Pianist and Pedagogue
Sara Crawford died at 97. I made a point of checking in once a year to see how she was doing. Sadly, my timing was off. She had passed away in September and I had missed her memorial service. Teaching the piano was her driving …
In my first “Diversifying the Repertoire” post (https://benjaminsteinhardt.com/diversifying-the-repertoire-pt-1-african-composers/) I outlined my reasons for this project and highlighted significant piano composers from the continent of Africa, most of whom were people of color. In this post my focus is composers who are from the U.S., U.K., …
The year 2020 has brought on many challenges for piano teachers as we have worked to protect the health and well-being of our students, families, and ourselves while navigating the world of online teaching.
One positive development has been a massive uptick in teachers and students looking for piano music outside of the standard, Euro-centric repertoire. For the last five years I have hosted regular online events on “The Art of Piano Pedagogy” dedicated to exploring the keyboard repertoire. From July through September our theme was piano composers from Africa and of the African diaspora (the mass dispersion African people due to the slave trade of the 16th-19th century). The wealth of teaching material that was shared was remarkable.
What I learned from this project
A common refrain among teachers resistant to teaching composers of color is, “Music has no color or gender. I teach music based on its quality.” Another common refrain is: “classical music was created by white, European composers and there isn’t enough quality music for me to teach by composers of color.”
The belief that music should be chosen based exclusively on its merits is a noble one, but it withers under closer examination.
In joining with other teachers to compile a listing of repertoire by African and African Diaspora composers I learned a few things:
William Chapman Nyaho
This project would have been impossible without the existence of William Chapman Nyaho’s five volume series “Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora,” which ranges from late elementary through advanced repertoire. Chapman has superbly edited, compiled, and recorded dozens of pieces of the highest quality, many of which are otherwise hard to find or out of print.
Although the series was originally published in 2007-2008, it has become enormously popular this year, topping bestselling lists on SheetMusicPlus and elsewhere. After quickly running out of stock, Edition Peters appears to be currently meeting demand with new reprints.
African Composers
This search for repertoire proved so fruitful that I’m splitting it into three posts:
For ‘African Composers’ I have included composers born and raised in Africa who now live elsewhere.
Robert Mawuena Kwami (Ghana)
Robert Kwami (1954-2004) served as Professor of Music, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Visiting Fellow, University of London Institute of Education; Director of Centre for Intercultural Music Arts, London; and as Director of Music Technology of the Pan African Society of Musical Arts Education.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.2989/18121000409486696
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh (Egypt)
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh was an Egyptian American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had a career spanning six decades. He is particularly known as an early pioneer of electronic music. In 1944 he composed one of the earliest known works of tape music, or musique concrète. From the late 1950s to early 1960s he produced influential work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
Isak Roux (South African-German)
The South African born composer, Isak Roux, relocated to Stuttgart, Germany in the 80’s when local political tensions made it impossible for him to realise his ideal of reaching towards an integrated musical genre. The cosmopolitan nature of African folk music fascinated Roux from an early age. In the past number of years township music has exercised a salient influence on his work. This can be attributed to the close co-operation with African musical legends such as Jake Lerole and Joseph Shabalala with his Ladysmith Black Mambazo ensemble. The collaboration with the latter resulted in the album “No Boundaries”, which was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2006. The première of his gospel cantata “Coming Home” in May 2008 in Johannesburg received a standing ovation. Subsequent performances were received with critical acclaim. In 2006 penny whistle group Kwela Tebza performed some of his compositions and arrangements with the Bern Symphony Orchestra in Bern.
Roux sees his work not only as bridge between African and European traditions, but as a cultural contribution towards reconciliation in view of South Africa’s turbulent past.
Ayo Bankole
“Ayo Bankole’s musical style takes a line from the cautious approach of Fela Sowande although later in his career he also, like Euba, saw the need to lessen the stylistic bond between his works and European classical music. Like Sowande, he maintained close links with European conventional practice in the use of forms and formal procedures such as the sonata, the fugue and the cantata.
Despite the relationship between his works and those of Sowande, Bankole’s style is defined by a personal approach to reinterpreting elements of traditional Yoruba music and their fusion with European idioms. Thus although his harmonic style generally remains within the bounds of tonality, it is frequently characterised by features such as whole-tone scales, modality, the interval of the tritone and much use of chromaticism, often within a tonal language defined through repetition and emphasis rather than orthodox harmonic procedures.
The affinity between these features and the impressionistic and folklorist works of Debussy and Bartok is clear. But their use in Bankole’s music is also often governed by considerations which emanate from nationalist intentions.
Bankole’s career follows a similar pattern to that of Sowande — the Church being the most important factor in his creative output. Born in 1935, in Lagos, his father was the organist of St. Peter’s Church, Faji (in Lagos) while his mother taught music at Queen’s School, Ede, Western Nigeria.
