Classical Piano Coaching

I am not a classical pianist… so why would a classical pianist study with me?

• She already plays pieces.
• She already reads music.

She wants to play more smoothly but doesn’t know how to accomplish that.

And I do.

So what did we work on?

1. We cleared up all the symbols, markings and words on the page so she understood what they meant. (And one of the bars she had trouble with had some symbols written that she didn’t know the meaning of…)
2. Some of the rhythms were rough, so I gave her some isolated rhythm exercises to work on.
3. Some of the melodic content was out of her “ear training” ability so we started working on that.

That’s was all that was needed at the first lesson.

That’s what music lessons are all about. Getting down to what is needed in order to achieve a goal. Very straight ahead!

MB
http://buttwinickmusic.com

Balancing a Music Lesson

My last student of the night was Mike on guitar. It ended up being a perfect example of aligning his lesson to his goals, and I wanted to share that with you.

He came to his lesson feeling good about what he had practiced that week. He looked happy, but not REAL happy, so I dug into his “head” to see where he was at.

He was tracking with what he was learning, but really needed the scales and chords and technical stuff to directly relate to a particular song and we hadn’t done that yet. Fine. So I had him pull out his iPhone and play me a few songs he liked, picked one that was in the same “key” as something that was on his lesson and said, “Let’s apply everything to this song.“

He said, “Great!”

Well… I related everything on his lesson to some part of the song: the theory, chords, rhythm and ear training. Then I taught him the opening guitar lick… and he blew out.

Super happy.

That’s how I like to end a lesson!

MB

http://buttwinickmusic.com

Old Dogs – New Tricks?

Sometimes it’s easier to train a beginner then it is a person who has played for many years. Old habits can be difficult to change unless you have a great deal of patience. With patience, though, anything is possible!

I’ve had “old timers” learn something new rapidly when not in a big rush.

Most things need to be practiced at a slow rate anyway…

MB

http://buttwinickmusic.com

Welcome to the Understanding Music Blog!

This blog is a running commentary from my teaching studio. Teaching others to play music is an adventure I want to share!