fhpiano1

Camp Cryptogram - Fountain Hills

Thu, 05 May 2022 23:00:10 GMT

Camp Cryptogram:

Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

DATE:

TIME:

PLACE:

AGES:

LIMIT:

PRICE:

June 6 - 10, 2022

9:00am - 11:00am

Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd.

Suite A2

9 - 14

6 students

$200

Camp Cryptogram is a one-week music composition camp for piano players ages 9-14. Students will learn to code their names and other secret messages in music and write a melody based on those messages. They’ll learn basic composing techniques to develop their work into a polished composition, culminating in a “world premier” performance of their pieces for a live audience and a professional, published copy of their work to take home. Leveraging composition games, teamwork, and experimentation with sound and style, this camp is ideal for students who want to explore and create their own music.

Camp Cryptogram: Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

WHEN : June 20 – 24, 9:00 – 11:00am

WHERE : Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd., Suite A2

AGES : 9-14*

CLASS SIZE: Class is limited to 6 students

PRICE : $200

PREREQUISITE

Participants should be playing piano at a level between 1B - 5, and should be able to read most notes on the treble and bass staffs.

FINAL PERFORMANCE

A final performance of all student compositions will be held on Friday, June 10 at 10:30am. At this time, students will be presented with a framed, published copy of their compositions.

CAMP TAKEAWAYS

Students who participate in this camp will . . .

Learn the 18th century system for coding messages into music
Learn to to create melodies with coded messages
Write and decode messages to each other, developing facility with note-writing on the staff
Explore chords and common bass patterns and apply them to their melodies
Work in groups to compose short pieces that tell stories and perform them for each other, developing increased confidence in performing for their peers
Learn about different musical styles and re-write short pieces in these styles
Experiment with keyboard sounds to find the right instrumentation for their composition exercises
Learn to take a composition through the development/editing/refinement process, culminating in a complete printed manuscript

INSTRUCTORS

Heather Baldwin, owner and piano teacher at Fountain Hills Piano.

Jeffrey Anthony, woodwind teacher at Fountain Hills Piano, director of traditional music at Desert Hills Presbyterian Church and composer of “Cryptogram for Trombone and Orchestra”.

Register Today!

Interested in participating? Want more information? Fill out the adjacent web form and we'll get right back to you!

Camp Cryptogram - Scottsdale

Wed, 04 May 2022 13:50:36 GMT

Camp Cryptogram:

Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

DATE:

TIME:

PLACE:

AGES:

LIMIT:

PRICE:

June 20 - 24, 2022

9:00am - 11:00am

Desert Hills Presbyterian Church

34605 N. Tom Darlington Rd.

Scottsdale, AZ 85266 ��

9 - 14

10 students

$250

Camp Cryptogram: Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

WHEN : June 20 – 24, 9:00 – 11:00am

WHERE : Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd., Suite A2

AGES : 9-14*

CLASS SIZE: Class is limited to 6 students

PRICE : $200

PREREQUISITE

Participants should be playing piano at a level between 1B - 5, and should be able to read most notes on the treble and bass staffs.

FINAL PERFORMANCE

A final performance of all student compositions will be held on Friday, June 24 at 10:30am. At this time, students will be presented with a framed, published copy of their compositions.

CAMP TAKEAWAYS

Students who participate in this camp will . . .

Learn the 18th century system for coding messages into music
Learn to to create melodies with coded messages
Write and decode messages to each other, developing facility with note-writing on the staff
Explore chords and common bass patterns and apply them to their melodies
Work in groups to compose short pieces that tell stories and perform them for each other, developing increased confidence in performing for their peers
Learn about different musical styles and re-write short pieces in these styles
Experiment with keyboard sounds to find the right instrumentation for their composition exercises
Learn to take a composition through the development/editing/refinement process, culminating in a complete printed manuscript

INSTRUCTORS

Heather Baldwin, owner and piano teacher at Fountain Hills Piano.

Jeffrey Anthony, woodwind teacher at Fountain Hills Piano, director of traditional music at Desert Hills Presbyterian Church and composer of “Cryptogram for Trombone and Orchestra”.