The musical family into which he was born provided necessary encouragement for the beginning of a musical career that was to produce one of Nigeria’s leading composers. On his father’s suggestion, he became a chorister and a student under T.K.E. Phillips at Christ Church, Lagos. In the same year, 1945, he entered the Baptist Academy Secondary School (also in Lagos) where he also received music lessons.
In 1954 he became a clerical officer at the Nigerian Broadeasting Corporation and it was there that he met Fela Sowande who gave him advanced organ lessons. Bankole’s contact with the most important African composer of the day, at that stage of his career, is significant. Sowande’s works, in their nationalist orientation, provided immediate motivation and inspiration for Bankole. By the time he was leaving for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in 1957, he had started to compose.
These compositions include two piano works, Nigerian Suite and Ja Orule.18 Like the organ works of Sowande, some of which Bankole had already played, these pieces make use of simple Yoruba folk tunes and rhythmic patterns. In their modally inflected harmonies, pedal notes and ostinati, important stylistic features were established, and these recur continuously in his works.
47During the three years that Bankole attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama he studied piano, composition and organ for the G.G.S.M. — the graduate diploma in teaching. In 1961, having distinguished himself as an organist, he was awarded a scholarship to study music at Clare College, Cambridge. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in music in 1964 (and was awarded a Master’s three years later). In addition,
Bankole also obtained the FRCO in 1964, the second Nigerian to obtain this highest British professional qualification for organists, a great achievement. Bankole’s greater exposure to the works of European composers while in England and his insight into Yoruba music are reflected in the wide range of experiments made in his works at this period.”
Fred Onovwerosuoke (Nigerian-American)
Fred Onovwerosuoke is an American composer born in Ghana of Nigerian parents. He is a multiple winner of the ASCAP Award, among other awards such as the America Music Center Award, Brannen-Cooper Fund Award, and the Minnesota Orchestra Honorable Mention.
Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia
Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia, GM, MSG (22 June 1921 – 13 March 2019) was a Ghanaian ethnomusicologist and composer. Considered Africa’s premier musicologist, during his lifetime, he was called a “living legend” and “easily the most published and best known authority on African music and aesthetics in the world”, with more than 200 publications and 80 musical compositions to his credit.
click the photo to read his NYTimes obituary:
Andre Vindu Bangambula (Congo-China)
Andre Vindu Bangambula (1953-) currently lives in China! He was born in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his music—mostly chamber and piano works—has been performed in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. He is currently based in Shanghai, where he has taught music privately at the Shanghai American School since 1998.
Christian Onyeji (Nigeria)
http://www.unn.edu.ng/internals/staff/viewProfile/MTIyMA–/
Professor Christian Onyeji joined the Department of Music, University of Nigeria, Nsukka as a Graduate Assistant in 1992, being the best graduating student in his class. He rose through the ranks to become a Professor of music in 2009. He holds a Doctor of Music degree from the University of Pretoria, Republic ofSouth Africa, a Master of Arts degree in composition, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music as well as a Diploma in Music Education from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Christian is an internationally recognized music composer, educator and scholar from Nigeria who specializes in Research-Composition, a compositional approach that applies ethnomusicological procedures in the composition of modern African art music that is a logical continuum of African traditional music. His numerous compositions for different media have been performed within and outside Nigeria and have been well received. He is a researcher on African music as well as composes from the African stock. He has made contributions to modern African art music for symphony orchestra, drummistic piano style of modern compositions for the piano, choral compositions, solo voice and piano compositions.
Joshua Uzoigwe (Nigeria)
Joshua Uzoigwe was a Nigerian composer and ethnomusicologist. A member of the Igbo ethnic group, many of his works draw on the traditional music of that people.
Uzoigwe was born in Umuahia, Abia State (formerly Imo State), Nigeria. He began his education at the village primary school in Umuagu. Most of his early life was spent with his older brother, Sunday Uzoigwe, who was then employed at the University of Ibadan. For his secondary education, Joshua attended King’s College, Lagos before going on to International School Ibadan to study for his Advanced Level Certificate.
From 1970 to 1973, he was at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he began his studies in music. He completed his undergraduate degree (1973–77) at the Guildhall College of Music, London, and from 1977 to 1981 he attended Queen’s University Belfast, attaining both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology.
Gamal Adel-Rahim (Egypt)
Gamal Abdel-Rahim was an Egyptian classical music composer, educator, and pianist. His best-known work is the symphony Osiris.
Abdel-Rahim was born in Cairo to a musical father, and began playing the piano at an early age. His early musical studies were supported by the Music Society of the Faculty of Arts of Cairo University (then called Fuad I University), graduating with a degree in history. In 1950 he began university studies in musicology at the Musikhochschule of Heidelberg in West Germany, deciding on a career as a composer. From 1952 to 1957 he studied composition with Harald Genzmer (a pupil of Paul Hindemith) at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg.
