We are in the final month of preparation for Fall Festival now. I enjoy doing this festival each year because it gets all of my students off to a great start in the fall. Whenever there is a recital or an event that they are working toward, they work harder and concentrate more. At the September class lesson, they shared their music with each other (memory wasn’t required). At the upcoming October class lesson, they will share the same pieces, memorized this time, and much more refined, ready for festival and recital.

The focus of Fall Festival is to introduce students to contemporary sounds. I will review of few in this blog post and provide links for some examples. Maybe you can look and see which categories are present in your music. Often contemporary composers will use more than one of these categories in their compositions. These characteristics are very distinct from other eras of composition.

Melody

Melodies are fragmented, irregular, or disjunctive.
Significant parts of the piece, or even the whole piece, lack melody.
The melody is constructed by chance or serial technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bkQa2Rowvw
The melody is built from non-traditional scales such as modes, a scale with “blue” notes, etc. Some examples of Taylor Swift music with different modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixUpXB2zJ8M
Harmony
1. Chords are unrelated to a major-minor system—clusters, altered chords, quartal or quintal harmony. Here’s an example of quartal harmony (uses 4th’s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2loKj2-SU4
2. The composer makes simultaneous use of two chords or keys (bitonality).
3. The piece is not in any definable key (atonality).
4. Unresolved dissonance is common. (Henry, Bradley, Katie, Ellie, Qing Shuang, Jack, Myla)
Rhythm
1. The piece or large parts of it contain no bar lines.
2. The meter is irregular, such as 5/4. (Sloane) Here’s an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPRtRoH4zcA. See if you can count along (9/8: count 2,3,2,2)
3. There are frequent meter or tempo changes. (Sam, Zaria)
4. Cross rhythms (polyrhythms)—5 against 4, 7 against 8, etc.—are prominent.
5. Jazz rhythms prevail. (Walker, Adam, Peter, Quinn)
Other considerations
1. Non-traditional notation.
2. Knocking, tapping or plucking some part of the instrument not traditionally used in this way. (Lawrence)
3. Use of prepared piano. Only do this with permission from the owner of the piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgph8aPmRJs
4. Use of extreme range on the instrument.

During a recent class lesson, my students had a lively discussion about what was most effective in making progress at the piano. This discussion was based on a study by Noa Kageyama (source below).

I gave them five cards with one idea on each one. They had to decide which two would make the biggest difference in their becoming a great piano player?

Practicing longer
More repetitions
Increasing the number of times played correctly
% of times part is played correctly
How many times a part is played incorrectly

According to the study, practicing longer didn’t lead to higher rankings. The students caught on pretty quickly that one could be efficient and accomplish the same amount in less time if they were smart about their practice.

Getting more repetitions had no impact on a pianist’s ranking either. We decided that just doing it over and over could become mindless if you don’t have a specific goal in place. Plus, if you’re not concentrating, you might just be repeating mistakes, which leads to the next point:

The more times a part was played incorrectly, the worse their ranking tended to be. Clearly, repeating mistakes is a big mistake!

Interestingly, the number of times they played a part correctly in practice also had no bearing on their ranking. We decided that if they play a part correctly 100 times, they aren’t in a position of improving themselves. One has to work on the hard and tricky parts and master those parts to get better. (Playing your recital pieces over and over for the entire practice time isn’t effective practicing).

The percentage of correct practice trials did seem to matter. The greater the proportion of correct trials in their practice session, the higher their ranking tended to be. So, if you play a tricky part 5 times, but only 1 times correctly, you are still making a lot of mistakes. But, as you improve from day to day, maybe you play the section 5 times and you get 4 our of 5 correct. Then the next day, it is stable at 5 out of 5 for a 100% mastery of the section.

Noa Kageyama’s study noted 8 practicing tips that the top performers ALL did. I will list them and encourage you to incorporate these in your practicing:

Play with hands together early in practice
Add dynamics and phrasing early on
Have thoughtful practice. You can be silent while you study the music.
Don’t play errors. Stop prior to making and error and study the spot
Address errors immediately.
Identify the precise location and source of the error. Rehearse it and correct it.
(If you study your lesson assignment page, I usually write down specific spots to master during the week!)
Vary the tempo. Practice slowly, medium, and at performance tempo when you are able. When you come to tricky sections, methodically work slowly until you have learned it and then bring it up to tempo.
Target passages (not the entire piece) were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.
The students also shared some great ideas with each other from their own practicing habits.
One student wrote goals for the practice session on a yellow sticky note.
Another student put check marks on the lesson assignment book to show that he had practiced a certain assignment.
Some students talked about prioritizing what was the most important thing to accomplish. For example, if a memory deadline date is approaching, that is an assignment that has to be completed on time.
The older class talked about how it was nice to have something to look forward to after a practice session such as being able to play basketball outside or to have a treat.
Others mentioned that taking a little break in the middle of the practice session helped them to stay alert and accomplish more.

Finally, we drew cards from a bowl that had various practicing ideas for trouble spots and discussed or demonstrated them. We will continue doing this at lessons.

Sources:

Practicing the Piano by Nancy O’Neill Breth
(https://bulletproofmusician.com/8-things-top-practicers-do-differently/).
Students in my piano studio

Fall Festival--Celebrating Contemporary Music

Practicing!