March 2013 Teachers' Guide

 

March Student Page
Past Issues
Past Teacher's Guides

Using Technology in Practice

Music History Websites
http://library.thinkquest.org/15413/history/music-history.htm
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnersguide/a/intro.htm
http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/
http://www.naxos.com/education/brief_history.asp
http://library.thinkquest.org/22673/

Exercises and worksheets
http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/printit_notename.htm
http://www.musicfun.com.au/downloads.htm
http://www.musicfun.com.au/pdf_files/treble_nn.pdf

Legendary Teachers
Czerny left behind hundreds of compositions designed for piano students. Here are the most commonly used volumes:
Op. 599 - "Practical Method for Beginners on the Pianoforte" - A progression from simple to more complex studies that includes exercises for note learning, 5-finger exercises, etudes with a range of an octave, exercises for specific rhythmic challenges, chromatic exercise, double notes, chords.
Op. 823 - The Young Pianists. Book 1 starts out by introducing basics of music notation and proceeds to more difficult exercises with scales, arpeggios, various articulations and tricky rhythms. Book 2 offers exercises in specific keys.
Op. 139 - 100 Progressive Studies Without Octaves - short, easy to moderately difficult studies for late beginners.
Op. 261 - Exercises in Passage Playing - for intermediate students. Studies designed to improve technical aspects from scales and arpeggios to chords, double notes, various articulations.
Op. 299 - The School of Velocity- for intermediate to advanced students. Contains many etudes with running scale passages, arpeggios, octaves, trills, patterns.

Leschetizky
Although he maintained he didn't really have a method, his technique and teaching methods have been subject to many explorations and books. He produced an amazing number of famous students and it would be difficult not to wonder what his pedagogy was centered on. Malwine Bree wrote The Leschetizky Method: A Guide to Fine and Correct Piano Playing, and Marie Prentner authored Leschetizky's Fundamental Principles of Piano Technique. There is also a book by A. Potocka, Leschetizky, an Intimate Study of the Man and the Musician.

Repertoire list
For students who have never kept a list of pieces they studied but are serious about playing and might one day consider auditioning for colleges, here is an example of what a repertoire list may look like. Pieces can be listed alphabetically, chronologically, according to composition type, or in order in which they were studied.

2010-2011
Scales: all major scales and arpeggios 2 octaves slowly (1 scale per month)
Bach - Minuet in G minor
Ch. Petzold – Minuet in G major
Mozart - Minuet K.2
Czerny – Etude Op. 599, No. 19
Diabelli – Bagatelle in G major
Beethoven- Sonatina in G major
Kabalevsky – Scherzo
Bartok – Children's Game

2011-2012
Scales: review all major scales, learn relative minor harmonic scales and arpeggios, 2 octaves, slowly (one pair of major-minor relative scales per month)
Bach – Little Prelude in C major
Bach – Musette in D major
Clementi – Sonatina in C major, Op. 36, No. 1 (all three movements)
Gurlitt – Pleasant Morning
Duvernoy – Etude Op. 24 No.
Beethoven – Ecossaise
Schumann – The Happy Farmer
Kabalevsky – Little Song
Kabalevsky – Clown

2012-2013
Scales: all sharp keys, 4 octaves at MM=60, in eighth notes and eventually in 16th notes.
Bach – Little Prelude in F major
Bach Invention in C major
Kuhlau – Sonatina in C major, Op. 55, No. 1 (two movements)
Benda – Sonatina in A minor
Streabogg – By the Seaside
Tchaikovsky – Mazurka in A minor
Burgmuller - Arabesque
Kabalevsky – Toccatina
Prolofiev – March in C major

Answers to March Puzzles
Puzzle (page 13) opera, ritard, Grieg, allegro, natural - answer organ

Word Search (page 13)

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