In 1959, Abdel-Rahim was appointed to teach theory and harmony at the newly opened Cairo Conservatory of Music. He was later appointed head of the composition department there (the first of its kind in the Arab world), which he founded in 1971. Abdel-Rahim was quite influential among Egyptian composers of the next generation, as the majority of them studied with him during his time at the Cairo Conservatory.
Abdel-Rahim’s style fuses traditional Egyptian musical elements with contemporary European elements, focusing on Egyptian materials in his later works more than in his earlier works. He composed many works for orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensembles, as well as songs and music for film, theater, and ballet. He was awarded the State Prize for Composition, as well as the Order of Arts, from the Egyptian government.
Akin Euba (Nigeria)
Olatunji Akin Euba (28 April 1935 – 14 April 2020), was a Nigerian composer, musicologist, and pianist.
Born on 28 April 1935 in Lagos, Nigeria, Akin Euba studied composition with Arnold Cooke at the Trinity College of Music, London, obtaining the diplomas of fellow of the Trinity College London (Composition) and fellow of the Trinity College London (Piano). He was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1962. He received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Mantle Hood, Charles Seeger, J. H. Kwabena Nketia, Klaus Wachsmann, and Roy Travis. He held a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Ghana, Legon (1974). While at Legon, Euba’s doctoral work was supervised by Professor Nketia, and his dissertation is entitled “Dundun Music of the Yoruba”.
Euba was professor and director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos, and also served as a senior research fellow at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria. He served as head of music at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation for five years. He was a research scholar and artist in residence at IWALEWA House, the African studies center of the University of Bayreuth in Germany between 1986 and 1992. He was the Andrew Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh between 1993 and 2011 and until his death, was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Emeritus in music; the founder and director of the Centre for Intercultural Music Arts, London (founded in 1989), and director emeritus of the Centre for Intercultural Musicology at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
Euba’s scholarly interests included the musicology and ethnomusicology of modern interculturalism. He organized regular symposia on music in Africa and the Diaspora at Churchill College, Cambridge as well as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. These events featured such notable composers and scholars as J. H. Kwabena Nketia and Halim El-Dabh. With his Elekoto Ensemble, he brought together musicians from Nigeria, China, India, Germany, Malta, and the United States.
His compositions involve a synthesis of African traditional material (often from his own ethnic group, the Yoruba people) and contemporary classical music. His most ambitious composition is the opera Chaka: An Opera in Two Chants (1970), which blends West African percussion and atenteben flutes with twelve-tone technique.
Bongani Ndodana-Breen (South Africa)
Bongani Ndodana-Breen, is a South African-born composer, musician, academic and cultural activist. He is a member of the Xhosa clan. He was educated at St. Andrew’s College and Rhodes University in Grahamstown and also studied composition in Stellenbosch under Roelof Temmingh.
Visit his website:
Emmanuel Gyimah Labi (Ghana)
Emmanuel Gyimah Labi is a Ghanaian composer, conductor, and music professor. He is a graduate of the Achimota School and a former conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra Ghana.
https://peoplepill.com/people/emmanuel-gyimah-labi
Ali Osman (Sudan-Egypt)
Ali Osman Alhaj was a Sudanese composer of contemporary classical music. He was active in Egypt’s contemporary music scene and a specialist of Sudanese music. He also played the guitar, drum kit, and double bass.
Growing up in Sudan, Ali Osman was a self-taught rock musician playing drums and guitar. Feeling he got to a point where he couldn’t progress by himself, he planned to move to Canada but settled in Cairo in 1978 where he was supposed to get his Canadian visa. He studied with Gamal Abdel-Rahim, Bertold Hummel and Robert Woshborn at the Cairo Conservatoire (1978-1986), and learned the double bass with Rodney Slatford. He wrote a thesis on traditional Sudanese and Arabic music.[1] He obtained a Bachelor of Music in composition and music theory, and a Master of Music in arts. He then post-graduated in analysis, counterpoint and music history with Awatef Abdel Karim (1986-1990).[2]
He taught music at the Cairo Conservatoire since 1990, and at the Arabic Higher Institute of Music in Cairo since 1999.
In 2001, he became the artistic director and principal conductor of the Al Nour Wal Amal (Light and Hope) Orchestra which consists of visually impaired and blind women musicians.[3] In 2000, he traveled to Switzerland where the Swiss Radio recorded his first full CD.[1]
On March 30, 2002, he performed for the inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.[4]
Coming Soon!
In my next post I will focus on 20th/21st Century composers of the African Diaspora. If you have recommendations of piano music by African composers I have not listed, I’d love to add them in future updates!
