MTAC Convention Santa Clara

As it states on its website (www.mtac.org) the Music Teachers' Association of California, incorporated in 1897, is a professional organization of approximately 4,500 members. Throughout its 100 year history, MTAC has dedicated its efforts towards the pursuit of excellence in music education.

Each of the more than sixty branches throughout the state - from Humboldt County to San Diego - maintains its own schedule of programs and activities and participates in state wide projects and programs.

The 2009 MTAC convention was in Santa Clara and guess what? The weather was perfect throughout – cloudless skies and a gentle breeze. However, I was kept occupied in the convention centre (or center, for US readers) most of the time. Novus Via Music (www.nvmusicgroup.com) had an impressively large booth in the exhibitors’ area and Scott McBride Smith, Clarke MacIntosh and I were kept very busy talking to teachers about American Popular Piano, particularly the relatively new Levels 6 through 8 (or 6 to 8, for British and Commonwealth readers)

Here’s a photo of Gary Ingle, President of MTNA, the national (USA) Association that represents piano teachers, with Scott McBride Smith, me and Clarke MacIntosh.

Scott, as you can see, is taller than average…

Scott and I did a presentation on American Popular Piano at 8 am on the Sunday morning and it drew a very large audience. The workshops both Scott and I have done in California, often to small teacher groups, have really helped to make more people aware of us and the series. The presentation went very well and there was strong interest evidenced at the Novus Via stand over the following days.

One thing I would like to highlight – a number of teachers came up because they were interested in the radically different approach to the teaching of improvisation as evidenced in the APP Etudes books. I was able to work with some of these teachers, taking them through the original piece, then through Modules within the Etudes, then getting them to improvise more freely, with on-the-fly suggestions from me regarding simple but effective techniques about improvising better. The results were gratifying, to say the least, and it made me aware that teachers need to feel comfortable with improvising before they embark on teaching it themselves!

Here’s a picture of one of my newbie improvisers – a church musician who had never tried improvising in the styles found in Levels 6 -8 and who discovered she had a real flair for it.

I hope to get back to California before too long – apart from Ellen Tryba Chen, whose students I worked with for 2 days prior to MTAC, there was quite a lot of interest in organising improvisation workshops for teachers and students in California. Watch this space!

Improvisation workshops in California

I'm nearly at the end of just over 2 days' work with students of Ellen Tryba Chen, a very enthusiastic teacher based in Saratoga, CA (near San Jose) She got a number of her students to prepare pieces from American Popular Piano Levels 1 to 4, both the pieces from the Repertoire books and the Improv Etudes associated with those same pieces. I have then been wheeled in to hear how the students got on and to suggest other ideas that might make them feel even more enthusiastic about jamming with a track and with each other. It's been a delightful experience. Here's the room we've been working in:

We used a grand piano as well as a keyboard, usually with 4 students in a group. I get all of the students to play the piece together first, with two students playing the original left hand part, the other two playing the original right hand part. We then try out drum patterns that might sound right for the piece, often derived from the teacher accompaniment. The students them "drum" while one of the group plays the piece. With a tapped beat from their foot as well, it's really getting the student used to keeping a beat as well as hearing other rhythmic parts while playing their part.

We then move onto the left hand chords found in the Improv Etude first Module and I suggest, with the backing track, how simple rhythms can already be invented using the left hand chords provided. Each student tries this out.

Then we talk about right hand improvisation "devices" - having identified the notes to use, we can then do various things, including:

1. playing the rhythm of the original melody but choosing our own order of notes

2. theme and variation

3. call and response

4. using silence - rests and long notes

I found that more unusual devices really appealed to the students - grace notes, pedal notes above the melody, melodies in thirds (and fourths and sixths) and additional notes, especially b5, were also seized on with alacrity.

Then we tried extended improvisations, with each student having a solo, accompanied by one or more of the other students playing their own versions of the left hand chords. All with the track of course. The solos are bookended by the theme all played together.

I met one mother of a teenage boy today and she said "this is what he has been looking for since he started piano" It's wonderful to see how much enthusiasm and commitment is in evidence when the students are given a chance to express themselves in this way.

I hope to be doing more workshops on improv - Summer Sizzle in Ontario is another event coming up shortly where I'll be doing more of this kind of activity.

VDM-Musikschulkongress, Berlin, Germany

The VDM-Musikschulkongress is a bi-annual event for German music school teachers. It was held in Berlin, at the International Congress Center.

I was invited by Heiko Kremers, product manager for digital pianos and digital keyboards for Roland Germany (http://www.rolandmusik.de) Heiko saw me quite a few years ago at an event in Flensburg, way up north (near the Danish border) and was struck by my rapport with music teachers. So he asked me to come to this event and talk to German teachers about Microjazz and the HPi-7s piano.

If you look at the Contacts and Links section of my website, (www.christophernorton.com) you’ll see a reference to the Roland HPi-6. Roland decided to include 50 Microjazz pieces as one of the categories that are embedded in this HP range of pianos, along with classical pieces, popular songs, childrens’ songs etc.

