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Hello everyone!
As kids go back to school this week and we all settle into our new Fall routines, its important to get back into regularly practicing our instruments. Here are five great tips on how to set up a regular practice routine that is effective and enjoyable: 1) Pick a Location Sometimes the hardest part about practicing is finding a good place, as our homes are often full of people and distractions like pets, computers and televisions. Always choose an area to practice that is somewhat isolated from the rest of the house, where you will have some privacy and not be interrupted. This may be your basement, your bedroom or even your garage! The best part of practicing is getting lost in what you are doing, becoming so focused that time passes you by without even knowing it. This can't happen if you are playing in the main room of your house as family members traipse up and down stairs, clatter pots and pans and watch television. As well, you want somewhere comfortable - not too cold so you're hands are stiff, not too cramped so you have to peer at your music around a corner, and always with a comfortable but upright chair to sit on while playing. Posture is important! 2) Pick a Time Just like when choosing a location to practice, you also want to choose a good time to practice. This means pick a convenient time when you are not disturbing other people (5am may not be the best time for your family and neighbours) and again, when you are not going to be interrupted (starting to practice right before dinner means you won't get much done before you have to stop). If possible, make practicing a regular part of your day or week. 30 minutes every day right when you come home from school might be a nice mental break before you start your homework. And if you're practice time is a regular part of your routine, you won't have to scramble the day before your lesson to learn and prepare your music homework. 3) Plan your Practice Before you begin practicing, it is always important to have a plan in mind of what you are going to work on. Pulling out your instrument and opening your book to the last place you left is not the most effective way to improve your skills. Always start with a good warm up to get the blood flow moving in your fingers and the air moving through your diaphragm and lungs. This may include scales, arpeggios, a short tonguing exercise or longtones. Whatever works best for you and gets your body and mind ready for practicing. This also gives you time to think about your embouchure and tone before you begin working on more technical passages. Next, review what was covered in your last lesson. There may have been things that you have forgotten and will need to know in order to correctly prepare your homework. Lastly, after working on your homework, play something a bit more fun and interesting as a reward for working hard. This could be a song you make up, a song from the radio, or a fun piece given to your by your instructor. 4) Take Breaks Taking breaks gives your body and mind a chance to let what you've been working on sink in. Without breaks, we tend to work ourselves to exhaustion so that our brain and fingers don't have the ability to retain any of the information we've just worked on. This doesn't mean you should be stopping every five minutes to check your phone or watch some TV. I like to take a short break after each section of my practice: warmup - break - technical work - break - preparing homework - break - fun piece or song. This allows my muscles to rest a bit and for my mind to stay focused for longer. 5) Have Fun If you're not enjoying yourself when you practice - what's the point!?! You are much more likely to learn and improve your playing when you enjoy working on it and are motivated to continue. Of course, we all have days where we have other things on our mind or we are not feeling well. Often, these are days when we might just need a break. We are not going to get much done if we do practice and we are not going to enjoy ourselves. So make sure you're enjoying your practice sessions and enjoying playing and learning music - if you're not, talk to your instructor and hopefully together you can find a new way to make learning music fun.
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Hello everyone,
I have officially posted my first ever Tip-of-the-Week! Click to see it here: https://www.facebook.com/AmandasMusicLessons I will be posting a new Tip every week so make sure you Like my page to receive regular updates! This week's Tip is about staying relaxed as we practice. Very Important! Hello everyone!
I hope you have all had a fantastic Summer holiday and have plans to enjoy your last few weeks of freedom. This Summer has been a roller-coaster of amazing camping trips and hiking, combined with seeing the absolute devastation caused by the June 21st flood. I hope everyone is doing well and recovering after the disaster, my heart has been with all the flood victims the last few months. Registration for Fall lessons has now begun at my studio! Several spots are being taken up quite quickly so if you are looking for a regular lesson time, make sure you get in touch with me asap! I am also excited to announce that I will be offering lessons for Chamber Ensembles as well this year. You can learn more about this on my new Chamber Ensembles page. As well, for those interested, I will also be offering lessons on the Bass Clarinet! This fantastic instrument has long been a favourite of mine and I am so excited to begin sharing the joy of low notes with those students who sign up. If you haven't had a chance, make sure to check out my Facebook page and Twitter account. By following me on these pages you will receive regular updates and announcements from my studio as well as information on exciting events around Calgary, articles relating to music and music education as well as my brand new feature: Tip-of-the-Week! Just as it sounds, Tip-of-the-Week will be a short tip every week on practicing, performing and general playing techniques. I am very excited for the new year and have many exciting things planned including Christmas and Spring Recitals, Master Classes and more! Stay tuned to this blog and my other pages so you are up-to-date on what is happening in my studio every week. I look forward to seeing my returning students again and starting some new faces this year as well. Happy Practicing everyone! Amanda I just want to say a big congratulations to all my students who performed this Saturday at my year end recital. Everyone worked so hard on their pieces and the performances really showed that! It was great to see the improvement in technical and musical skill since my last recital in December as well as the increase in difficulty and length of pieces. All the performers should be so proud of the work they have done. I really look forward to hearing everyone play at my next recital - probably in early December.
