Monday, November 12, 2018 by Lisa Flood | Composing

Creative Composing for Piano

Fall 2018

Every year, I work hard to include various forms of composing activities for students in the studio. Composing is to music as writing papers is to English. We learn so much through writing down our own musical ideas!

Pianists who join the studio at a young age go through several 'rites of passage' in their composing curriculum. When they just start out, we do a lot of improvisation (composing 'on the spot') that isn't very formal; they just play around with melodies and we may or may not write it down. When the students are old enough for a workbook, they graduate to 'Barnyard Brooke and the Magical Motives' which allows them to learn more composing tools and teaches them how to write the music they are creating. Each year after that, they progress to the next two books in the series and are then old enough to participate in our mashup video project. Check these out below.

Students are always excited to follow Sage on her quest to rescue her father in 'Brave Sage and the Magical Motives.' Sage's father, the king, has been kidnapped and Sage has to rescue him! She encounters obstacles along the way that she overcomes by composing motives (short melodies) to complete each piece. Enjoy watching the first video in this year's project:

After completing the 'Brave Sage' book, students move up to the next level in the series, "Castaway Kip and the Magical Motives." Kip has been shipwrecked on an island and has to gather the parts of his ship in order to put it back together again. He meets several interesting creatures along the way. Here is our first video for the year:

All students, piano and flute, in Lily Music Studio compose their own music, even if they're not participating in one of the books mentioned above. Some other recent compositions by a middle school flutist and middle school pianist were about Autumn leaves and turned out quite nicely. I love to hear my students' creativity! I hope you enjoyed hearing the above compositions!

Tuesday, October 23, 2018 by Lisa Flood | Practicing

A Focus on Practice

September 2018

This year we are focused on effective practice; not just turning the timer to 20 minutes, mindlessly playing until it dings, and then saying, "Done!" We're more interested in using our time wisely and making the most of it. To this end, we did a few fun things to give our practice for the year a kick-start. 

Our first group class of the year gave us the opportunity to get crafty! We fashioned a couple of handy practice tools that will help students in their home practice time.

Some students made practice cups and others made practice pegs. Practice cups are a hands-on tool that utilizes different practice techniques written on popsicle sticks. Students pull several from their cup for each piece they practice, use the ideas written there, and end up having a much more effective practice time. Practice pegs are a helpful tool geared to the younger students and are a fun way to help them keep track of how many days they've played their piece during the week. I'm especially excited about using the turkeys for Thanksgiving and our Christmas set in a few months!

These tools are fun and useful, but it helps if students get an 'oomph' to get going! We joined a nationwide practice incentive called Fall into Music which encouraged students and families to practice for 20 days during the month of September.

This incentive was especially fun for those whose families joined them! Moms, Dads, and siblings also worked toward their goals which included 'sweeping the house' and 'cleaning my room.'

8 students achieved their 20 day practice goal and received a certificate of achievement as well as a sweet reward. What a great start to our practicing for the year! #FallintoMusic

Monday, September 17, 2018 by Lisa Flood | Parent Participation Week

Parent Participation Week

2018

Wow! We had an amazingly fun week last week with parents joining us for our annual Parent Participation Week. 

The students got a kick out of teaching their parents a little about their instrument and rhythm and the parents had a blast playing theory games with their kids.

Students have been preparing since the beginning of the school year to play a special duet with their mom or dad. These pieces ended up sounding amazing! Students and parents are looking forward to playing them together at home, too.

Younger students enjoyed reading their Maxwell A. Skunk piano comics with their parent this week instead of with me. It was so fun hearing them read together!

I'm already looking forward to next year! Thank you, parents for making this week so much fun!

-Lisa Barwell

Flute and Piano Teacher

Lily Music Studio