Teaching Inspiration: Marvin Blickenstaff

Two years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Marvin Blickenstaff at the New School for Music Study in Kingston, NJ.  I was in the second year of my masters at Eastman and was researching piano pedagogue and innovator, Frances Clark (Co-Founder of the New School) for a final project.  As part of my research, I visited the New School for several days, met with the faculty, observed lessons and classes, and experienced truly excellent teaching.  At the end of my first day, after observing a lesson with Marvin, I wrote this reflection:

Marvin Blickenstaff, and high school PEPS [Program for Excellence in Piano Study] student, Grace, were already in the midst of Chopin’s Etude in C Minor when I snuck in to observe.  Together, they identified the salient motives, determined the differences between the lines of each hand, rehearsed the rhythmic structure, and discussed Chopin’s individualistic thoughts on trills.  Similar to the other faculty members, Marvin sought answers from Grace by asking questions and engaging her in conversation about the music.  Comments such as, “Talk to me about the fingering in this scale” when working on the first page of the Pathetique Sonata and, “What are four ways you are going to practice this?” assessed Grace’s understanding and encouraged dialogue.

At the end of the second day, I observed one of PEPS group class with Marvin:

PEPS students meet in small rotation groups every few weeks and in a larger group class of eight students once per month, each an hour in length.  Currently, there are 24 students in the program.  Marvin began each class with scales, often asking two students to play in ensemble: one ascending and the other descending.  The students had end-of-the-year fluency goals posted in the room: 100-160, depending on age and ability.  Repertoire included Debussy, Clementi, a Mozart minuet (where Marvin led the students in an impromptu minuet around the room while singing words that fit the melody), a Bach invention, a concerto by Vandall, and lastly, Sibelius’ Romance, to which Marvin stated, “Begin warm, soft, calm, and with a feeling of moonlight. . . Music that is calm is even.”  Musical discussions included historical influences, theoretical considerations such as the importance of the cadential 6/4 progression, and phrasing decisions supported by careful pedaling.  Students were challenged in thought, touch, and sound.

These few days had a profound impact on my teaching.  I love reliving the experience through my notes and recollections of those lessons and classes.  I was thrilled to discover www.pianopedagogy.org last week – the NSMS’s newest venture!  Complete with teaching videos, tutorials, and a blog written by New School faculty, this website is a great source of knowledge and teaching inspiration.  Enjoy this glimpse of a lesson with Marvin as he coaches an early advanced student on Edvard Grieg’s “Notturno” at the New School:

Previously: Notes from the New School – Day 1 Notes from the New School – Day 2 Notes from the New School – Day 3

Making Concerts Happen

We had a great experience with our webinar, “Presenting Concerts in Your Local Community: Creative Ideas for Making Concerts Happen Anywhere” on Monday night!  Hosted by Polyphonic On-Campus, Steve and I used the WCMW as a case study to explore strategies and ideas for creating community-centered events.  We shared our personal insight in getting to know your community, evaluating your assets, getting funded, and creating opportunities.  Ready to make concerts happen in your local community?  Get started by watching our webinar presentation!

Shooting Stars

Earlier this week, I had an eight-year-old student bring this into her lesson – her first composition.  At our last lesson, I asked her to try making up a few of her own songs that used some of the same musical elements she had recently learned (quarter notes, half notes, legato playing, and changing registers).

“Shooting Stars” is a piece for right and left hand in 5/4 time (how cool is that?!), spanning four octaves.  There are repeated rhythm patterns as well as tonal patterns and the ascending tetrachord in each pattern combined with the shifts in register really exemplifies the title.  Notice the “key” in the top left hand corner that indicates hand position (modeled from our lesson book, The Music Tree).  Up to this point, the songs in the book have only included black keys; I love the initiative it took to create a new piece on the white keys!

I’m so proud!

This Week

This week:

• We enjoyed several sunny, warm days and afternoons with the windows open.

• I made banana pudding for the first time.

• We got a little carried away and tried to grill out one night. (We gave up and cooked inside once it got cold enough to see our breath.)

• I attended an awesome branding webinar that got me all kinds of fired up for the months to come.

• We gave an informal lecture recital to an audience of almost thirty enthusiastic listeners (recap coming soon!).

