If a student forgot to move one stone per day for several months (or years) he could decide to pull an all-nighter and do nothing but move stones until he was caught up on stone-moving.  Can we catch up on missed piano training?  

Well, we can make practices longer and more frequent, but because piano training involves muscle memory and creation of neural connections (read our post), the repetitive days and months of practicing cannot be replaced by cramming.  Long practice sessions usually lead to mental fatigue and limited learning, anyway.

Weight-lifters can't spend two straight days in the gym and expect to build muscles they haven't worked for months! Neither can pianists.  On the same note, just as a body builder takes a day or two off, pianists can do the same.  During your rest day, your brain assimilates your efforts and commits them to memory.

The take home message? If you have 5 or 10 minutes to practice, do it! If you find 5 or 10 minutes later in the day, practice again! It will be more beneficial  than waiting for a day when you have 40 undisturbed minutes.  Those teeny-tiny pebbles are going to be your key to success!

A Life Lesson

Consistent effort in music, school, and life

Let's Play Music is not just about making every child into a superstar (although that's pretty nice). We also believe in helping educate well-rounded humans.  Music lessons offer a perfect venue for teaching the value of consistent effort applied to long-term challenges. The discipline practiced and learned here can be applied to every pursuit your child chooses to embrace. Embrace this teaching opportunity.

A child who learns to reap rewards from her long-term efforts is, not surprisingly, a better student and worker.  Many recent research articles have delved into the benefits of music lessons and found the ways that the mental workouts achieved in music lessons strengthen areas of the brain and improve a variety of skills. 

Music students are better students, scoring higher on tests and getting higher grades in school.  Is it because the music made them smarter or because their music study helped them learn consistent effort? 

Stay tuned for other articles encompassing all of the Let's Play Music Values.

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher

Piano Technique for Tiny Fingers

Let’s Play Music: Keyboard Method

There exists a piano-playing dilemma in the world: Parents know that piano lessons are the best way to begin musical education (read our post), BUT a child’s ability to hear and internalize music peaks way before his ability to precisely control his fingers. 

Parents find themselves in a quandry: "Should I put my child in piano lessons now, even though his fingers are not really ready, or should I keep him out for a year or two but miss out on meaningful music and ear training during a critical time!?"  

Let's Play Music has solved the dilemma!

In the first year of Let’s Play Music, we took advantage of the ears' sensitivity in the ‘Music Learning Window’ by emphasizing ear training, rhythm training, melodic patterning, classical music listening, and harmony exercises without requiring finger dexterity to participate.

Students practice harmony and rhythm without much dexterity

I like to tell parents, "We let their ears and brains internalize as much as they want, as fast as they want- they don't have to be held back by what their fingers could perform at this age!"  Can advanced concepts be taught to little students? Yes, yes, they can.  If they hear and internalize the concepts early on, they are ready for abstract conceptualizations we explain it to them in year 3.

Get Started on Keyboards
Typical second year students are 5-6 years old and ready to begin using the keyboards. At the beginning of the year, they are not usually happy to sit still or practice for long periods. For this reason alone, I generally advise against enrolling 5-year-olds in private 30-minute lessons.  

At this age, they learn best through active play (read our post here) but enjoy focused bouts on the bench, progressively lengthening in duration. Let's Play Music is specifically designed to meet the needs of this age student, and that means being more active and fun than sitting still!

5 year-old hands and fingers are still quite weak and uncoordinated, so keyboard experiences must be simple training exercises that progress slowly. 

For a bunch of ideas for playful (non-piano) ways to strengthen fingers before and during the GREEN semester, read our post here. Of course you'll be doing your on-piano drills from class, too.

It will take some time before the fingers catch up to what the ears and mind have already learned!  The beauty is that the child's trained ear will correct his fingers.  

I find it very satisfying to have a student say, "gosh, that didn't come out sounding like I expected. I better double-check my fingers and play it again."   Likewise, I find it worrisome when a non-LPM student pounds out a song at the piano and cannot hear his own errors!

Posture at the Keyboard

An example of improper posture. PC Julie Fishbeck

The keyboard is a phenomenal teaching tool. We wish to introduce it properly and with correct technique. But be aware- technique is best adapted around age 8, when students' ability to precisely control hands and fingers is finally developed.  Wise private piano teachers will wait until age 7 or 8 to focus on technique drills. (Remember, age 5 is the time to focus on ear training.)

The following are things parents and teachers can encourage during Let's Play Music, but they are not expected to always be maintained/ enforced. That will come during private lessons.

Arm Position: ideally your child's elbows will be slightly higher than the keyboard.  Teachers with electric keyboards can lower them, but with a real piano at home you'll have to raise your bench height or use a booster. Adjusting seat height is perhaps the most impactful change you can make.  Arms should hang loosely from shoulders.  If elbows are too high or low, it's impossible to achieve a level wrist and a correct hand shape and the student often hunches up the shoulders to raise her own arm.

