Lund Music Studio

In music, an “interval” is the space between any two pitches. Students of music theory typically spend a lot of time in the beginning of their studies learning how to identify a given interval, both from written notes and sounded pitches.

If you can add and subtract and you spend some time practicing, identifying intervals that are written on the staff is an easy task.  Hearing two notes and determining whether they are an augmented fourth or a minor ninth apart is usually tricker, and can be daunting for some students.

To add insult to injury, I haven’t seen a lot in various textbooks that helps a student learn these intervals — since the book usually doesn’t generate its own sound, it will just show you a couple notes on the staff and say, “That is a major third. Learn it. Memorize it.” Okay, great! But how can you figure out what it sounds like?

Aside from the obligatory “practice, practice, practice”, here are some ideas to help you learn intervals. (Some of these ideas have been borrowed from Hearing and Writing Music by Ron Gorow).

Play it. Assuming you’ve figured out the easy part and you know what the interval looks like on paper, get yourself a well-tuned instrument and play the interval in different contexts — by itself, with other intervals, or in musical pieces.

Name that song! This is a common practice, and in fact was used in my first theory course in college. For example, the tritone is the first interval in the melody of both “Maria” from West Side Story and the theme song to The Simpsons. So, if you hear an interval that sounds like either of those songs is about to start, it’s a tritone. This is very helpful for many students, but has its own problems — chief among them being that if you don’t know the song real well, you can trick yourself with this method.

Size does matter. Intervals are distances. So, each different interval has a corresponding different size. Most people (even completely non-musical ones) could tell you that high C is higher than middle C. They could probably go on to tell you that the C above that is even higher than middle C. Easy example, but that’s what you’re doing when identifying intervals. Spend time listening to different intervals and try to hear the difference in size.

What comes next? Tons of Western music is based on formulaic chord progressions and harmonies. Play two notes. Do you feel like you have completed a musical idea? Or do you need to “resolve” it somehow? If so, how should you resolve it? Intervals like the minor second and perfect fourth can feel like they have arrived on a final note, but other intervals like the major second and tritone will feel to most of us like we need to add another note to the end to “finish” the phrase. Familiarize yourself with this tonal nature of different intervals.

Happy or sad? Most students, especially younger ones, are taught that major scales sound “happy” and minor scales sound “sad”. This is a simple way to say the scale has less or more dissonance. Listen to an interval, and consider how the resonance sounds to you. Some intervals like the tritone will sound very dissonant, or clashing, while others such as the major third will sound bright and pleasing.

Drill wisely. Most attempts to master hearing intervals will require a lot of “drill” exercises — hearing intervals over and over again, and trying to identify them. Start doing this, if you haven’t already. But remember to pay attention to what you are doing. If you get to the point where you are frustrated or just guessing randomly, you’re no longer achieving anything. Give yourself a break, and before you come back to the exercises, refer to a book, article, teacher, or friend to get some new ideas to help you.

There is an excellent online ear trainer at http://www.ossmann.com/bigears/

Happy training!

Training a Musical Ear

As piano teachers, sometimes we may forget that we possibly didn’t always have the most magnificent ear for music, and so we may not understand when we have students who cannot “hear” their mistakes, or who feel they are playing something correctly when it is, to us, clearly wrong. I particularly have a hard time with this as I started music VERY early, and was trained to have a good listening ear from the start (I can still pick out notes and tell you what they are without looking at the piano.)

But sometimes, our students honestly think they are doing a good job, and don’t understand when they are not playing things correctly, either melodically or rhythmically. Where does this stem from? Well, it can come from many places. First, if a student has a piano that is vastly out of tune at home, it may be hard for them to hear and identify “wrong” pitches. Second, some young students have not developed a musical ear quite yet, and simply cannot distinguish between one note and another. This also may connect with the third problem, that they have read the music from the book incorrectly, and then practiced it that way all week, and so think their mistakes to be “right,” because they are doing what the book says. If they think they are playing the notes as they are in the book, and have not connected the written music to the heard music, then they will not think that what they are doing is incorrect, because they will think, “I’m just doing what the book said.”