Warning: Do not read this blog post if you are hungry. Gratuitous food pics ahead! Outside of piano teaching, people know me as a total foodie. I’m married to a wonderful home chef and baker, and we love sharing food with others. I recently read …
Since 2015 I’ve hosted a series for piano teachers called, “Exploring the Repertoire” at The Art of Piano Pedagogy on Facebook. 3-4 times a year we pick a theme (Women Composers, Bartok, Bach, Sonatinas, etc.) and discuss teaching strategies, favorite pieces, share student and teacher …
Each year the Music Teacher’s National Association (http://www.MTNA.org) hosts a convention. There are presentations, exhibitions, masterclasses, competitions, and concerts. I’ve attended State and National conferences before but this year I decided to apply to give a presentation for the first time. Thankfully, I was accepted! Not so thankfully, I was given a Wednesday 8 a.m. time slot. A time when most members are already traveling home or are feeling presentationed-out (more on this later).
While at the conference I did several 2-5 minute interviews for the Facebook group I co-admin, “The Art of Piano Pedagogy.” It was wonderful getting to speak with so many fabulous teachers and I’ve included several of those interviews below.
Day 1: Pedagogy Saturday
Due to flight delays I didn’t get checked into my hotel, the very clean and very inexpensive Ruby2, until after midnight.
Nonetheless there was no way I was going to miss my good friend Deborah Rambo Sinn’s presentation at 8 am.
Deborah is the author of, “Piano Playing Beyond the Notes” (https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Beyond-Notes-Pianists-Interpretation/dp/0199859507) and she has a remarkable ability to distill the art of interpretation down to easily understood, logical steps.
In her presentation, “The Secret Lives of Phrases: Lies, Near Lies, and Red Herrings,” she took apart excerpts from the standard repertoire and showed how smaller units make up larger phrases.
– She asked us to decide “who belongs to whom”
-suggested playing through melodies in the lesson without breaking any phrase before deciding where the phrase endings and beginnings will go
-look out for elided phrases which serve as both the beginning and end of a new phrase
-use a “train start” where the composer writes ‘A tempo’ to avoid abrupt transitions
-Understand that often in older music the purpose of slurs is to mark things that are not obvious or to remind the pianist of what not to do.
Another fabulous presentation was Lois Svard’s “Practicing with the Brain in Mind.” I had heard Lois speak at MTNA Baltimore and am a big fan of her blog “The Musician’s Brain.” (http://www.themusiciansbrain.com). Some excellent food for thought:
-When we develop unique skills parts of the brain enlarge. Playing the piano more than any other activity uses every region of the brain.
-“Cells that fire together wire together.” The more times you practice the faster the connection.
-Excessive repetition does not lead to efficient use of the brain
-Building new neural pathways takes time
-When activating one finger, others must be inhibited in the brain
-There is a separate area in the brain for each finger
-The great percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who is deaf, uses her whole body to “listen”
-Great pianists with physical misuse, like Glenn Gould, find workarounds but have physical complaints thoughout life
-Neuroplasticity allows for life-long growth and even rewiring of the brain after a traumatic injury. It is improved by motivation and positive emotions.
Joy Morin offered fabulous suggestions for group activities and games in her talk, “Activities to Keep Students Engaged.” You can visit her website here: http://www.colorinmypiano.com.
She and Amy Chaplin also presented on Edwin Gordon’s “Music Learning Theory” but sadly I was not able to attend due to it taking place at the same time as my Wednesday 8 am session.
One of my favorite sessions of the conference was Scott Price’s “Inside the Lesson” which focused on the teaching of children with special needs. Dr. Price has worked extensively with this population and showed video demonstrations with real students on the autism spectrum. These are the type of young people who in previous generations might not be offered a music education, yet flourish under the right instruction.
I turned to my colleague afterwards and we agreed this wasn’t just great information for teaching students with disabilities, but teaching children in general. Amongst Dr. Price’s observations:
-“Music aptitude does not discriminate”
-“Music study is the right and responsibility of the community.”
-When teaching children with disabilities we are the ones with special needs. We must enter their world.
-When students enter our studios they are already overstimulated. By saying, “hello, I am glad to see you today,” gauging their emotional state, and asking “are you ready to begin?” we can get them into the right mindset.
-Don’t make assumptions that a student knows something
-Unexpected, authoritarian touch causes anxiety
-Children on the spectrum are unlikely to understand our social cues. Language needs to be specific, literal, and child appropriate.
I also attended two additional presentations on artistry. I enjoyed both of them but found my self rolling my eyes at two statements. The first was that beginning 5 to 7 years olds should reach Bach Minuets by the end of their first year of study. The other was, “I have never had a ten year old who couldn’t play all of his scales at 160 beats per minute.”