Register Today!

Interested in participating? Want more information? Fill out the adjacent web form and we'll get right back to you!

Peter and the Wolf

Wed, 04 May 2022 04:07:02 GMT

Peter and the Wolf

DATE:

TIME:

PLACE:

AGE:

LIMIT:

PRICE:

Saturday, July 30, 2022

(Final Production)

4:00pm

FH Presbyterian Church

13001 N Ftn Hills Blvd. ��

All Ages!

None

$25

Prokofiev’s classic musical storytelling comes to life this summer! The FHP production of “Peter and the Wolf" is theater and piano all in one. It includes narration and short pieces of music (arranged for elementary-level piano players) that capture the characters and tell the nail-biting story of how Peter’s adventurous spirit and ingenuity saved him from the hungry wolf. Students will be assigned parts based on their playing level and interest. They will work on their assigned pieces as part of their lessons over the summer, then we’ll have one dress rehearsal and a final performance on Saturday, July 30th.

Let me know by June 15 if you want to participate in this production.

Camp Cryptogram: Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

WHEN : June 20 – 24, 9:00 – 11:00am

WHERE : Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd., Suite A2

AGES : 9-14*

CLASS SIZE: Class is limited to 6 students

PRICE : $200

PREREQUISITE

Must be playing at a confident late Level 1B through Level 4.

BACKGROUND

The story and music of Peter and the Wolf were written in 1938 by Russian Composer Sergei Prokofiev. In its original orchestral version, each of the characters was represented by a different musical instrument, thereby providing audiences a chance to become familiar with the sounds of these instruments while being immersed in an exciting story. In 1967, Wesley Schaum arranged the orchestral composition for elementary piano. Schaum did a fantastic job maintaining all the interesting textures and sounds of each of the character pieces while making them accessible to beginning piano students. Students who participate in our production will be assigned a character and will learn the piano parts for that character over the summer. They will “play" that character in our final production on July 30.

Register Today!

Interested in participating? Want more information? Fill out the adjacent web form and we'll get right back to you!

Pipe Organ Experience

Tue, 03 May 2022 04:19:29 GMT

Pipe Organ Experience

DATE:

TIME:

PLACE:

AGES:

LIMIT:

PRICE:

Saturday, July 23, 2022

10:00 - 11:00am or 2:00 - 3:00pm

Desert Hills Presbyterian Church

34605 N. Tom Darlington Rd.

Scottsdale, AZ 85266 ��

All Ages Welcome!

10 Students

$20

Have you ever wondered about the differences between a pipe organ and a piano? The keyboards look the same, but how do they get that big sound out of an organ? How do they make all those different sounds on one instrument? And what the heck are they doing with their feet?? Come learn about that other keyboard instrument and get a mini organ lesson with Desert Hills Presbyterian director of traditional music Jeffrey Anthony. Attendees will have a chance to play the organ, try the foot pedals and participate in a tag-team, all-student performance of the famous opening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. This one-hour hands (and feet!)-on experience is open to all ages and abilities — even adults!

Camp Cryptogram: Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

WHEN : June 20 – 24, 9:00 – 11:00am

WHERE : Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd., Suite A2

AGES : 9-14*

CLASS SIZE: Class is limited to 6 students

PRICE : $200

PREREQUISITE

None.

Register Today!

Interested in participating? Want more information? Fill out the adjacent web form and we'll get right back to you!

Saxophone Ensemble

Mon, 02 May 2022 04:34:28 GMT

Saxophone Ensemble

REHEARSAL :

June 5 & 12, 2022 at 4:00pm at Desert Hills Presbyterian Church, Scottsdale, AZ ��

PERFORMANCE :

June 19, 2022 at 6:00pm at Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion, Carefree, AZ ��

PRICE :

FREE!

