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Keys to Music Learning
Keys to Music Learning
Q&A with Krista and Hannah (Part 2)
In this episode, Hannah and Krista tackle questions talk about transitioning students to an audiation-based approach, reading ad writing music, and accelerated pacing of lesson plans.
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Overlapping Music Moves lessons with checklists
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Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano
Ready to learn more about audiation-based piano instruction and Music Moves for Piano? Visit Music Learning Academy for online courses, webinars, and resources.
Want to dive into audiation-based piano instruction? Check out Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe.
Welcome to Keys to Music Learning. I'm Hannah Mayo of Mayo Piano.
Krista:And I'm Krista Jadro Of Music Learning Academy.
Hannah:Join us as we discuss common goals and challenges in the piano studio, and offer research-based ideas and solutions to guide every one of your students to reach their full musical potential with audiation.
Krista:We are back with some questions from our community. And Hannah, I think you had something to say
Hannah:I did. I thought of something that I wanted to add after the last episode. And it's this. The question that we finished up with in the previous episode was talking about recitals and how they look when you're using this kind of approach, and how to showcase the development that students are going through. And I was just thinking about, yes, recitals are a really great place to do that. But what really happens, a lot of times, is that those little moments of showcase actually happen at home, where the students will just go to the piano and start using their rhythm vocabulary(usually is how it goes first). Every now and again, they'll kind of get fixed in on a tonal pattern. And they might start improvising and creating with a tonal pattern. But a lot of times it happens with the rhythm. And I've gotten many a message from parents that have taken little sneaky videos of their students playing and just creating at the piano and they'll tell me something like,"She's been there for 30 minutes. She just won't stop playing." And so those are also some really nice moments where the parents get to see the internal development that's going on. So just wanted to add that before we get into our next round of questions.
Krista:We do have some good ones in here. So here's our first. I have a student who took music classes when he was younger, then took a break for a couple years before starting lessons with me. I started him and Book A since he had some foundation, and I think it was a good choice. Then he started participating in band at school. So now he's reading music at school. And we just started Unit 10 in Book One. So here are some various questions I have for my experience with this student. First one is how to transition students to this approach from lessons from a different one.
Hannah:Okay, this might be a little controversial. What is it Hannah? this point, at this point, there is no transition. It's just, you're my student now, you're going to do it my way. And I don't just forget where the student is coming from because we do individualized instruction. And so if a student does have a certain set of experiences that I might be able to utilize, that's fine. And I will keep that under consideration. But I have noticed myself not really concerning myself too much with what they used to do. And I know that is controversial because some students are very emotionally attached to maybe the book that they were using before they moved to you. Or maybe the reading and kind of feeling weird about not reading.(But I think we're going to talk about this more in this question or possibly in another question.) But I do look at notation with a student who I know is looking at notation. So if I know my students are in band, or they're taking music classes at school, where they're seeing notation, or maybe they're learning to decode certain aspects of notation, I will counter with my own experiences with them, where we are looking and we are noticing, and we're identifying patterns, and we're taking more of an audiation-based approach to that notation. Yes, I will do that. But for the most part, I don't really transition the student. There's not a transition period. It's just like, if you want me to be your teacher, there must be a reason for that. So I'm going to teach how I teach. And that's kind of where I'm at now. It used to be like, "Okay, I'll do this, but we'll keep that and I'll do this but we'll keep doing this." And I don't really do a whole lot of that anymore. So there's that answer. There is no transition, it's like, you're gonna do it my way. But the way I do that is to be more helpful, hopefully, is with Student Book One. Generally, if I have a student who has done lessons before, I'm going to put them in Student Book One. I have learned this lesson the hard way. I have tried other books to put transitioning students in. But I think Book One is where it's at. And you do maybe a more accelerated pace. You combine things, like you'll notice that there's a lot of repetition in Activity Time. There's a fair amount of repetition in the Keyboard Geography and Technique activities. And that's needed when you're a total beginner. But maybe you don't need as much repetition for a student who's transitioning, and who can maybe really play the piano quite well, or who already knows all their scales and arpeggios. You don't need to spend as much time in the Keyboard Geography area of the lesson just yet. You can focus more on the Activity Time, the audiational stuff that maybe the student has not yet had. And then of course, you should always be teaching repertoire, or engaging in repertoire projects, as I call them. Those elaborate recital arrangements that we spoke about in the previous episode. That would be you know, under the umbrella of repertoire, supplemental repertoire. And what I do with that student is take more of an audiation-based approach with the repertoire, I don't try to pull them back too much. You know, if they're at a very high level of playing, I'm not going to pull them way back. But that is not usually the experience. Usually the experiences that they're at maybe an intermediate level, if that. But the thing that I've noticed is that Book One will teach a person so much, even me, Book One taught me a lot, and I am a degreed musician, and it's still taught me a lot of new things. So that's how that's maybe a more helpful answer is I will use Book One. I used to also include the Reading and Writing Book One, but I don't do that anymore. Instead, I borrow from the book. And we will do some of the activities in the book, but I'm learning that I don't necessarily want to put them in the Reading and Writing Book that soon. But I will have them do many of the activities from the Reading and Writing Book. And I will show them in their own repertoire like "look, here's Du-de Du-de Du-de Du. How many times do we see this pattern? And I'll just have the students looking at their repertoire in a different way. So I hope that that sort of answers the question. Did you want to add something to that, Krista?