In sessions like this there can often be a gulf between top university professors who teach a highly selective student body and those of us who accept every child into our studio. I think the effect of such statements can be discouraging to teachers who aren’t ‘elite’, but I’m happy to have a studio that is highly diverse ranging from competition winners to people with disabilities, the very young, the over-scheduled, recreational adults, injured pianists, post-graduates, and fellow teachers hoping to improve.
Exhibition Hall
The exhibition hall serves as both a place for commerce and a meeting ground of sorts. You’ll always run into someone you know and it gives you a chance to interact with the top composers and writers in the field ranging from Randall Faber (who sadly had to cancel due to illness), Keith Snell, Dennis Alexander, Melody Bober, Helen Marlais, Forrest Kinney, Phillip Keverin, and many others. You can also end up winning an iPad or upright piano if you are lucky.
The publications I was most excited to purchase were Jason Sifford’s “Beware the Jabberwock,” Lynda Lybeck Robinson’s “For the Birds” and “Whispering Woods” and Paula Dreyer and Marilyn Lowe’s “Little Gems.”
Jason Sifford joined me on the admin team at APP a few years ago. You might recognize Jason by the thousands of videos of student repertoire he has recorded on YouTube with his colleague Alan Huckleberry as part of “The University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Project.” (https://www.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed)
Jason’s intermediate collection, “The Creeps” is a staple of my studio around Halloween. His music is much beloved by my students because is fits the hands beautifully, it is well written, and its harmonic language makes aural sense to children who have mostly grown up on video games and film scores.
Lynda Lybeck Robinson is perhaps the person I was most excited to meet at the convention. We have communicated for couple of years but never in person. Lynda lives all the way out in UnAlaska, Alaska which is off the coast of Siberia and part of the Aleutian Islands. Her music perfectly encapsulates her generous humanity and her love for the natural world.
Paula Dreyer’s “Little Gems” collections (http://www.pauladreyer.com/book) are made up entirely of pieces to be learnt by rote are a staple of my studio. I’ve known Marilyn Lowe, author of the Music Moves method (https://www.musicmovesforpiano.com), for several years and she has had a profound influence on my teaching. When I heard they were collaborating on a book I was thrilled and the results did not disappoint. This fabulous collection gives a guide for teaching mindful rote and encourages creative interaction with the score. It is unlike anything else in print and I’m already planning on ordering a whole stack of them for my studio. For more details watch below:
My favorite booth at any MTNA conference is always JoyTunes (http://www.joytunes.com). Not only can you find a Jazz wiz like Jeremy Siskind improvising while playing the Piano Maestro app, it has Becki Tapia Laurent and Valerie McInroy who are two of the most fun Texans you’ll ever meet. Here Becki discusses the role of technology in the lesson:
Day 2 Sunday
Sunday morning began with a key note speech by Alan Walker. Dr. Walker is 88 years old and best known for his three volume biography of Franz Liszt, which I read with pleasure over three summers. In November he released a much-awaited biography of Frederic Chopin which drew rave reviews. In person he was as witty and entertaining as his books (and he has a fabulous Oxbridge accent).
His lecture was entitled, “Chopin: the Raphael of the Piano,” and focused on dispelling the many myths about Chopin that have arisen since his death and highlighting Chopin’s fame as a master colorist. He decried the percussive, showy approach contemporary pianists often take with Chopin.
I was pleased to see many presentations designed to bring the MTNA into the contemporary culture. Amongst these were several exploring the music of people of color, one about bridging the gap between millennials and older teachers, and a session dedicated to helping teachers create a safe environment in the age of “Me Too.”
The presenters were Julie Nagel (http://julienagel.net), a psychologist known for her work with musicians, and Annika Scharosch, a local attorney who specializes in these issues. Members of the audience submitted question anonymously and received thoughtful responses. A few things that were said that spoke to me:
-People often worry that if they report a teacher for misconduct they will ruin the reputation of the teacher. Of greater concern should be the ruining of the life of the student
-Dr. Nagel felt that our obsession with fame is something we needed to examine as a culture. It often causes us to excuse bad behavior
-Dr. Nagel questioned whether it was a good policy to require student’s parents in the lesson after a certain age. Achieving a sense of identity and independence is important for growth. Often it is the parent who needs to separate from the child and not the other way around
-Youth competitions should be educational experiences. Not a path to fame for the teacher and/or student
-If teachers are concerned about a student making a false report the best thing they can do is document, document, document
Ann Duhamel gave a delightful presentation on, “The Most Celebrated Composer You’ve Never Heard of – Leopold Kozeluch and his 50 Piano Sonatas.” In his time Kozeluch was considered as great a composers as Mozart.