Do you play the saxophone? Have you ever played the saxophone? Have you ever wanted to play the saxophone? Now's your chance to dust off your instrument (or go rent your first one!) and play with a group. The Summer Saxophone Series at Desert Hills Presbyterian Church welcomes saxophone players of every level (even total beginners!) to play in an ensemble. Come have fun and make great music with fellow saxophonists. There will be two rehearsals (music will be provided) and a final performance at the beautiful Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion in downtown Carefree.

Camp Cryptogram: Composing Piano Music With Hidden Codes

WHEN : June 20 – 24, 9:00 – 11:00am

WHERE : Fountain Hills Piano

11873 N. Saguaro Blvd., Suite A2

AGES : 9-14*

CLASS SIZE: Class is limited to 6 students

PRICE : $200

PREREQUISITE

Must provide your own saxophone but can be ANY level of player, including a total beginner!

Register Today!

Interested in participating? Want more information? Fill out the adjacent web form and we'll get right back to you!

Prodigies, Perfect Pitch and Erroll Garner, part 2

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 04:06:07 GMT

by Heather Baldwin, March, 2022

A couple months ago, I opened my mailbox to find a slick flyer advertising a course that promised to teach attendees to play the piano in just a few short hours. The pitch was this: according to the flyer, chords are key to playing piano, so the instructor would teach you a few chords and – voila! You’d be playing your favorite songs that day!

Normally, these pitches wind up in my recycling bin, but this one gave me an idea: I had an adult student who was struggling to grasp chords and I wondered if maybe a two-hour class and a $20 investment might unlock something for her that I hadn’t been able to. I’d always been curious about what these courses were teaching anyway, so I passed the flyer to Teresa, a delightful, tenacious student in her early 70s whose mantra for retirement is, “I’d rather be bad at piano than good at bingo.” Teresa decided on the spot she would sign up for the class and would report her findings back to me.

In Part 1 of this post , I addressed a question a student once asked me about how Erroll Garner and other musical giants learn to play piano without lessons. My answer spoke to both the question that was asked and the one that was unasked: Is there an easier way to learn piano? At its core, that’s what “learn piano in an afternoon”-type courses tug at – our innate human desire to find an easier way.

I did sincerely hope that the course Teresa attended would give her a lightbulb moment about chords, but my optimism was short-lived. The course turned out to be part instruction and part sales pitch for a $2,000 investment in the instructor’s full range of products (special deal that day only, of course). And even the instruction was a disappointment – it included a handout that looked a little like a placemat with a picture of piano keys and markings showing which notes to press to play a C chord, a G chord and an F chord, the most basic chords for beginning piano students. Teresa’s report: “After showing us some keyboard basics and how to play those three chords, the instructor walked around. He spent about two minutes with me and the gal sitting next to me, but when it became apparent that chords were hard for us, he moved on and spent most of his time with someone else who got it more quickly.” Happily, her time and $20 were not wasted: “I made friends with the girl I sat beside! Today, we still laugh about the scam and the guy’s snake-oil sales pitch.”

The story doesn’t end there. Teresa, it turns out, is a thorough detective. When another, similar course popped up on her radar, she signed up for it and later brought those materials into her lesson with me. While the approach was a little different – this one included a spiral-bound handout, more information on the fundamentals of music and more chords – it was nonetheless ultimately another sales pitch, this time for additional video instruction on YouTube.

The point here isn’t that “learn piano in an afternoon” courses are a bunch of baloney (well, maybe it’s a little of the point . . .) – it’s that even those people who claim to offer a “quicker, easier way” to learn ultimately point their clients to a longer road of extended training to truly reach their goals. Which, after two blog posts, is a very long way of saying that the answer to, “Is there an easier way to learn piano?” is unfortunately no.

Prodigies, Perfect Pitch and Erroll Garner, part 1

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:48:58 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - February, 2022

Recently, one of my adult students stood up after his lesson and remarked, “Piano is hard. How do people like Erroll Garner play without taking lessons?” It’s a great question, and one I get from time to time – usually at a particularly challenging moment in the music-learning journey, or after someone has seen a video about a great musician who doesn’t read music. Behind the question is another, unstated one: Is there an easier way to do this?