Teacher Anna White purchased these piano cushions for $20 to boost students up, but also uses these cheap foam craft squares to create just-the-right-height for each kid.  Marnie Christensen and Mallory Harris (Gilbert, AZ) remind us that you can go old-style an old phonebook bound in duct tape, or a new pack of printer paper! 

Flat Feet: it seems unfair that we just made you raise your child up and NOW we are saying the feet should reach the floor! Dangling feet can cause a student to lean back away from the keyboard.  A footstool, book, or box can be placed under the feet so the student is able to lean forward slightly.  you could buy this perfect piano footrest for $80, but Teacher Misty Burnett (West Point, UT) found that IKEA pull-out drawers were just the right size and shape.

Bench Distance: the child should sit far enough from the keyboard so she sits perched on the front 1/2 of the bench, leaning forward ever so slightly, and can put both hands in C position comfortably.

Sit up! Remind your child to sit up tall, like a string is pulling up on her head, so her back is straight and shoulders can relax down.  Green Turtle Shells are not for shoulders to hide in (you are not a turtle!) If you see a chin poking way out forward, remind your child to pull her chin in and sit up.

http://wellbalancedpianist.com/bpseatingguide.htm

Hand and Wrist Position
Wrists and Fingers:  'Bubble Hands' is the term we use to explain the soft, round, natural position of the hand on the keyboard.  This position allows for natural movement of the fingers, making it possible for all fingers to touch the keys at the same time and promoting relaxation in the hand.  

Did you notice that although all finger pads touch keys, it's the side of the thumbs that rests on the keys?  If fingers are stiff and straight, thumbs can't even reach the keys. That's why we sing "Rounded like a bubble, fingers flat are trouble…"

In class and at home, your child will practice holding a REAL BUBBLE so she can see and feel the shape her fingers take.  Once the bubble is no longer used, her brain and muscle memory take over to reproduce this perfect bubble shape whenever possible.  Of course, when she begins playing, variations are expected.  Bubble-hand is an ideal position to strive for, and it will come as fingers grow in strength from years of practice. 

Pop the Bubble
When doing scales, we must pop the bubble for a moment. Teacher Justine Turcotte shows how to avoid "chicken wings" while popping by creating "cat claws" during the cross-over.

Mental Technique
Your child looks at a note on the staff or hears the teacher say a finger number. Then, she thinks about what the notation represents, decides which finger corresponds to the note, and sends a signal to the finger to 'press down'. This arduous hand-to-mind-connection process can take a while – much longer than it takes adults. This process is practice, and although it is slow and may sound ugly, this is what builds the muscle memory for future playing. (Read our post on muscle memory)  

It is critical to not press down on a child’s finger to play the key.  Although we want to help "speed things up", this only interferes with her brain’s processing and will rob her mind of the chance to learn how to translate cues into muscular movement. (You can't practice for your child.)  We should not even touch the finger, as this disrupts the connection from the muscle to the brain and disturbs the 'bubble hand'.

What you can do: A better way to encourage your struggling child is to press the key at the top of the key near the soundboard (we call this the “player piano method”).  Her finger will feel the key drop beneath it and she'll experience the sensation of the muscles moving in the correct way.  This gives the brain a nudge toward learning to send the proper signal to the finger. 

Teacher Misty Ralphs in Chubbuck, ID (studio link) has an additional game for practicing finger numbers that YOU can play at home: she blows bubbles into the room, and the students have a chance to pop them, but only with the specified finger as she calls them!

Technique Drills

Once the hands are correctly placed on the keyboard and each finger feels the key relationships, we train the fingers to play smoothly from one finger to the next.  Each finger gains the ability to independently press down with adequate strength.  All of the keyboard technique songs are essential for developing finger strength, control and dexterity. Undoubtedly, once you graduate from Let's Play Music, your new teacher will have many additional technique drills to add to your study.  By then, your child's finger musculature will be mature enough to handle some very complicated patterns and commit them to muscle memory!

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher

Learning Chords: Use the Correct Fingering

The Password to Learning

I have four children, and at some point each day one of them asks to use the computer for something.  Since I'm usually elbow-deep in some other task, I answer, "okay- today's password to unlock the computer is PIANO."  And of course I change my password every day!

The other day, as I was leaving the computer to go jogging on my treadmill, I chose JOGGING as my password.  Hours later when someone wanted to use the computer, the password didn't work!  My teenage sons were diligent about trying every misspelling of JOGGING that I could have typed, switching letters, putting fingers in different positions- nothing worked.  Whatever misspelling I had used had been typed in TWICE by me to change the password, without my notice.  How could that be!?

Eventually even I was frustrated and wanting to use the computer again.  I sat down and typed JOGGING as fast I could, without thinking about it.  It worked!  What!?  I slowly replayed what my fingers had just done...J-O-G....G-I-N....A!  My name is GINA, so when my fingers felt me type "GIN" they finished with an A automatically and I didn't even notice it had happened. THREE TIMES!  My fingers are so used to typing the word GINA that it's hard for me NOT to type it once they've started the pattern.