Krista:I was just going to add if you have a true audiation beginner, experimenting with Keyboard Games as well, especially because last episode, we talked about using those pieces as the musical Legos. I love that Karen! Using the pieces as a musical Legos. And they're great to create with and to teach those skills. So incorporating them in a way that's right for that student. I know some teachers use them as warm ups to their lesson. If you're diving into Book One.
Hannah:I do that!
Krista:Other teachers will just do like, we're just going to start with Keyboard Games, we'll do this for a month or two, see how it goes before doing Book One. So whatever is right for you. Still, that informal instruction is important to learn those skills and maybe even incorporating the songs in different tonalities and the chants in different meters, to give them that acculturation as well. And then when you have an older student who's transitioning from a different teacher, or more traditional teacher, you can also talk to them about why you're doing what you're doing. Right. It's not like the four year old, who you're just gonna go and do it with but you can tell them what you're developing or developing you as a musician because the piano doesn't play itself. Right. We are the musicians who bring our musicality and our skills, audiation skills, to the piano. So this is why we do these types of activities.
Hannah:Yeah, and one of the greatest pieces of advice. I can't remember who said it, maybe it was Terry Bacon, I want to say I heard this from him. Someone said with some MLTer said "Go deeper." Just If you have a student who is maybe 13 years old and has been taking lessons with another teacher or maybe hey were even taking lessons with you for a long time. And now you're starting to move in a different direction and follow a new path and you're bringing them along for the ride. To go deeper with the activities, Make it harder. Think about easy, medium and difficult. I do this all the time with my college class piano. I see all the gamut of skill level. There are students in that class who have been taking piano lessons their whole life. And then there are students in my class that have never touched a piano. So I tell them, if you want the easy, if you're a beginner, and you want to ease into it, do this, play the Keyboard Game as I have taught it to you. If you are looking for more of a challenge, add this duet part. See if you can do the student part in your right hand and the duet part in your left hand or vice versa, whatever makes more sense. Or we'll get into the mashups and the medleys. And I'll say, can you play these three pieces in a row without losing any time between, just one after the other, not missing a beat. And these are really important skills for an advancing musician. So I think that you can always look at what you're doing, and take it to a deeper, more complex, kind of place to keep someone older and more experienced, engaged in what you're doing. So go deeper.
Krista:I love it. And you kind of touched upon this, but I'll read this next question. This is part of that same question. For a student who is 10 or older, is it a negative to start introducing concepts from the Reading and Writing Book earlier than Book Three?
Hannah:I would say concepts, yes, go for it. Especially if you look at Section One, and Section Six of the Reading and Writing Book One, those sections can really be developed into all kinds of other activities. And that you can go deeper with them. You can definitely use those really, with students that are younger than 10. And I would say you can start to, show them the enrhythmic notation of a duple meter rhythm pattern and see how they respond. And if they totally get it, and they kind of like the light bulb goes off, show them another pattern, and then engage them in some copying, and then show them how to rewrite it using a different macrobeat. So I would say that's completely appropriate, assuming that they understand enrhythmic notation. If they don't yet understand enrhythmic notation, definitely stick to Section One and Six. But the thing that I'm learning, I just want to reiterate this. When it's time to actually in the process, when it's time to actually get to the Reading and Writing Book, I'm finding now that I've sort of like, put the cart before the horse, and while my students that are beginners to audiation, but they understand notation a little bit. And I've been sort of using that Reading and Writing Book as like a compromise almost. I'm finding that is maybe not the direction I want to keep going in. But what I will do is take all the activities from that book, and sprinkle them in very small doses throughout the lesson.