There are lots of famous musicians who never learned to read music or had formal lessons. In addition to Garner (who composed “Misty”), big names like Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney are all self-taught and don’t read music. And many of the jazz greats learned to play by ear rather than by reading notes. But if you dig a little into the backgrounds of these musicians, you’ll spot a couple commonalities. First, they all started learning when they were very young. Second, they were wired for music in the same way that some people are wired for art or for understanding physics or for working with machines.

Take Garner, for example. He started playing piano at age three. His older siblings were taking lessons and any time the teacher sat down to demonstrate a piece of music, Garner could replicate it perfectly just by listening. How? He was genetically gifted with both perfect pitch (the rare ability to hear a note and know what it is without any reference tone) and an amazing memory. His New York Times obituary tells the story of Garner attending a concert by a Russian classical pianist, then rushing home to his apartment and playing a large part of the concert from memory. No amount of formal music training could have given him that ability. (As a side note, I had a teacher in high school who could do that process in reverse. A Russian pianist with perfect pitch, she could look at a musical composition on paper, hear it in her head while looking at the notes, then execute it on the piano by playing what she heard in her head. It was quite remarkable).

Or let’s take another one on the list who grew up very differently from Garner. Stevie Wonder was blind and grew up in the projects in Detroit. He not only didn’t have older siblings taking lessons, his mom didn’t even own a piano. So how did he learn to play without either lessons or sight? One day he came across a neighbor’s old broken-down piano. The first time he touched the keys, he thought he’d stumbled upon a miracle. He returned to that piano again and again. Using his extraordinary ear (Wonder, too, has perfect pitch) and sense of touch, he was able to replicate music he heard on the radio. Then he took it a step further and created his own music. At age 11, he was signed by Motown Records.

So, to return to the original question: How do people like Erroll Garner learn to play piano without lessons? There isn’t a single path, but most who find their way to stardom without lessons or reading music are blessed with a confluence of a natural ear for music, access to musical instruments in their youth and an intrinsic pull to develop their musical skill at an early age, in addition to that undefinable magic that produces geniuses in any field. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut or secret formula they discovered that the rest of us can copy or imitate. It is more that music was their life’s calling – and they answered it. The rest of us can answer that call too; it just takes us a lot more practice.

Still looking for an easier way? In Part 2, I’ll share the story of one my adult students who investigated a couple different “learn piano in an afternoon” courses. Spoiler alert: you can’t learn piano in an afternoon.

Are You Sure You Want to Play Like Michal?

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:24:25 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - January, 2022

Years ago, a fan watched South African golfer Gary Player hit balls down the fairway. Awed by the golfer’s legendary distance and accuracy, the fan remarked, “I’d give anything to hit balls like that.” Player’s response is memorable: “No you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d want to hit a golf ball like me if it was easy.”

Player explained that his skill was the result of many years spent getting up at 5:00 a.m., hitting 1,000 balls, going into the clubhouse to bandage his bleeding hands, then going back out to hit another thousand balls. In other words, he had worked a lot harder than most people are willing to work, for a lot longer. One can only surmise that at this point, the fan lost interest in hitting like Player.

The story reminded me of an interaction I had with a piano student years ago. At the time, we had a young man in our studio named Michal (pronounced Mee-hall). Michal, whose impressive performances were the closing act of our recitals for a period of time, was fervently admired by all the younger students. Everyone wanted to play like Michal.

Following one recital, a young pianist who was early in his musical journey came up to me and said, with a mixture of awe and longing, that he wished he could play the piano like Michal. Thinking to pass along some encouragement, I told him, “You can! Michal practices for one hour every day. If you do the same, you’ll be there in just a few years.”

Rather than becoming excited that he now held the key to success, the student’s face fell. “An hour?” he groaned. “I don’t want practice that long.” And he walked away dejected.

He wasn’t the only one. During the years when Michal was part of our studio, I had many variations of that same conversation. Call me a slow learner, but it took me awhile to figure out that while everyone wanted to play like Michal, almost no one was willing to work like Michal to get there.

