Summer Camp Opportunity

 

 

Prepare to embark on an adventure like no other, scouring the mysterious fathoms of the deep sea. Thrilling discoveries await just beyond the portholes of your submarine. Things look very different once you get below the surface – and that’s true for life above the surface, too.

As kids submerge themselves in God’s Word, they will discover that Jesus saw people differently. He didn’t just see what’s on the outside; He saw who people were down deep.

As kids learn to see themselves and others as Jesus sees them, they can realize that everyone needs a Savior – even those who look like they have it all together. A relationship with Jesus Christ changes everything! All you have to do is dive in!

Kids will rotate through music, recreation, snack, crafts and storytelling!

  • Registration is open online now! 
  • Please fill out a separate form for each child.
  • There is a total limit of 250 children.
  • The charge will be $30 per child and $60 max per family.
    NOTE:  Be sure to check the box that asks if you are registering 3 or more siblings to get a refund (Are you registering 3 or more siblings (brothers or sisters)?)

 

Basics:

  • July 11-15, 9:00 to 12:00 each day at Pender UMC, 12401 Alder Woods Drive, Fairfax, VA 22033
  • Music Camp will be from 12:30-3:30 the same dates.  Registration information coming soon.
  • Kids age 3 through 6th grade are welcome – note all children must be potty trained, teachers will NOT change diapers

.Please contact Jami Flemmons or Ann Hines if you have questions or want to volunteer.

Register at http://www.penderumc.org/vbs

Backwards Practice?

Found on Pinterest

Found on Pinterest

So often transfer students will come to me and play a piece they’ve been working on.  When they make a mistake, they’ll stop and start the piece all over again instead of correcting the mistake on the spot and moving on.

If they do this at home in practice, they’ll have played the beginning part many times more than the ending – or they may have never gotten to the ending at all!

The infographic above shows a way to get around this problem.  It’s also great for memorizing pieces during recital preparation.

Similar to this are some pieces in the early pages of beginning method books.  Lines 1, 2 and 4 will be identical with only line 3 being changed.

If a student plays this over and over all the way through, he’s learned line 1 three times better than line 3.  I always suggest practicing line 3 by itself several times to help counter this problem.

Ornaments Aren’t Just for the Holidays

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

WRONG – this post, and others in this category, isn’t about ornaments at Christmas but about those funny looking marks over your music and how to play them.

The trill (or shake, as it was known from the 16th until the 19th century) is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill.

A trill provides rhythmic interest, melodic interest, and harmonic interest. Sometimes it is expected that the trill will end with a turn or some other variation. Such variations are often marked in the music.

A trill in your music can look like thistrill

Or like this tr~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trills can be played differently, depending on the period in which the composer was living so it is important to know the time period of your piece.

Baroque trills (aka shakes in this time period) have several ways to be played as shown in this chart:

A table depicting how to perform different types of trills when playing music from the Baroque period (1600-1750).[4] Note the similarity between the symbol for trill and that of the mordent.

A table depicting how to perform different types of trills (or shakes) when playing music from the Baroque period (1600-1750).

The Baroque trill continuing through Mozart’s time usually begins on the note above the main note.

In music after the time of Mozart, the trill usually begins on the principal note.

Often, your music will have suggestions about how they should be played written above the music.  If not, ASK!

A really good book which explains about the trill and other ornaments is this one, available as a reference book in the O’Connor Music Studio:

ornamentation

Some trill exercises:

Questions?  Write them down and don’t forget to ask at your next lesson!

A New Way to Learn: Piano Gloves!

JoyTunes Piano Gloves

JoyTunes Piano Gloves

I thought this would surely interest all piano teachers and lovers out there – JoyTunes’ just came out with new piano teaching GLOVES!

Take a look in the clip and share it to all piano lovers everywhere.

The JoyTunes gloves, still in beta version, will turn you into Mozart in the blink of an eye! Don’t know how to play piano? These gloves will take you from 1 note to Beethoven in a flash. Our gloves allow your hands to auto magically bend and move to play any song your heart desires! Check out the video for more info.

Want to get your own pair of gloves? Purchase them here: http://www.joytunes.com/gloves

From TED-Ed: How Playing An Instrument Benefits Your Brain

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout.

What’s going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians’ brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

via How playing an instrument benefits your brain – Anita Collins | TED-Ed.

Bi-weekly Lessons – Why they won’t work – The Piano Studio

7 reasons why bi-weekly lessons do not work…

 

Now and then, our studio gets asked if we offer bi-weekly lessons. I mean, doesn’t it make sense that if you take lessons every other week, you have half the number of trips into the studio, you have double the amount of time to practice, and you can save some money, right?

WRONG.

Aside from the fact that it is a scheduling nightmare for the teacher and studio, I want to outline a few reasons why (in most cases) bi-weekly lessons do not work.

Source: Bi-weekly Lessons – Why they won’t work – The Piano Studio

March 4 in Music History

march4

More about National Grammar Day.