• I encountered a few instances of plagiarism in my students’ papers.  Though struggling with how to deal with it, I am determined to turn this into a teaching opportunity.

• We finished our federal tax return.

• I introduced SD to the (southern?) expression, “Land sakes alive.”

• We haven’t driven the car since Saturday!  It is so nice to work from home.

• I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with my children’s choir by teaching them Irish hymns and two Irish group dances!

• I got the latest Elle Decor in the mail and I plan on carving out some time this weekend to skim through it.

• We had some awesome teaching moments.

• We spent some time preparing for our WCMW webinar next Monday, March 19!  Sign up here – it’s free!

Happy weekend, friends!

Dinner Conversations

I love dinner conversations with SD. 

Though our meals might range from gourmet (think étoufée-style shrimp and grits) to KFC (think fried chicken and macaroni and cheese) and more often than not, we eat at the breakfast nook rather than at the dining room table, I love this time of the day we get to share together. 

Sometimes, we talk about the things that happened during the day; other times, we listen to our favorite radio show online (since it’s not syndicated on our NPR station) and play the “name that tune/composer/style period/nationality” game. 

And some nights we get caught up in nerdy intellectual conversations about music teaching and learning.

And I love every minute of it.

Tonight, over plates of apple pancakes, raisin bread toast, and cheese grits, we started talking about our students and the progress they made in their lessons this afternoon. 

“My student is solid.  She can play in E Major now – four sharps!” Steve said. 

“My student said tonight that she sometimes finds it easier to sight-sing her music before sight-playing it – yes!” I said, excitedly. 

We talked about our own experiences with learning to sightread and the effects of singing on the audiation skills (the ability to hear and comprehend music silently) and musical development of instrumentalists.

Our conversation lasted through dinner and our dish-washing/drying time. 

It’s just so interesting to me to reflect on our musical pasts: comparing the ways we were taught, sharing experiences we’ve had, and exploring the ways we’ve developed into the musicians we are today.  It’s amazing to watch part of this process unfold with the students I see each week – to watch them make connections, to let them figure out a new rhythm pattern on their own, to see them light up when they realize the freedom they have in learning to transpose.

This is my everyday. 

Every class, every lesson, every rehearsal is an opportunity for me to be a better teacher and present new information in the clearest way I can. 

I want to inspire, encourage, and challenge my students to work hard, practice hard, set goals for themselves, be curious, try new things, and never stop learning.

Image Credit: Last year’s WCMW.  Find out all that’s in store for this year right here.

The Art of the Spiritual

Some of you may remember my posts on our lecture recital last spring: The Art of Song.

Steve and I were asked to put together a program for the Women’s Fellowship at church last April so we chose three art songs from three different periods, talked about the genre (music for voice and piano), the composers who wrote this kind of music, the texts they chose to set, and our process of preparing this music for performance on the saxophone and piano.  We had a wonderful audience!

In just a few (short!) weeks, we’ll be giving another lecture recital of sorts, this time on the history of the spiritual.  We thought it might be fun to choose a few of our favorite Gospel tunes and explore a little bit of the history behind this well-loved genre.  With musical classics such as “Wade in the Water” and “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” if you’re in the area, we’d love to have you join us for a fun, engaging program of performance and conversation!  The event, free and open to the public will be held on Monday, March 12, 2012 at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Westminster.

Hope to see you there!

The Children's Concert - Recap

Last week, I wrote this post about a children’s concert Steve and I were presenting for a group of preschoolers.

Originally, we were told to expect 8-10 children and a few adults.  With one week still to go, 35 children were registered (i.e. they called to say they were coming.  The concert was free.) including two preschools!  We were very excited at the prospect of having such a big crowd and knew we wanted them to have some space to get up and move around a little bit.  We decided to rearrange the front of the Sanctuary to give us as much floor space as possible.  And it’s a good thing we did.  Imagine our surprise when 56 children (ages 2-5) and their grown-ups (including three preschools!) crowded into the church at 10 a.m. Thursday morning.  We were overwhelmed but of course, thrilled!

We sang.  We danced.  We moved. We learned about the saxophone. We made funny sounds and learned the difference between high and low. We listened to several short pieces, waved our arms, and patted our legs.

It was a great musical experience!