We’ve all had the experience of watching someone perform – in music, in sports, in academics – and believed they were gifted in a way the rest of us weren’t. That they were born with an ability to execute a skill at a level far above average. Quite often, that gifting is simply a willingness to work a whole lot harder than everyone else!

Breakthrough Moments

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 19:48:01 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - November, 2021

It would be so nice if progress in learning a new skill was linear, wouldn’t it? Imagine sitting down every day to practice the piano – and every day, walking away from that practice exactly one percent better. Unfortunately, that’s not the way learning works.

Instead, mastering a skill works more like bamboo growth. For the first five years of the plant’s life, it looks like nothing is happening. You can water it, fertilize it, give it plenty of sunlight and still there is no visible progress. Then one day: Whoosh! It breaks through the ground and can grow ninety feet tall in five weeks. So what was it doing those first five years? Laying the extensive root system that would feed its spectacular growth.

In his book Atomic Habits , James Clear likens progress in a skill to an ice cube sitting in a twenty-five degree room that is heated one degree at time. Nothing happens as the room moves from twenty-five degrees to twenty-six, then to twenty-seven, etc. It looks like the effort to warm the room is producing no effect – right up until it hits thirty-two degrees. Then suddenly the ice begins to melt. “A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change,” says Clear. “Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash major change.”

This happens so often in learning to play the piano. A student might labor for years at it, making very slow progress. Maybe concepts like note reading and rhythm are taking a long time to grasp. Or maybe their fingers don’t move smoothly and naturally over the keys, making songs feel choppy and awkward. But when they stick with it week after week, year after year, they eventually experience that “whoosh!” moment where they suddenly break through and shoot upward.

Every time I see this happen, it’s exciting. There’s a tipping point – and it is different for everyone – where the accumulation of all previous effort suddenly tilts a student onto a whole new level. For a long time, they appear to be making glacier-like progress. Then something catches. They start moving through repertoire and new concepts so quickly and masterfully, it is dizzying. Skills that were difficult for them are now effortless. There’s a palpable excitement for music about them that wasn’t there before.

It’s important to see these moments for what they truly are: the culmination of the years spent laying a foundation. The only thing that happened “overnight” was that the steady accumulation of skill reached a critical mass. This, says Clear, is “the hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed.”

When students are in a season of laying the root structure – or heating up that cold room by degrees – it’s common to experience frustration or worry that they won’t ever “get it.” Clear calls this the Valley of Disappointment because on a graph of effort and results, the outcome of all the early work on learning a skill lies far below what you'd expect. After much effort, you’ve heated the room from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees and nothing seems to be happening with that ice cube. Unfortunately, this is when a lot of people walk away – right before that thirty-two-degree inflection point. Right before the moment of breakthrough.

“We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly,” says Clear. “In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed. It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done.”

If you haven't experienced that breakthrough moment yet, it simply means the root system is still being laid. Mastery is a lagging indicator of effort. Often, it lags by many years.

Why Do We Perform?

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:49:09 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - October, 2021

True confession: I used to get so nervous before performing in front of people that I’d feel sick for days. Almost everyone who has played in front of an audience knows what I’m talking about: the swooping stomach, the sweaty and shaky fingers, the racing heart. Why the heck would we put ourselves – or our children – through all that?

Moving toward the end of the year means moving toward recital season. And while some students await performances with eager excitement, others find their anxiety building as the performance nears. If you are hearing phrases like, “I don’t want to play in front of anyone” or “I just want to play for fun and not do the recital,” it might help to step back and think about why public performance is so valuable for music students:

1. Performance drives intensity and intentionality in practice time. If I had to pick only one reason recitals are valuable, this would be it. When there’s a performance coming up, students get very focused and intentional in their practice time. Driven by the knowledge that they will be performing in front of an audience, they dig in to perfect and memorize their pieces. In the process, something magical happens: they discover a whole new level of excellence and enjoyment in playing music.