. 1678 ~ Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Italian baroque composer. The creator of hundreds of spirited, extroverted instrumental works, Vivaldi is widely recognized as the master of the Baroque instrumental concerto, which he perfected and popularized perhaps more than any of his contemporaries. A group of four violin concerti from Vivaldi’s Op. 8, better known as “The Four Seasons”, may well be the most universally recognizable musical work from the Baroque period. Perhaps the most prolific of all the great European composers, he once boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a copyist could ready the individual parts for the players in the orchestra.
More information about Vivaldi

(MaryO’Note:  Spring from The Four Seasons is available in the Piano Maestro App for piano students)

. 1801 ~ The U.S. Marine Band performed for the first time at a presidential nomination. That president was Thomas Jefferson.

. 1875 ~ Bizet’s Carmen premier, Paris

. 1877 ~ The ballet of Swan Lake, composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was performed for the first time in the famous Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia

and

. 1915 ~ Carlos Surinac, Catalan Spanish-born composer and conductor

. 1918 ~ Frank Wigglesworth, American composer

. 1925 ~ Enzo Stuarti, Opera singer

. 1928 ~ Samuel Adler, German-born American composer

. 1929 ~ Bernard Haitink, Dutch conductor

. 1932 ~ Miriam (Zensile) Makeba, South African born singer who was the first black South African to attain international stardom.

. 1934 ~ Barbara McNair, Singer, TV hostess of The Barbara McNair Show, actress

. 1942 ~ Dick Jurgen’s orchestra recorded One Dozen Roses on Okeh Records in Chicago.

. 1942 ~ The Stage Door Canteen opened on West 44th Street in New York City. The canteen became widely known as a service club for men in the armed forces and a much welcomed place to spend what would otherwise have been lonely hours. The USO, the United Service Organization, grew out of the ‘canteen’ operation, to provide entertainment for American troops around the world.

. 1943 ~ Irving Berlin picked up the Best Song Oscar for a little ditty he had written for the film, Holiday Inn: White Christmas at the 15th Academy Awards.

. 1944 ~ Bobby Womack, Songwriter, singer

. 1948 ~ Chris Squire, Bass with Yes

. 1948 ~ Shakin’ Stevens (Michael Barratt), Singer, actor

. 1951 ~ Chris Rea, Guitarist with these groups Chris Rea Band and Ambrosia; singer, songwriter

. 1969 ~ Chastity Bono, Singer, daughter of Sonny & Cher

. 1978 ~ Andy Gibb reached the top of the music charts as (Love is) Thicker ThanWater reached #1 for a two-week stay. The Bee Gees also set a record on this day as their single, How Deep Is Your Love, from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack stayed in the top 10 for an unprecedented 17 weeks.

. 1981 ~ Lyricist E.Y. ‘Yip’ Harburg died in an auto accident in Hollywood, CA at the age of 82. Two of his most successful hits were Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz and It’s Only a Paper Moon, popularized by Nat King Cole and many others.

. 2001 ~ Glenn Hughes, a singer who performed as the mustachioed, leather-clad biker in the disco band the Village People, died at the age of 50. The group, which was the brainchild of producer Jacques Morali, featured men dressed as an Indian, a soldier, a construction worker, a police officer, a cowboy and Hughes’ character, a biker. The band released its first single, San Francisco (You’ve Got Me), in 1977. It followed the next year with its first hit, Macho Man. The band then produced a string of hits, including Y.M.C.A., In the Navy and Go West. Collectively the Village People sold 65 million albums and singles. Although disco fell out of fashion in the 1980s, Hughes stayed with the band until 1996, when he left to sing in Manhattan cabarets.

. 2003 ~ Fedora Barbieri, a mezzo-soprano whose passionate singing sometimes stole the scene from opera diva Maria Callas, died. She was 82. Born in Trieste in 1920, Barbieri performed on stages ranging from Milan’s La Scala to New York’s Metropolitan Opera House to London’s Covent Garden. Barbieri’s career started in 1940 and for her 80th birthday, she sang the role of Mamma Lucia in Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” in Florence. Her repertoire included roles in operas by Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. Barbieri died in Florence, which she had adopted as her home and where she gave many performances.

. 2003 ~ Emilio Estefan Sr., father of the Latin music mogul, died at the age of 83. Estefan Sr. played the plump and comical ambassador in a music video for the Miami Sound Machine’s hit song Conga, which featured singer Gloria Estefan, wife of Estefan Jr. The Miami Sound Machine’s office was once located in Estefan Sr.’s garage. His son later built a home for his parents on his Star Island compound. Estefan Sr. was born in Santiago de Cuba and moved to Spain with Estefan Jr. in 1966. His wife and another son stayed in Cuba because the boy was of military draft age and couldn’t leave until 1980. Estefan Sr. came to Miami in 1968, a year after Estefan Jr., and opened a clothing business in Hialeah.