Another presentation that drew rave reviews was John Salmon and Dmitry Rachmanov’s “Adding Notes to Bach.” Salmon’s “Add on Bach” website features videos much of the information he presented as well as video excerpts (http://www.addonbach.com).
Poster Sessions
Poster sessions are held on Monday and Tuesday in the Exhibition Hall. True to the name they are used for presenting posters, usually dedicated to the latest research by college students and professors.
Gloria Than-Haines presented a fabulous poster entitled, “Trust-based Relational Intervention Strategies for the Truma-informed Piano Studio.”
Of all the interviews I posted during the conference this one received the greatest response as many teachers are interested in developing strategies for interacting with students who have experienced trauma in their lives, or may have experienced trauma themselves.
Gloria will be giving a full presentation on thos topic at the upcoming NCKP conference in Chicago.
Day 3: Monday Morning
Monday morning was dedicated to “fast track” presentations which are a third the length of the others during the convention. This is no doubt challenging for the presenters but quite fun for attendees.
I got to know Lynette Barney quite well at the convention. She is fabulous with young people and her presentation, “Kazoos and Emojis: Engaging Activities for Exploring Modes with Every Student” gave terrific suggestions for getting outside of the world of major/minor tonality.
And yes, there were kazoos! Pro tip from Lynette: For students who uncomfortable singing aloud kazoos are a perfect substitute and are dishwasher safe.
Here is Lynette’s YouTube playlist of modal songs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdkSNsoSsgmSmQooPzMKE9w/playlists
And here is a fabulous mashup of “Meet the Flintstones” played in all the modes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaW2q1KM0Y
The adorable Davis B. Dorrough and Angela Marshall gave a presentation on, “Dynamic Business Duos: Supercharge Your Studio with Strategic Partnerships.”
I had the pleasure of meeting five charming students from the University of Colorado Boulder who presented, “The Stressed Studio: Maintaining Mental Health as a Teacher.” It was wonderful to seeing so many college aged participants representing their schools. As one of my colleagues said to me, “one of these young people will likely be the next Frances Clark.”
I first met Samantha Coates, author of Blitzbooks (https://blitzbooks.com), at MTNA Baltimore. We were fortunate that she flew all the way from Australia for a short session. Samantha is a virtuoso presenter. One thing you will never see is Sam up on her lecturn reading her speech while the audience nods off (yes, I attended several such lectures this year that will remain unmentioned.)
Her presentation, “The Seven Deadly Performance Sins” began with a hilarious mock performance of a student doing everything wrong. My friend Joachim and I even got in on the act, coughing heavily at a predetermined moment. The audience was in stitches.
From there were shown both the seven deadly sins and the seven virtal virtues (below).
The Seven Deadly Sins were:
Amongst Sam’s key points was that when students say, “I played in better at home” they really do. The problem is they play through the piece multiple times with mistakes and only once correctly.
Clinton Pratt gave a presentation on “Migraine-Free Management: Operating an Independent Studio with LESS STRESS!” Much needed for any studio owner. You can view his website here: http://www.pianosensei.com/workshops
For lunch I was a able to explore downtown Spokane a bit. I had a fabulous lunch at Madeleine’s and got to browse Auntie’s Bookshop and Uncle’s Gameshop across the street.
Monday Afternoon
The Convention Center was so sprawling, we joked that you could take an Uber from one end to the other, but I was fortunate to sneak in and out of two fabulous presentations Monday afternoon. The first was Jeremy Siskind’s, “Five Things Every Piano Teacher Needs to Know About Jazz (but probably doesn’t.)”
Jeremy (http://www.jeremysiskind.com)is a bit of a rock star at these conventions and he didn’t disappoint.
The things we needed to know (and I’ll admit I didn’t) were:
In the middle of the presentation I snuck over to catch Joao Paulo Casarotti play Brazilian music at, “Latin Fiesta!: The Pedagogical Piano Music of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.”
He played beautifully and I can’t wait to try some of this music with my students. Particularly, “The Cuckoo and the Donkey Concertino” by Ernst Mahle.
For a link to all the repertoire discussed go here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5cghe88wk622xr/LatinFiesta%20Handout-%20MTNA%202019.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2HFZmfhPhPieg9hBU8KkauKSXpINZujnxJUaEbS5NmkN4IQuKe3AFsZP0
The last presentation of the day for me Ivan Hurd’s “Bet You Can’t Play with One Hand.” He gave an excellent overview of literature for one hand alone. Essential for any student where a student breaks an arm or for pianists wishing to better develop their left hand.
The Historic Davenport
Monday night I was able to explore the Historic Davenport. Bulit in 1912 by Louis Davenport (for whom Crab Louis is named) this gem of a hotel was restored in 2002. It is like stepping into the old world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Davenport_Hotel_(Spokane,_Washington)
Day 4: Tuesday
Tuesday began with an Advanced Masterclass caught by esteemed pianist and Eastman Professor, Barry Snyder (https://www.barrysnyderpiano.com)
The local college students played well and were given expert coaching. One thing that I noticed, however, was how weak their tone was compared to Snyder’s.