Krista:And just to add to that, there's a lot of talk about notation readiness, notational audiation readiness, and we know there's so many audiation skills and keyboard skills that serve as notation readiness. And that's really been my focus for my students until they get to Book Three. And some of my students, I didn't even start the Reading and Writing Book until they're like halfway through Book Three, because there are so many important skills in Book Three for them to learn. What I do wish I did with them, maybe starting in Book Two, were the Sections One and Six and taking my time with them. So my older students, I kind of rushed through them like okay, they get this turn the page, they get this turn the page. But what I should have done was done one of the lessons and then took a couple of weeks to notice those things in music. Notice that those things in there familiar music, take out books of repertoire and notice those things in those books. And really take my time with that and if you don't have the Reading and Writing Books, Section One (Hannah, you might add to this) has the note parts(the five note parts) you learn what a quarter note is, half note.You don't learn the time values or anything you learn the concrete. What is a half note? What does it look like? What what note parts do you have to put together to create a half note, right? There's in Section six, you learn about just identifying intervals in music, triads in music. Some Do-signatures in music, all very concrete things, which is why I kind of rushed through them. But that's my main. I don't want to call it regret, but I guess it kind of is a regret.
Hannah:A lesson that you learned.
Krista:Yes, was that I didn't take my time and it wouldn't have taken long right? We would have done one of the lessons. And then in some lessons afterwards, I would just point to it or say, "Oh, what does that note? Or what is this? Or what is that interval?" It would have taken a couple seconds, but with time that really adds up. Right? So I don't know where I'm going with this. What was the question? It isn't a negative to start introducing concepts, but like Hannah said, those Sections One and Six. Yeah, introduce them when your student is older, when they're ready, when they're, I guess there's so many many things that depends on. But if your students in Book Two, or if you have an older student, you can introduce those things, and really kind of stay with them for a while.
Hannah:Yeah, I even have nine and 10 year olds, matching tonal patterns. I sing it, and they look at it, and then they match it to another card. And I'm not asking them to read the tonal pattern, I'm not asking them to even really understand what all these line and space notes mean. I just want them to look. And that's been such a game-changing theme that Marilyn was really getting into, towards the end of her life was just looking and just noticing and having these little very quick, informal moments of notation experience that help organically bring a person from not reading to reading.
Krista:That was quoteworthy, Hannah.
Hannah:Every now and again, I get a good one.
Krista:So lovely. So well put together, that thought. All right, so this question has one more part to it. We may have answered it already. But let's see how to adapt to a student who is learning how to read music from another source like band or orchestra? We kind of talked about that. But do we have anything else to add?
Hannah:I have one more thing to add. I do this a lot. I have students that are taking lessons with other instrumental teachers or they're in band or choir and they're learning all kinds of things. And I have no control over that. And I've just learned to let that go. And they'll tell me this "Oh, well in band, we learned FACE OR All Cows Eat Grass" or whatever the the acronym of the day is or the pneumonic device, whatever you call that. And I'll just go "Oh, that's nice." And I'll kind of let them tell me about I say,"Well, what else did you learn?" Because I'm so I'm nosy. I'm like wanting to know what ridiculousness these kids are learning. And it's not their fault. And so I like to hear about it. So I let them tell me about it. And then I go, Okay, well, that's cool. And then we move on. So that's like one way. I do not adapt my teaching to fit another teachers teaching. I'm just not going to do it. There's maybe the only exception to that would be in my college class piano. There's a co-requisite class with a usic theory teacher who is also MLT informed, thank goodness. And we have worked together. But I'm never going to base my decisions as a teacher and what I do in my classroom or in my studio on what any other teacher is doing. So what I usually tell them is, at school, you're going to learn like that. Here, you're going to learn like this. And you can decide which one you like best. Or even better, you can synthesize those two things and be even more amazing. Isn't that great for you that you get to have all these different learning experiences? And you just kind of turn it around like that. But that's about it.
Krista:Yeah, same here. And I like to when they are reading, I noticed the ones that are in band or orchestra and have been reading with those teachers are pointing individually note to note, and that's just one thing that I'm always aware of and like "Oh, we're not going to read note to note just like when we're reading words we don't lead read letter to letter to reread the whole word." So that's just something to be aware of when you do bring some of those students into reading and writing, that they might be looking note to note, but we want to really encourage them to look at the whole pattern.
Hannah:Yeah, and I think what you just said is actually another reason not to go into reading and writing concepts too soon, other than the really concrete ones, like the note parts, and all of the different note names, and the music staff and triads and lines and space notes and intervals, things that are very concrete and easy to label. That's great. But because they do have this kind of methodology of approaching notation that is quite different from our methodology, it's kind of good to have that separation point. And have a year, at least a year, maybe more, ideally, more where you're not really worried about notation, because your priority is audiation. And as it happens, one of our next questions is related, but maybe a little different. So let's take a look at this question, which says, I'd be interested to hear more about transitioning students who already read notation and to MM (Music Moves). We did touch on that. Do you feel is it is appropriate? To move at an accelerated pace? Short answer, yes. How thoroughly should they be diving in? Should they remember the songs and their names? I still can't even remember all the names, so...