So how do we correct these misadventures in pitch? Well, there are several options. The first is to demonstrate for them. If we are not playing the piano FOR our students every once in a while, we are doing them a grave disservice. They need not only to do, but to listen. Play for them what they just played you, and then play the “correct” way, and ask them not which one is right, but what the difference is. If they can tell you this, then they at least have the ear to hear, and are just confused on what is right. Parents who are vaguely familiar with the piano can do this with their children also. If you have the ability to follow a beginner, parents, then you should be in there helping them when you can (without being too intrusive, of course).

Secondly, it is important to get all piano students to be able to sing just a little bit. They don’t have to be the next Whitney Houston or anything, but see if they can match a pitch singing, and then connect it to the piano by having them sing the note and then play it on the piano. This again reinforces pitch accuracy and ear training, and helps them to develop the ability to hear and correct themselves. Parents, this is again something you can try at home. You don’t even need to know note names. Just play a note, and ask them to match it by singing.

Finally, something I think all piano teachers should be doing, is ear training and music theory with their students. Help them to learn the different musical symbols, and that just like in the alphabet, when different letters make different sounds, so in music, different notes make different and distinct sounds. Play melody and rhythm recognition games, and encourage the student through fun and interesting activities to discover the piano and the sounds it makes.

Through all of these activities, a student should be able to develop a “good ear.” If at first it seems difficult or doesn’t work, I would encourage all teachers and parents to give it time. Music doesn’t happen overnight, but it is a beautiful thing that anyone can learn given enough time and patience. Good luck!

Let’s face it. Everyone wants instant gratification. That’s why we have cell phones, text messaging, etc…But there is one major difference between adults and children: Adults know how to control this desire and have (ostensibly) developed the patience to wait and the understanding that not all things come immediately. Children have largely not yet reached this understanding. This comes into play with piano more so than with other activities.

Piano is seen as an “activity” much like sports or dance, but it is actually much more akin to learning a language. It takes time, focus, and devotion, and will not happen over night. Whereas in sports, you go to a few practices, then put on a uniform and you ARE an athlete, in piano you must spend months or even years learning the very basics of piano. Pushing notes down on a keyboard like you would push buttons in a video game is not playing music. Playing music comes with a detailed understanding that the notes you push can be combined in many different ways, and there is even a technique to how to push them. Not only that, but music words are in another language. So while a child has to learn the “language” of music (the music alphabet and so forth), and while they are still getting a firm grasp on English, we then ask them to learn and understand words in ITALIAN, too! Again, adults have developed the patience to understand that this will not happen overnight, but children just want to sit down and do it! And woefully, there is SO much to do.

That being said, how do we keep the young student’s interest? Can they actually have a full hour of piano? Definitely. The key to developing this lesson is to vary the activities greatly, and to make the student think that this is a game. (There is serious time, too, but it is interspersed with “fun” activities, and can actually be fun itself if instructed properly.)

You also want to cover a broad range of topics: technique, rhythm, artistry (dynamics and nuances), theory, history, other instruments, etc. Find a fun history book with some activities and a CD of composers’ popular works, and I guarantee the average child will be interested by the stories of composers and their lives. Use technique books that utilize cute and quirky metaphors to describe the exercises. Find not only theory books, but also activities and games. Teach them scales by having them improvise while you keep rhythm. Teach them rhythms that are causing them problems by allowing them to chose from a selection of percussion instruments and making it “hands-on” but away from the keyboard. Have a multimedia aspect of the lesson with computer music games. Teach them songs by memory by having them repeat a song after you, starting with two notes, and adding one until they get “stumped.” Doing these things makes for an interesting and engaging lesson.

All of this will lead to children finding music enjoyable and engaging and hopefully cause them to look forward to lessons. It does, however, require significant time to develop all of these aspects, so the child and parent have to be open to the idea of taking music for an hour. The hope is that what cannot be accomplished in a shorter time period (in which all that can be accomplished is making small strides in technique and lesson books), will be able to be put together in a way that makes students eager to come back. If all that is focused on is technique, and drilling practice, of course young students will have the, “I’m not sure I want to go,” attitude, but if one takes the time to present music as fun and engaging, that is exactly how it will be perceived. This is how we develop a high level of musicianship–not necessarily a concert pianist, but definitely a young person who enjoys and is excited by music.