Which brings me to one of my favorite presentations of the Convention: “Alexander Technique” with William Conable. Mr. Conable is a master Alexander practitioner who coined the term “body mapping.” His ability to get an entirely different and vastly richer sound out of the three volunteers simply by adjusting their bodies was remarkable. Key points:
Despite it being a busy day I had a little time to explore Spokane’s lovely Riverwalk. Although there was still snow on the ground it was a balmy 60 degrees. On the path I ran into Kevin Madison (https://www.kevinmadison.net) and his duo partner who had just won 2nd place in the Duo Piano Competiton that morning. Kevin has be studying contemporary classical music with my grad school professor Janice Weber and Stephen Drury in Boston. Congratulations Kevin!
Tuesday night featured a recital by renowned pianist Ingrid Fliter (http://www.ingridfliter.com) but I decided to skip it so I could get an early nights sleep. Wednesday was the big day: my presentation!
Day 5: Wednesday
The topic of my presentation, “Junior Virtuosos” is something at the heart of my teaching. Strategies and tools for teaching technique and movement to children. I focused on posture, seating, important concepts from neuroscience and biomechanics, sequencing of technical materials, and movement activities. Here is a preview I did with Jason Sifford interviewing me:
When arrived at the convention center at 7:30 it was a ghost town and I fully expected to have only a handful of members at my presentation. To my surprise I had a room full of people by the time 8 am rolled around. Even more exciting was how engaged and communicative the audience was, making my presentation feel more like a conversation than a lecture.
I managed to get through about 95 percent of what I wanted to talk about before running out of time. I had to rush out of the hall to allow the next presenter in the room but a small crowd of participants followed me outside and I ended up chatting with them for the next 45 minutes. I couldn’t have been more delighted with how it went.
It was a perfect sunny day and I ran into several friends at the Spokane airport. The first leg of my flight was to Seattle and the views from the air of Mount Rainer and the Okanoga-Wenatchee National Forest were breathtaking.
There is one thing I haven’t mentioned and it is perhaps the best part of the convention. In past years it was likely you would only meet up with other teachers from your region or school at these events. But thanks to social media I’ve been fortunate to get to know fabulous teachers from all over the world. Spending time with them was a great pleasure. We had magical meals and thrilling conversations. I can’t wait to see them all again soon!
“You must compose for children the same way you write for adults, only better.” – Kabalevsky after Maxim Gorky Since 2015 I’ve hosted a series for piano teachers called, “Exploring the Repertoire” at The Art of Piano Pedagogy on Facebook. 3-4 times a year we …
The piano offers a richer and more varied repertoire than any other solo instrument. We can play as many notes as our ten fingers allow, which gives us an enormous range of sounds and colors. Unfortunately not every pianist’s hand is large enough to physically …
Playing the piano is fine motor skill requiring a complex set of coordinations between large and small muscle groups. For most students verbal descriptions and visual demonstration are not enough to convey the complexities of physical movement and a kinesthetic experience is necessary. This is particularly true of students who have ADHD or processing issues.
A change of alignment or physical gesture that could take hours to explain can be taught in seconds through touch. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a physical experience is worth a thousand pictures.
While the use of touch is a core teaching tool used by teachers from the “Russian School” (check out wonderful videos by Irina Mints and Irina Gorin for examples), it is less commonly used in the U.S. by non-Russian or European teachers. Understandably many teachers are cautious when using touch in the lesson and are not sure how best to go about it. Here are some tips for ways to introduce touch that respect the bodily autonomy of the student and helps them to develop a healthy technique.
Before introducing touch it is important to set some ground rules for the protection of the student and teacher.
Bringing the hand to the keyboard presents more challenges than one might think. Often students will lead with the fingers or wrist or initiate the movement from the upper arm or shoulder creating unnecessary effort.
By holding the student’s hand and forearm, and bringing it to and away from the keyboard, you can get students used to moving the finger, hand, and forearm as a unit. I will ask the student to give me the full weight of the forearm to avoiding any holding up in the upper arm.
Often students hold excessive tension in their joints without being aware of it. Lightly jiggling an area that you suspect might be holding tension can help build awareness in the student. I will also ask students to do the same with my hand or arms to better understand how they should ideally function. These movements should be small and gentle.
This is particularly true of the thumb which will often hold out and pull away from the hand.
The elbow which will pull away from the body (chicken arms) or squeeze at the sides.
And the non-playing fingers which will curl, straighten, or pull away from the hand.
Pat-a-cake songs can be wonderful for helping young students to develop a sense of rhythmic pulse, develop confidence crossing the midline, and improve coordination.