On the Friday, I gave an hour’s presentation. I started by introducing the sound of the Microjazz series and quickly moved onto its value in a teaching situation. Among other things, I highlighted:

• Children like the sound and style of many of the pieces right away

• It introduces the sounds (and voicings) of many contemporary popular piano styles from an early stage

• The variety of articulation, the use of the whole piano and the varied dynamics all make the series useful on many levels pedagogically

• Microjazz improves music reading

The teachers agreed with these and other points about Microjazz and even helped me to play some of the pieces, either solo pieces played by 2 people or duets. But they also agreed with me that it is difficult to get children to practice at home, no matter how much they like the music! The HP piano series helps to overcome this resistance to practicing in various ways.

First of all, you can hear the composer’s own performances from the Microjazz section of the HP piano. It demonstrates how the pieces should be phrased and articulated. You can play along with the composer, either separate hands (with a built-in metronome) or hands together. You can slow the tempo down as much as you like if the piece is proving tricky! So point 1 is that the HP piano enables the student to hear up to 50 pieces, choose what they would like to play and then play along separate hands or hands together at whatever speed is comfortable. The music for each piece scrolls along on the very easy-to-read screen in the centre of the piano (so music reading is being encouraged all the time)

Point 2 is that there are great backings that go with the piano parts and these enable the student to have a backup band while playing. It also gives a student a very good idea of how a style sounds once guitar, bass, drums etc are added. Teachers were very happy with the sound of all this, as you can see with this picture of 2 happy teachers from Uelzen:

But the really useful aspect of the HP piano came next – you can select Visual Lesson and select Beginners Course, Repertoire Course or Challenge Course. In the Beginners’ Course, the right hand part of a piece is played and displayed and you are invited to choose a comfortable speed and then record your own performance, following the music as you do so. Once you have recorded, a screen comes up that gives you a score (out of 100) and comments if there are things you need to improve. You can then look at a score of your performance and, using arrows, scroll backwards and forwards through your performance. Pitch mistakes are highlighted in one colour, rhythm mistakes in another. You can then re-record and see if you can improve your score.

The Repertoire Course and Challenge Course give you the chance to record separate hands (or both) and to pre-set various slower speeds.

The teachers agreed that the combination of Microjazz and the HP pianos is a very interesting one that could benefit the teacher in many ways. Getting students to practice music they like – that’s the formula!

On the Saturday I did a couple of presentations on the Roland stand and we gathered quite a crowd. Here are some of the German teachers who stayed to listen:

Ontario tour

I'm just back from a most enjoyable tour of Ontario. There were Christopher Norton Piano Festivals in Kingston, Sunderland, London, Orillia and Toronto, as well as an American Popular Piano workshop in Milton and 3 seminars for teachers on improvisation. I also gave a couple of private composition lessons! The whole tour was masterfully organised by Liselotte Jongedijk, who is an MYC (www.myc.com) teacher in Toronto with a vibrant music school (http://www.musicamusicschool.com) She organised the Toronto Piano Festival last year and was emboldened to make this a bigger affair altogether, involving teachers and students in 4 other centres.

I will be putting reports and pictures on www.christophernorton.com and www.americanpopularpiano.com, so I thought 

I would use this blog to make some general remarks about the young performers I saw.

First of all, the students chose their own pieces and this was a real plus. The level of understanding of the music was much better than it might have been if teachers had chosen the pieces for them. Students are always well advised to listen to the pieces before learning them - the Connections website has all of the pieces available to hear (and download) the Christopher Norton website has audio of many pieces, as does the American Popular Piano site (and of course John Michael Iverson's The Christopher Norton Project has all of APP Levels 1-5)

1. Students should be tested to see if they can keep a steady beat - I like them to both tap their foot and clap or tap at the same time. The teacher can play part of a piece while the students keep a beat for them, then the positions can be reversed. Students should be able to keep a beat going in one hand and play the other hand. The lack of a consistent beat was one of the noticeable things that needed more work.

2. Students should also remember to keep their fingers curved (imagine holding, but not gripping a softball and you'll be close to the right relaxed hand position) Too many straight fingers! Straight fingers mean less control and a much less controlled sound.

3. Have a relaxed, flexible wrist and try not to let the bottom of your wrist go below the bottom of the keys.

4. Play genuine legato in your hand, with fingers alert! In a smooth passage, feel that the weight is being transferred from the bottom of one key to the bottom of the next, via your fingers, with the weight of the arm helping (via a flexible wrist) to shape the phrases. Think through your fingertips.

5. Think like a singer when you play a melody and in fact try to sing the melody you are playing - it will often make you aware of the most natural phrasing.

6. Play a series of staccato notes with your thumb to get a feel for the bounce of the wrist that can create a nice sound and a way of playing that doesn't create tension in your arm. Once you've got that, make the same movement and sound with any of your other fingers.

7. Be able to play a piece with all the correct rhythms and phrasing (and notes of course!) before you play with a backing track. My rule is that if it's easier to play with a track, you've probably got everything else in place.

8. Start to get excited about the sound you make - and keep listening critically to every sound you produce.

That's enough for now class! Congratulations to all concerned. If you want to know more about Christopher Norton piano Festivals in your area, contact this blog or one of the websites.

CN