I would first like to cover more of a topic I hinted on yesterday: how to effectively use method books. Some piano teachers swear by “Hanon.” I do not. I think it serves its purpose, but that purpose to me is to work out obvious tension issues and strengthen the fourth and fifth fingers. For those unfamiliar with Hanon, it features pages upon pages of sixteenth note exercises that focus on strengthening different fingers and finger patterns. This can be especially helpful for the student who struggles with fluidity and has a lot of tension developing in their arms. However, we as teachers must be extremely careful in how we assign and use finger strengtheners like Hanon, because if we do not coach ease and relaxation, these exercises will only cause more tension and frustration, not less. I would also not use these books for very beginning students. These are to be used once a student has a firm foundation in music, can read notes with ease, and understands and has the ability to play sixteenth notes. Until this point, these books will only cause great frustration.

This is why I am such a big fan of the “Dozen a Day” series by Edna Mae Burnam. It begins with what is called the “Mini Book” and proceeds up to a “Preparatory Book” followed by Books 1-4. This ensures that any student at any level can start with these books. They should be used as a warm-up to the day’s practice each day. They can be assigned a dozen at a time, as the book suggests, but I prefer to assign three or four at once and really focus in on the skills taught in these.
I also like these books more than Hanon because they cover such a broad range of subjects, including:
Quarter, Eighth, Triplet and Sixteenth Note Patterns
Legato and Staccato Lines
Contrary Motion
Chords
Basic Scale Fingering
Chromatic Scale Fingering
Octave Reaches and Jumps
Crossing of the Hands
Strenthening of the Fourth and Fifth Fingers (just like Hanon, only accessible and fun)
Etc…….
And these books do all of this in a very approachable manner, using the metaphor of bodily exercises to describe the finger exercises. My students tend to find it fun and interesting to try to decide why the writer chose to call a certain exercise something in particular. Also, though it begins at a level accessible even to the most beginning student, it reaches a high level of difficulty (I studied piano with a private teacher for 11 years before college, and we never even got to book four!)

I encourage anyone to pick up this series and try it out. I realize this has been largely an advertisement for “Dozen a Day” but this is because I really do find it a phenomenal series with great benefits for pianists of all ages. I think it is accessible enough to teach yourself, if you are working on your own, and does not necessarily need the guidance of a teacher. So for all of those self taught musicians out there, this is one that is worth the buy! Enjoy!

Plenty of piano teachers out there will insist on giving their students finger exercises, such as scales, Hanon exercises, or my personal favorite, the “A Dozen A Day” piano exercise series. While these are all well and good, and I will devote an entire post at a later date on how to effectively use piano technique and method books, there are so many other exercises that can be done away from the piano, which are vital to the success of a budding pianist.

I am a fan of developing extremely strong fingers, first of all. I also realize that technique exercises are…hmm…what’s the word??? Ah, yes….BORING! The Dozen a Day series does a little more to make exercises interesting by using metaphors involving bodily exercise to describe the skills learned. However, there are also plenty of other ways to increase finger dexterity. You can try picking up a very finger-heavy hobby such as knitting. You could decide to learn to use chopsticks. Finally, for all those looking for a fun game which improves concentration and finger precision, try the game “Operation.” This game was around when I was a kid, so this may date me a little, but I think it is still in stores. The object is to remove objects from inside a “person” lying down on an exam table, using a small pair of tweezers, without touching the sides at all. As I said, this would be a great tool for building finger strength, concentration, and precision, and can be a fun family game on a Friday night.