2. Discomfort is a powerful learning tool. An operating board partner at Ramsey Solutions recently opened a communication with these lines: “I hope this week is uncomfortable for you. I hope this week you’ve been pushed to be better. I hope this week you’ve gone outside your comfort zone and it has scared you.” Why? Discomfort strengths us. It’s how we grow and improve. When students learn to push themselves through something hard in one area, they are better equipped to do it in others. Every performance gives students a vital opportunity to step into something uncomfortable – and grow from it.

3. Good performances add inches. I see it again and again, year after year: When students face down their nerves, get up in front of an audience, and perform well, they walk off that stage a little taller. They exude pride and confidence, which overflows into other areas of their lives. They are excited to learn more music and ask with eagerness when the next recital is because they can’t wait to perform again. The “passion follows practice” principle that I discussed in my August blog is powerfully on display after every recital.

4. Music is a performance art. Like theater and dance, music comes alive in front of an audience. While we certainly can derive some satisfaction in playing for ourselves, students will ultimately find that their greatest joy in music comes from sharing it with others. Finance guru Dave Ramsey often says the real power in wealth is not what it can do for you, but what it allows you to do for others through generosity. Music is the same: it’s full power is unleashed only when you give it away.

Give Me Five

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 22:04:31 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - September, 2021

With the school year well underway, the phrase, “I didn’t have any time to practice this week!” is starting to reappear. I’ve always said the hardest part of piano practice is walking to the piano; that’s doubly true when homework, exams, swim meets, extra volleyball practice, etc., collide to create a jam-packed week.

In the most comprehensive survey of U.S. music teachers conducted in the last 15 years, a 2020 Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) survey asked teachers to rank, from a list of 15 common issues, their biggest anticipated concerns over the next few years. Top on the list: overscheduled students, followed closely by student motivation. I find the two go hand-in-hand: when students are overloaded, it’s hard to get motivated to sit at the piano and work through hard stuff.

So, what’s the solution on days when the calendar is overly congested? Try aiming for just five minutes of practice.

Yes, seriously – five minutes.

The “five minutes” strategy accomplishes a couple things. First, it gets students to the piano. Five minutes seems so do-able, it’s hardly worth arguing about. Second, five minutes inserted daily into a busy week can add up to enough progress on a few things to create some confidence for the next lesson. Third, it removes the stress and guilt of not practicing so students can focus more fully on other things. Finally, five minutes maintains consistency in the practice habit, making it easier to spool back up when things return to normal.

There are a couple guidelines for ensuring the five-minute practice is successful:

Set a goal. The minutes don’t start until a student knows exactly what they are going to work on and how they’re going to tackle it. For instance, “I’m going to learn the first line of my new song. I’ll start with the right hand, then work on the left hand, then put hands together slowly until five minutes is up.” Or, “I’m going to play this page once with the metronome at 70, then at 73, then at 76.” You get the idea.
Set a timer. Set a timer for five minutes (don’t watch a clock). Position the timer so it’s out of sight but can be heard when it goes off.
Set no further expectation. Once five minutes is up, students have permission to walk away. That’s important. If they choose to continue practicing (and their schedule allows for it), that’s great. But if they hop up and run when the timer buzzes, let them. Otherwise, it will be tough to get them back the next time.

For younger beginners, five minutes is sometimes enough anyway. Small doses of repeated, daily exposure to new material really adds up quickly without feeling burdensome. But even older students are often surprised and motivated by how much they can accomplish in five focused minutes. Best of all, five minutes usually isn’t the end of it. Once a student is at the piano and engaged in working on something, they often ignore the timer and just keep playing.

Obviously, five minutes isn’t enough practice time on a regular basis. But on those days or weeks when everything is piling up, the strategy functions like a torniquet: it’s an effective emergency solution that slows the loss of learning.

Passion Follows Practice

heather@fountainhillspiano.com (Heather Baldwin) — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 22:08:11 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - August, 2021

Cal Newport, one of my favorite bloggers, once observed, “Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.” Newport writes about the intersection of technology and culture. But he may as well have been writing about learning an instrument because when it comes to passion for playing music, he nailed it: The joy follows the work.

