Saturday, October 26, 2024 by Mary O'Connor | parents

We have established that regular practice routines will not happen without proactive piano parents. So, how can parents be proactive practice assistants even if they have never touched a piano?

Day 8. The Timekeeper: Some of the O'Connor Music Studio students are using Andrea And Trevor Dow’s Timed Note Reading Tests For Piano, so their parents can be the timekeeper when it is time for their daily note reading practice.

Andrea And Trevor Dow's Timed Note Reading Tests For Piano, Book 1: 90 Days Of Exercises In Middle C Position And C Position

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Andrea And Trevor Dow's Timed Note Reading Tests For Piano, Book 2: 95 Days Of Exercises In Treble C Position And G Position

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Saturday, October 19, 2024 by Mary O'Connor | parents

We have established that regular practice routines will not happen without proactive piano parents. So, how can parents be proactive practice assistants even if they have never touched a piano?

Day 7. The Concert Promoter: As a parent myself, I know that showing off our kids comes naturally. For this reason, proactive parents can take on the role of home practice concert promoter. This job involves getting their children to perform when friends, grandparents, and aunts and uncles come over for a visit, or sending videos and initiating FaceTime performances.

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Wednesday, October 16, 2024 by Mary O'Connor | OCMS

I have purchased a set of Shades of Sound Listening & Coloring Book: Halloween for the studio.

Each week, I will print out some of the pages for your student and put them in his/her notebook.  After listening to the music on YouTube, the student may color the pages.

After they are colored, please return them to the notebook so that there will be a complete book when finished.

If you are an adult and want to listen and color, too, just let me know and I'll print you a set.

From the website:

The Shades of Sound Listening and Coloring Books are a great way to encourage students to listen to great piano and orchestral repertoire. Students of all ages will love coloring the fun pictures while listening to and learning from the music of the great composers.

This Shades of Sound Halloween edition includes 13 spooky pieces of piano and orchestral literature, ranging from the Baroque to the Modern period. By spending just 5-10 minutes per day listening for just a few days per week, students can listen to and complete the whole book in a few weeks.

Aspiring pianists need to know the literature, hear the greats perform, and be inspired and excited by the great music that is available! Just as writers need to read, read, read, pianists need to listen! Through this fun curriculum, students will learn about the musical periods and the great composers and their works. Listening repertoire selected includes selections from the standard solo piano literature, as well as solo piano and orchestra literature and orchestral works.

My hope is that students can add just 5-10 minutes of listening per day to their normal practicing. Listening to great music will change their understanding of music and will vastly increase their music history knowledge. It will excite and inspire them, encourage further study and listening, give them new pieces to add to their own repertoire wish list, infuse more great music into their lives, homes and families, and will boost their musicianship and expression to the next level.

The Halloween Shades of Sound book includes 13 different pieces, including:

• Totentanz by Liszt
• Le Cimetiere, from Clairs de Lune by Abel Decaux
• Graceful Ghost Rag by William Bolcom
• Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov
• Tarantelle, from Music for Children Op. 65 No. 4 by Prokofiev
• Tarantella by Albert Pieczonka
• In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg
• Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by Bach
• Funeral March, from Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor by Chopin
• Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens
• The Banshee by Henry Cowell
• Scarbo, from Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas

Students may use The Playful Piano – Halloween Listening YouTube playlistto listen along with their book using quality recordings. The playlist is ordered to go right along with the book, and also includes 5 extra pieces (some pages include optional “Further Listening” examples students may listen to).

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