What is Muscle Memory?

When our muscles learn a pattern of movement through repetition, our brains "chunk" that pattern into memory.  It becomes ingrained in our MUSCLE MEMORY and takes no effort to recall, so we can perform the physical tasks without conscious effort.  Our very efficient brains use muscle memory (or motor learning) to reduce the need for attention on activities that are repeated frequently.  Now that you've been driving your manual-transmission car for so many years, you can focus on things around you without having to think about shifting.  Now that you've been typing for so many years you can blog as fast as you can think up the words to share!

Muscle Memory at the Piano

Your second-year Let's Play Music student is hard at work learning the Red, Blue, and Yellow chords with right and left hands.  Your teacher (and booklet) demonstrate the fingering your child should use to play each chord.  It is crucial that you help your child learn these exact hand-shapes, even if your child finds something that initially seems easier (like using the stronger finger 3 instead of finger 2).  As your child progresses in music, these shapes will come up time and again- we want your child's fingers to automatically know exactly how far to move or reach to play these shapes!  It will make future piano pursuits SO much easier.  This is the same reason we insist that you use a keyboard with full-sized keys: your child's hand is memorizing exactly how far to stretch, and will forevermore remember the distance that "feels like" the intervals we've learned.

Once the brain has the "feel" for these chords and intervals memorized, that will free up the pianists attention to other things, like the progression of chords and the notes on the page!  Playing and sight-reading become easier when the pianist looks for common chord-shapes and melodic patterns, then lets her hands "do it" without having to think!

Practice Makes Permanent

You were hoping "practice makes perfect", right?  Sorry!  Only perfect practice will get you there.  Sloppy practice will lead to permanent sloppy results.  So, here's what your brain needs to help you wire in the best muscle memories:
1. Repetition:  Playing these chords and completing the Let's Play Music program should give your child enough repetition to have them stick for a lifetime!
2. Attention to Technique: Watch your child to look for bubble-hand, fingers touching keys, and correct fingering.  Remind your child it's better to have good technique and go slow at first.
3. Visualization: Muscle-memory is a brain activity! It's almost as powerful to THINK of doing this correctly as it is to actually do it.  When go on that spring break trip, bring along the keyboard image from your songbook and have your child "practice" on it.   
 
How To Help Your Child Learn the Chords

When first learning, movements will be slow.  Lots of mental focus will be required to engage just the exact fingers and to move them (or stop them from moving) just the exact amount.  Be aware that correct fingering is the most important thing at this point- NOT SPEED!  Lovingly remind your child to slow down and not go faster on chord transitions than she can go with correct fingering.

For the Right Hand Yellow Chord or the Left Hand Blue Chord, have your student practice sliding her thumb over one key, and then back home, without playing any notes.  Focus on keeping the other fingers in place, curved and gently touching their keys.  When fingers float up into the air, the child loses the muscle sense of how they must be positioned.  After warming up with finger-sliding, slowly transition back and forth between chords.

For the Right Hand Blue Chord or the Left Hand Yellow Chord, have your student practice extending the hand, all fingers sliding over into position, and then sliding back home.  This time the thumb is the anchor-it is critical the thumb remains gently touching the key or the pianist will have to look down at her hands to see where to set them.  Simply sliding back and forth helps the hand start to learn the exact distance to move!  After this warm-up, slowly transition back and forth between chords.

In this short video clip, I show a warm-up and some chord transitions, along with a simple game using dice to determine how many  times she plays each chord before transitioning.  At first I give extra beats during the transition, and when she gets better I'll expect her to transition and continue playing without missing any beats.

In this second video, I show a common error: playing the Yellow chord with finger 3 instead of 2.  I tell my daughter this finger is UNDER ARREST! or IN JAIL! and it's not allowed to leave the white key it is hand-cuffed (finger-cuffed) to.  In this video, I actually do restrain her finger from leaving the white key, but after this one time, I won't touch her hand again- I'll just say "put that finger 3 back in handcuffs!" and she will giggle and stick it back in place.

Teacher Kari Mickelson in Monroeville, PA, uses these soft hair-ties to label students fingers as a reminder for learning chords.  I like to paint the fingernails to help students with whichever chord we are working on. Give it a try!

What's Next?

As your child masters the chords, she'll be delighted to have fun sight-reading music with red, yellow, and blue chords! It will take very little effort for her hand to move into position and keep up with new music.  In the third year of Let's Play Music, she'll use these same hand-shapes to play chords in other keys AND to play chords with different inversions.  After graduating from Let's Play Music, she'll find these same chord shapes, intervals, and melodic patterns in written music everywhere and will have ease in playing them because her muscles have learned the patterns!  Okay, I think I'll set my computer password for as "muscle memory."  Good luck with your chords today!

-Gina Weibel, MS
Let's Play Music Teacher