Krista:Isn't not terrible. I have to look at the back of the book sometimes when I'm teaching a lesson because I'm like, "What is this Old Castle? Oh, I don't know."
Hannah:Wait, there'smore. Is it sufficient to be able to perform and create with understanding and then move forward? I'm often not sure if I'm moving too quickly, or not quickly enough. So starting from the end of that, I will start by saying, because we just had Gregory Chase on, Your students will tell you, if you're moving, they'll show you. They won't tell you. They'll show you if you're moving too quickly or not quickly enough by how engaged they are, if they look bored, move quicker. If they look confused, move slower. Okay, so let's start with the beginning. The first question, do you feel like it's appropriate to move at an accelerated pace? And we did touch on this in a previous question? And I say yes.
Krista:Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like every single question I answer is like, it depends. But I think for this for this question, and what she's talking about is going to be yes. If it's a four year old, the answer would probably be no.
Hannah:But that four year old is not going to be transitioning.
Krista:Exactly. So for this question, the answer is I agree with Hannah. And it is yes.
Hannah:Yes. And I'll just reiterate some things I said before about this, which is that if you look in the Teacher Book, you notice that things happen, way more than one time. And you notice that the Activity Time always includes the Duple Meter Watch Please and echoing some patterns and chanting the macrobeat and the microbeats. And a young beginner needs to do that every single week, but maybe a more experienced, what we would call, transition student does not need to do all of that every single week. And so maybe Activity Time is a little shorter. Or maybe your pattern instruction goes a little faster, or you know, things like that.
Krista:Yeah, and just to add, I have (I'll link to it in the show notes). I have a YouTube video where I show how I do mixed level classes. And it shows how I made a checklist for all of the units of the books. And the checklist for a unit does not take long to do. Maybe it took me less than 10 minutes to do one unit. I'd even say once I got going it took me maybe five because there's a lot of copy and paste because there's a lot of repetition. But I would encourage you to do this, especially if you're moving at an accelerated pace because you can really see what repeats and how you could get maybe three Activity Times into one Activity Time. So you don't feel like you're missing things. I'm kind of a perfectionist and I like to be able to do everything but you definitely can. You can move quicker and the checklist really helps to lay it all out and to see exactly what's in the lesson plans and how you can move at that faster rate.
Hannah:Right and with a student who's been playing for years Any number of years, they probably have keyboard skills. They probably played pentasscales and arpeggios. But maybe they've never played a melodic cadence. But they're going to learn that melodic cadence, I think pretty quickly if they already have keyboard skills. And I think you just go at the pace that your student is showing you. And that's why it does depend, because it always depends on the student in front of you. So I move at an accelerated pace. And I've heard Janna Olson talk about this too, about how she likes to get students into Book Three as quick as you can without sacrificing much. And that's because Book Three is really where those students kind of get it. They're like, "Oh, I see what you're doing here." They understand the value of Book Three. And it's kind of tricky to understand the value of Books One and Two, and even Keyboard Games, until you get to Book Three. You have a new appreciation for everything that has happened when you get to Book Three. And so students, that's why it's kind of maybe a good idea to accelerate, like book three is your goal. And it's not that you're rushing, you're just not taking as much time as you would with a younger student.
Krista:And many of those activities are, like you said, are not going to take as much time with the older student
Hannah:Becuase they can already play.
Krista:Exactly.
Hannah:I find that actually most of what takes a fair amount of time is the Keyboard Geography because I'm so focused on getting that handshape just absolutely so. And I'm really focusing on like playing the keys correctly with those beginners. And it might happen that your transition students are not exactly playing the key exactly correctly, or using the most efficient fingering choices or holding the hand and using the whole forearm unit. And so maybe you do need to go slower. But yes. And the more you do it...this is like I can answer every question with this. This is sort of the answer to everything is the more you do it, the more you will know. Yeah. But those are some ideas for that. And there were times when I wasn't sure if I was moving too quickly, or not quickly enough, either. So you're completely valid in feeling that way. And it will come with time. And just watch your students, your students will tell you. They will show you. If they're bored, move it. Go deeper or move it along.
Krista:So Hannah, we have some more questions, but I think we need one more episode to answer them.
Hannah:I think so too. We thought we were gonna do this in one episode, but we just can't stop talking.
Krista:Well, they're really great questions. And they're really great topics. And these are all topics that people want to know more about. And you know, we love talking about them. So one more episode of questions, and then we'll get back to our community chats.
Hannah:And for anyone listening who is not yet part of our Facebook group, please join us at Introduction to Audiation-basic Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. We are always taking more questions there and talking about lots of great ideas. So join us.
Krista:Thanks so much. We'll see you soon.