While it is definitely important to exercise your fingers, it is also important to remain physically fit, and exercise your body. This is the case because when we play piano, we need to have strong and relaxed arms all the way back to our shoulder bones. Tension can build up not just in the fingers, but also in wrists, forearms, and upper body, and so we must consciously think about loosening up our entire body. I feel this is best achieved through calming, focused exercise, such as Tai Chi or Yoga. These exercises serve a dual purpose, in that they loosen, stretch and exercise your muscles, and also calm and focus your thoughts, and so, they are a perfect precursor to a high quality practice session.

Finally, it is crucial to exercise your mind musically. What does this mean? Well, it refers mainly to theory and listening exercises. A good piano teacher will focus on theory for at least part of the lesson, working with pitch and interval recognition, and discussing musical symbols and terms as they appear in music. If you want something to do on your own aside from assigned theory work, try to find some interesting and fun recordings and see how many instruments you can identify. “Peter and the Wolf” is a great beginning orchestral work to use to identify instruments. There are also several music theory game websites, which you can reach simply by “Googleing” “Music Theory Games.” Finally, if you have purchased a Wii for yourself or your children, I highly recommend “Wii Music.” It comes complete with a very detailed and sophisticated theory game, as well as rhythm games, and “jam sessions” in which one can exercise one’s creativity.

So, as you can see, to get the very most out of your music lessons, you should be pursuing different courses of study and music related games during the week. Just as your teachers work hard to bring the very best they have to lessons every week, you can go above and beyond plain old practicing, and as a result, get so much more out of your music study.

Below, I have listed links to several music theory websites I recommend.

Music Tech Teacher

Piano Games

E-Music Theory

You have already learned how to break down practice time, giving an order and structure to practice that will yield the best results.  Now, within that time frame, what do you actually DO (or NOT DO, for that matter)?

DO take every assignment seriously.  Trust that your teacher has given you all this work for a reason.  Music teachers realize our time and yours is valuable.  We promise never to give you “busy work!”

DO NOT let your brain go to “autopilot” during warm-ups.  Warm-ups not only prevent injury, they also help you improve technically over time and make you more nimble and capable.  If your scales never improve to the point where you can begin to speed them up with accuracy, do not expect yourself to be able to achieve accuracy in difficult solo passages.  One leads directly to the other!  That being said, DO NOT spend your entire practice trying to perfect your scales and lamenting that you cannot.  With a little daily focused practice, you WILL improve over time!

DO refer to notes from your lesson while practicing.  It is my belief that a teacher should help you through the week by writing down specifically what you should be working on.  If your teacher does provide you with a notebook, REFER to it during practice.  They wrote it down for your benefit!  And remember, what they have written down should require thought and work on your part!  It is not enough to read through your notes right before your lesson and assume you can “think” those things into happening without practicing them.  (Trust me!  I’ve tried!)

DO use a metronome if your teacher has assigned it!  There…I’ve said it!  The dreaded “M” word.  But metronomes are there for a reason during practice.  They help you find and maintain a steady beat.  Your teacher should also help you learn how to use the metronome.  Begin at a low speed.  You must achieve mastery at this speed before you move even one “tick” up on the metronome.  If you cannot do it perfectly at a slower tempo, you cannot expect perfection when you speed up!

DO NOT, under ANY circumstances spend your entire time running through pieces from start to finish.  You may do so once at the beginning of your practice to target weaker areas in a particular piece.  But once you have found those areas, the key to making them stronger is not to practice the whole thing over and over and just expect it to get better.  Break it down.  Target the tiny bit that is giving you trouble.  Slow it down.  Is it the rhythm that is difficult?  Count it out loud, clap it, and then play it until you can do it at least five times in a row perfectly in just that one spot before you begin to put it back in context.  This method of breaking down and targeting small areas until they are better is absolutely, positively 100% guaranteed to work!!!

And last, but not least, DO always remember that if you are trying everything you can during practice and still struggling, ask your teacher!   That is what we are here for.  But practice should come first.  (This follows the old adage, we cannot help you if you have not first tried to help yourself.) It is always easier to answer specific questions once you have given it your all than to answer that general, “But I don’t get it!”