The use of a “high-five” motion is beneficial to students of all ages as it encourages the pianist to activate the palm and initiate movement from the forearm rather than the fingers. For more information on using “high-five” movements to drop into the key please see my blog post on this topic.
Students often need more than a verbal description to know where on the finger they should be playing. Gently touching the tip or pad of the finger or the side tip of the thumb can offer tactile information that might otherwise elude them.
“Open but unstretched” is a term coined by Dr. Teresa Dybvig.
When the hand opens itself, it activates intrinsic muscles of the hand causing unnecessary tension.
The use of an outside agency like the friction of the key or the movement of the forearm can be used to open the hand without strain.
I find it useful to gently open the student’s hand for them to experience how the hand can open and close without unnecessary effort.
Forearm rotation can be confusing for students as often the direction of the rotation is counterintuitive. This is particularly true of preparatory motions, which like the foot kicking a ball, move in the opposite direction of the note being played. To help students with rotation:
a. I would have the student touch my forearm to feel the direction and size of the turn.
b: Turn their forearm while they play to help them feel the direction of the turn.
c. Create a “hand sandwich” (thanks for the image Robert Dvorkin!) so that the student feels the hand and forearm turn as a unit rather than the arm turning and the hand staying behind.
I find having the students touch my forearm is particularly helpful for helping students to understand the elliptical motions of over-shapes (“rainbows”) and under-shapes (“smiles”) that are often called “wrist circles.”
Gently touching the back of the forearm can help the student to feel that the arm is responsible for moving the wrist rather than the wrist taking on the movement itself which causes large and awkward movements.
Wrists tend to droop causing the weight of the forearm to drop into the heel of the hand. Holding a finger under the palm can remind the student to not to droop. Fun games can be played with young children involving hungry sharks who like to nibble on drooping wrists.
On the flip side, students will sometimes jump out of the pan and into the fire by locking the wrist. Gently moving the hand and forearm up and down can remind the student to keep the wrist soft.
When moving In and Out of the black key area in relation to the fallboard students will often curl the fingers or angle at the wrist rather than allowing the forearm to take responsibility for the movement.
Touching the back of the forearm can help remind the students to move in one piece without changing the alignment of the hand.
Heaviness in main knuckles can be checked for by gently placing a finger underneath them to see if the knuckle is pushing down.
These are particularly sensitive areas so I recommend asking for additional permission from adults and having a parent make adjustments when working with minors.
The strongest muscles of the body attach to the pelvis and are often referred to as the body’s “Power Center.” It is by tilting the pelvis at the hip joints forward, backward, and side to side, that we are able to negotiate the extreme registers of the keyboard.
When the hands are in front of the body, the pelvis will tilt back to allow the arms to pass in front of the torso.
When the hands are at the side of the body, the pelvis is tilted forward to balance the body into the keyboard. In my Feldenkrais sessions with Sharon Oliensis I am always shocked at how far forward she has me adjust my hips forward and how much additional flexibility this forward tilt gives me.
When both hands are at the extreme registers the pelvis will tilt even more forward.
When playing the extreme treble or bass registers the torso will rotate and the hips tilt to the left or right.
Most students will try to move from the waist rather than the hip joints which, like the mythical unicorn, does not exist other than for dressmakers. Helping a student to feel movement at the hip joints by tilting their pelvis can be a revelation.
II. Shoulders
The shoulder blades should feel rested down. Students will often initiate movement with the upper arm causing the shoulder to lift. Gently touching to top of the shoulder can remind students to keep the shoulders rested (watch for students going too far with this movement and pulling the shoulder blade down).
When the torso rotates to the right in order to play the treble end of the piano the right shoulder will slide towards the spine and the left fan out. The opposite movement is made when playing in the bass register. Cupping the shoulder blade with one hand and holding the top of the shoulder with the other can help students to feel this movement (due to limitations these two touches are shown separately).
III. Breathing:
Unless they have also studied singing most students are not familiar with how to breathe. Often students will take upper chest breaths which do not take in enough oxygen and causes the shoulders to raise. When using diaphragmetic breathing, the stomach area will expand forward during the in breath and the sides will move laterally. Exhaling on a “shh” will ensure that the student breaths out as well as in. The rib cage should remain expanded.
Placing one hand under the rib cage and another on the shoulder or sternum can help students to better feel their breath.
I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to introduce touch into a lesson. I know from my own lessons with master piano teachers and body workers that I have only brushed the surface with regards to the amazing power of touch and would love to receive tips from other teachers on how you use touch in the lesson.
For additional resources I recommend:
Videos posted by The Golandsky Institute
Sheila Page’s Keyboard Wellness Seminar
Information from somatic education methods like Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and Iyengar Yoga.
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