This is an important message at a time when the machinery of school and extracurricular activities is cranking back up. With many demands on a student’s time, it’s easy to push off piano practice, enter a cycle of under-preparation, and consequently begin to find piano a source of stress and anxiety. When this happens for a prolonged period, or when it happens in frequent intervals, parents start hearing that piano isn’t “fun” or the student “doesn’t want to do piano any more.”

When you hear these kinds of statements, take a closer look: Is piano not enjoyable because the student doesn’t have a real affinity for music? Or is it not fun because the student isn’t putting in the time (especially those first three critical days after a lesson) to become excellent at it? In the vast majority of cases, it’s the latter.

I see this again and again, year after year, in both micro and macro cycles: when a student starts coming to lessons unable to play what they were assigned to learn (and often unable to remember what we worked on the previous week) because they didn’t put in any work, their enthusiasm for playing is just about zero. There’s no passion because there’s no mastery. However, as soon as a performance is coming up and they feel some pressure to practice, there's a complete turnaround. With a little practice, they can play their music, which makes it fun, which makes them want to play it even more, which makes them excellent.

Suddenly, they are avid fans of piano again. They feel the pride and joy that comes from playing something well – and knowing they are playing it well. They want to perform for their friends and family. I start hearing, “I love piano!” and excitement for the next challenge.

What changes in these cases? Nothing external. Not the instrument. Not the music or the teacher or the fundamental approach to learning. What changes is effort. The student becomes passionate because they put in the work to become excellent.

Passion follows effort. Every time.

That’s not to say piano – or learning an instrument in general – is for everyone. It’s not. Certainly, there are kids who, even after mastering a piece they like and playing it with excellence don’t derive a lot of joy or get any real creative satisfaction from it. But in my experience, that’s a very small minority of the population.

Much more often, a lack of passion doesn’t mean it’s time to quit – only that it’s time to practice.

Practice Time: Why the First Three Days Are Magic

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 21:34:43 GMT

by Heather Baldwin - July, 2021

Several times a week, students arrive at a lesson and tell me, “I had trouble with . . .” or “I couldn’t remember how to do . . . .” When their struggles are with passages we covered the week before, it doesn’t take too much digging to find the root cause of the problem: In most cases, the student didn’t practice on the days immediately following their lesson.

FHP students know the goal is to practice five days a week. But those five days aren’t all created equal. For beginning students especially, the first three days after the lesson are "can't-miss" practice days. In other words, if the lesson is on a Tuesday, a good, focused practice effort on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is essential to mastering assigned material and making steady forward progress. The other two practice days – wherever they may fall – really just solidify the hard work of these first three days.

I can't emphasize this enough. When students review the material we covered while it's still fresh in their minds, they are able to master it pretty quickly. This leads to practice time feeling increasingly “easier” and more satisfying as the week progresses. Best of all, success feeds on itself: The better students get at playing their music, the more they want to play it. When students miss those first three days, their lessons usually end up repeating much of the material from the previous week.

Believe me, I get the temptation to procrastinate. It's human nature. When the next lesson is a whole week away, it can feel like there's plenty of time to practice "later." For elementary-level students, the problem with waiting until "later" is that by the time the next lesson is looming and they are feeling pressure to open their books, they usually find they can't remember how we worked through difficult or new material. Practice becomes much more challenging and stressful.

The importance of the first three days lessens as students progress into higher levels. But for beginning students, it is the golden ticket to mastery. It’s that “magic pill” every student wishes they could swallow and suddenly be able to play whatever song they are working on.

One year, I had a student who came in week after week struggling with the same sections in her music. After working together at her lesson, she could play everything. Then she’d come back the following week and we were right back at square one. Each week, she confessed that she had waited until right before her lesson to practice and had forgotten everything. Rinse, repeat.

One day, she came in, sat down, and performed her entire piece flawlessly. I was speechless. “What did you do differently this week?” I asked.

She gave me a sheepish smile and said, “I finally did what you told me to do. I went home and practiced the three days after our lesson.” It was that simple.