If you follow these guidelines for practice, and practice daily, you will see results, and so will your teacher!  You will feel a sense of confidence in your ability to practice and accomplishment in the work you have achieved, and you will be rewarded with the ability to challenge yourself to new and more difficult heights!

Now, stop reading and go practice!!!  With the confidence that you know how!!!!!

You know you need to practice daily.  So, being the good student you are, you sit down to practice, and all of a sudden, feel very lost and confused.  ”Okay…I’m here…now what do I do?”  Being told to practice without being told how to practice is like a school teacher handing you a whole textbook and saying, “Well???  Study already!!!!!!”

Now, in our blog on Practicing Daily, we told you not to cram all your practice into one hour-session, but to spread it out over the week, because the practice you do at the end of that long session is not as effective.  This is true, especially for beginning musicians.  Just like athletes who have to work up to training for long periods of time, musicians have to learn to make good use of one minute before they can make good use of 60!!!  Also, keep in mind that  as your body gets tired, you lose technical ability, and may actually hurt yourself by pushing yourself to practice too long.

So, rule number one:  Leave the marathons to the professionals.  Have a beginning practice goal of 15-20 minutes per day.  If you find you are not getting everything accomplished that you would like, and still feel fresh after 20 minutes, then you can begin to add more time.  Concert pianists may effectively practice up to 12 hours a day, but you can bet they started with about 20 minutes just like you!!!

Now, on to the meat and potatoes of practice!  There should be a logical order to your practice time, based on what your teacher has assigned you.  Below, I have briefly outlined a 20 minute practice session from beginning to end.  This outline will be followed by general tips for what to do and what not to do in a practice session.

1. Stretching: 1-2 minutes–Take a moment to shake out your hands, roll out your neck, work out any stiffness in your body.  The more relaxed and flexible you are, the easier practice will be, and the less chance you have of injuring yourself.
2.  Warm-Up:  3-4 minutes–Work on a scale or exercise from a technique book.  This wakes up your body and your brain and prepares you for the more arduous work of practicing solo or performance pieces.
3.   Lesson or Method Books: 5 minutes–Lesson books should be at or slightly above your current technical comfort level.  A few minutes every day should suffice to help you move forward in your lesson books.  Lesson books also typically feature work on one or two ideas/concepts at a time.  Make sure you know what those are and focus on them!
4.  Solo and Performance pieces: 10 minutes–These may be for an actual outside performance or simply to perform during lessons.  You want to spend most of your time here because you want these to be very polished, and there may be much more to work on here (dynamics, phrasing, articulation, pedal if you are at the piano, etc.)

Now you’ve got a basic order for those precious minutes!  Check back tomorrow for the “Do”s and “Don’t”s of practice time. I realize that just because you can put  those minutes in order doesn’t mean you know what to do with them yet!

We all want to hit those beautiful high notes that professional singers are so envied for!  The first thing to remember is that it is not going to happen instantly.  It’s not as if you’re doing something wrong, and can be told in ten minutes how to correctly have a three-octave range.

Here’s what you can do.

Make sure you warm up your voice.  This is always good advice for singers, and it is absolutely essential when you’re trying to improve your range.  If you try to sing an unusually high note first thing in the morning, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to sing well for the rest of the day.

Use good breathing technique.  Don’t be afraid of your belly!  Include some breathing exercises when you are warming up, if this is not something you’re used to thinking about.

Think happy thoughts.  Instead of worrying about how to hit an A#, and stressing about how high it is, just let your voice smoothly go up the scales.  You will find high notes a lot easier to hit when you don’t think about how high they are!

Practice.  Like I said, it’s not an instant-fix situation.  But with enough practice using good, solid technique, and education on correct vocal technique, anyone can pull off great results.

These days, multitasking is respected, if not expected.  If somebody can accomplish two things at the same time, that’s better than only accomplishing one thing, right?

Wrong.

Multitasking two tasks usually takes more time than it would take to do one, and then the other.  The reason is that multitasking only works if the two tasks require completely different parts of your body.  For example, I can hear music playing with my ears while I am doing a crossword with my hands.