The Children's Concert

I love working with young children, particularly when we have the opportunity to sing!  In my experience, most 4-year-olds are confident, adventurous, effervescent music-makers and they learn new things so quickly!  When the opportunity arose to share a free program of music with a group of children from the community (ages 3-5), I was eager to take part.  Together, Steve (known today as “Saxophone Steve”) and I planned a dynamic and interactive program featuring a series of familiar songs as well as a few new things.

1. Hello there.  We’ll begin with a simple call and response song to get everyone singing and moving.

2. Instrument Demo.  With a surprise entrance, we’ll segue smoothly into a demonstration of the saxophone.  Steve will talk about the high and low sounds a saxophone can make and ask the children to echo him.  We’ll talk about funny sounds and pretty sounds and use a few short, prepared pieces to demonstrate a variety of musical styles.  We’ll have the children participate by moving while we play.  When we talk about animal sounds, we’ll lead right into a crowd favorite, “Old McDonald.”

3. Sing-a-long.  We’ll lead a brief sing-a-long of songs we think they might know: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star;” “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider;” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”  We’ll talk about our different voices (whisper voice, speaking voice, and singing voice) and move along with the music as we sing.  Simple visuals will help us explore form and repeated material.  Sandwiched in between the songs they know, we’ll incorporate a song I think will be less familiar: “Oats, Peas, Beans” (with a simple movement activity).

4. Short Performance.  To conclude the program, we’ll end with a short, prepared piece in ABA form (“Old Joe Clark”) and ask our little listeners to listen for the change in sections and respond with a given motion.  Hopefully, this will keep them engaged in their listening.

Think of us at 10 a.m. as we gather in a room with 35+ preschoolers and their grown-ups for a time of music-making, teaching, and learning!

Image Credit: Nicholas Garofalo

Ready or Not

Today is my first day back to school. It’s been a mad dash to the finish line but lesson plans in hand, I’m as ready as I think I could ever be.

As most of you know by now, I’m teaching a new class this semester.

It’s exhilarating and completely intimidating all at the same time. The thought of walking into a room with 34 pairs of eyes on me is enough to send me running in the other direction. But, I spent the last three weeks practicing excellence and preparing to teach, to demonstrate, to guide, to share what I know and what I’ve learned.

Yes, I wrote this entire course in three weeks.

Some may have sketched out the first few class periods and left the rest to office hours and Friday afternoons. I wanted to see the whole semester. And by “whole semester,” I mean:

• 4 textbooks spanning almost 500 years

• 78 pages of notes

• a 4-page outline for the first class

• 52 pieces of media (30 recordings, 22 YouTube videos)

• 77 slides of images

• 2 paper assignments

• a 5-page syllabus

• 7 group project assignments

• 10 essay topics

• 14 research paper topics

• 15 quizzes

I wanted to walk in on the first day with the big picture in mind. I want to teach every day with a goal, a purpose, an objective. This is where we’re going to start and this is where we’re going.

Ready or not, let’s do this.

Go for it

Here I sit, surrounded by textbooks, paper rubrics, reading lists, and a 52-page teaching guide that I’ve compiled over the past several weeks. Can you tell I’m in the final week of writing a new course to teach this semester? It’s been a bit overwhelming at times. But, last week was very productive and I feel good about that. My class was assigned to a classroom in another building on campus – across the quad from the Fine Arts Building where I have been teaching (and will still be teaching this semester) and where my office is located. I’ve let myself get bogged down with worry: How do I get there? What does the classroom look like? What kind of technology will I be able to access? Will I be able to get in there with enough time to get everything set up before class? In addition, I’d love to have a piano in the classroom to use as a teaching aid and I knew that would only happen in the Fine Arts Building. Can you imagine? Talking about Copland’s “American” style and actually being able to play open fifths and octaves to demonstrate that signature sound. Then, I got an idea.

Why don’t I just ask to move to another classroom?

It couldn’t hurt to try. Go for it, I told myself. One email, one simple question. Within two days, my class had been successfully re-booked in a classroom with a piano in the building where I’ve been teaching (just one floor down from my office, in fact!). What a relief. . .and what a valuable lesson.

Why let yourself be consumed with worry or depressed by the dreams of “if only”? Go for it. Make the change. Ask the question. Run the risk. Take that leap. Make it happen.