You may say, “Hey!  There’s an example right there!”  Right?  Again, not quite.  The chances are incredibly high that I’m really not listening to the music playing.  The sound is coming into my ears, but I’m probably not focused on the lyrics, or the instrumentation, or anything like that.  It’s just ambient noise.

At the end of the day, doing any task well requires use of your brain.  And there’s only so much that your brain can process at one given moment.  So do yourself a favor and make it easy for your brain to concentrate on that which is most important to you at a given moment.

Apply this thinking to your practice sessions.  Don’t try to sing while the TV is on.  Don’t try to practice your scales on the piano while talking on the phone.  While you are practicing, let your brain think about one thing and one thing only — music.

Many aspiring singers find their main obstacle is their lack of confidence in their own voice.  Overcoming a lack of confidence can be harder to learn than other aspects of singing technique, because it is a very personal, very emotional thing.  Like every other part of practicing singing, though, it can be accomplished with practice.  If you need a boost to your singing self-image, here’s some ideas to get you on the right track:

Move around. Resist the temptation to lock up physically while you are singing.  If you want, actively move your body while singing — wiggle your fingers, shake your leg.  Get rid of that tension!  It’s also important to release as much tension as possible before you sing.

Smile. Smiling is always a good idea, as a smile subtly shapes your throat to a vessel that is capable of putting forth a lot of sound.  Try a happy smile, too — happiness = confidence.

Use a mantra. Pump yourself up a bit before any time you’re nervous about singing.  Come up with a phrase that will help you get in the right mindset emotionally.  Try something like, “I am awesome!” or “I have a beautiful singing voice, and it gets better every time I sing” or “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Make a fool of yourself. Sometimes, it pays to actively try to embarrass yourself.  This will help you to realize that it’s really not that bad.  A big part of singing with confidence is being willing to take chances in front of others.  It’s good to pay particular attention to “no-risk” settings; for example, a good voice teacher will never judge you for having a less-than-perfect sound.  Make mistakes with pride, because you learn from every one.

Karaoke. I admit that karaoke is pretty typically and correctly associated with bars, and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  But, if you’re into that scene, by all means grab the microphone.  Bring a friend or loved one, get up on stage, and take command!

Show your emotions. Sometimes, your nervousness can work to your advantage.  Singing is a very emotional art; don’t be afraid to let your emotions come out in your singing.  Focus on the fear you’re feeling, and think about how you can channel it into a positive place.

Practice music you already know. It’s always easier to work on your vocal technique when you’re singing stuff you already know.  Part of developing as a singer is learning new repertoire, but why confuse your mind with learning new notes and rhythms when you are trying to focus on your nervousness?  Chances are, you’ve sung something at some point in your life.  Sing “Happy Birthday” or “Jesus Loves Me”, and allow yourself to realize how comfortable you feel singing.

Sing in front of an audience. This is more for advanced learners, but good advice all around.  You naturally feel more comfortable singing by yourself than you do singing in front of others, but if you’re studying singing, you probably want to be able to do both.  So, practice.  Just like singing, “stage fright” can be improved with time — every time you sing in front of others, you are gaining positive experience.

Perform with a group. If you ever get an opportunity to perform with a group, do it.  Singing with your peers will be a great help, as many of your fellow musicians struggle with the same issues you do.  Here are some good ways to get a group to sing with — join the church choir, or go out to a karaoke bar with your buddies (if you can, go to choir practice and then go sing karaoke with some of your fellow choristers).

Use your eyes to avoid “stage fright”. It’s a horrible thing to get into the bad habit of closing your eyes when you sing.  But that doesn’t mean you have to stare right at the people who are watching you — in fact, that’s also frowned upon as a performer.  Focus your eyes on a neutral point above someone’s head or on the wall straight in front of you.  This will let you focus more on you and your singing than what anybody may think of you.

Confidence doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s important to start working on it as soon as possible.  You are unique, so be proud of the sound that you are making as a singer — for better or worse, nobody else can duplicate it.  And the fact that you’re working to improve probably means you’re way better than half the people who might see you practicing and make you nervous.