The recital was a nice cap to the school year. Of course, I will be continuing to teach throughout the Summer if any students are interested in taking some lessons during their break. As well, I will be putting on my very first Chamber Music Workshop in July where students can learn how to play and perform in a small ensemble. For those interested, check out my poster and registration details on my Summer Programs page. Thanks so much to Blaine at St. John's Music for making the year end recital possible! And again to all the students and parents who worked hard and were dedicated to music lessons this year - It couldn't be done without you! One of my favourite jazz artists right now is Esperanza Spalding. If you have never heard of her or have never heard her, check out her youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb3MC_Hob44&list=RD022aRC3YY3svs) for some live performances and you will be blown away. Last week she was working with the students at the Banff Centre and gave a few concerts with her trio. I was lucky enough to see her Friday night concert in the basement of the Banff Centre, in a tiny venue called The Club. The place was packed full of students and faculty and other jazz lovers like myself who were lucky enough to know that the concert was taking place. My friends and I sat right in the front row, dead centre, about three feet away from Esperanza on stage. Sitting so close, I not only got an incredible acoustic experience, but I could see every glance between her and her pianist, every smile at a great chord and even watch her feet dancing to her own tunes. The music was amazing, I was blown away by the groove of her trio, how fast her fingers could get around the bass, and her beautiful singing!
What struck me the most though was how into it she was. I have never seen anyone so lost in their own musical world and enjoying every second of it. I felt like I was witnessing a private rehearsal with her group, each member experimenting and trying something new and Esperanza loved all of it. It was a series of completely natural, authentic and organic moments and all three of them were having so much fun! I was almost surprised when she spoke to the audience at the end, I had forgotten the rest of us were there. The other amazing thing about this concert is that it was FREE! If I was able to go see her concert in Calgary when she is here (June 26th at the Epcor Centre) I would pay between $40-70 for a ticket (would still be 100% worth it by the way) and would never experience something as intimate as Friday night at the Banff Centre. One of the most amazing reasons to live in Calgary is we have all these incredible, internationally renowned musicians working and studying only an hour and a half away, performing and giving concerts all the time at the Banff Centre. Not all the concerts are free, but a lot of the student performances are and if you've ever tried to get accepted to study at the Banff Centre, you know you have to be very VERY good in order to go. Check out their website regularly to see who is performing this week and definitely make the trek up there to see some amazing concerts! As many of you will know, I am a huge fan of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. I love going to their concerts and recently had a fantastic experience at their performance of the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring movie score. They played the music for the entire 3 hour long movie! It was incredible, hearing my favourite score with a live Orchestra, full Chorus and the Cantare Children's Choir. I now think I'd like to see all movies performed this way - a big screen, some candy and a full Orchestra to perform the music.
For me, I get so excited when the CPO announces their new season. I can't wait to plan which concerts to go to and am so excited to see which monster pieces of Classical Repertoire they are going to play! The big ones I am most excited about next year are the Five Famous Fifths: They will be performing (at separate concerts, don't worry) Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Mahler and Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphonies! These are incredibly tremendous BIG works and I cannot wait to hear all of them. What other concerts am I most excited about? Probably the CPO performs Disney! Take a look at their upcoming season and definitely get your tickets right away! If you're a student of mine, let me know which concerts you are attending and we can try to arrange our tickets for the same night. There is definitely nothing better than a night out with classical music so take a friend, take your family and make a special evening of it! I hope to see you there! Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra 2013-2014 Season Just a reminder for everyone that there are no lessons this coming Monday due to the Victoria Day Holiday. I hope everyone has a great long weekend! I will be taking a nice break and going camping, hopefully it won't rain too much. Also, for the start of the long weekend, I am going to see tonight's Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra performance of the Lord of the Ring's, the Fellowship of the Ring! The Orchestra will perform the score while the movie plays - should be a great night! I hope they have popcorn...
Lesson are back to normal on Tuesday, May 21st. Many of my students have begun their preparation for my upcoming Student Recital, taking place on Saturday, June 8th at St. John's Music in Calgary.
Pieces have been chosen, notes are being learned and in a little over a week, students will have their first opportunity to perform their pieces for each other at my Saturday Master Class on May 25th. This will be a great chance for those who are a little nervous to practice their performance in front of a group of peers who are just as nervous as they are! Just as with learning an instrument, learning to perform takes practice and the more often you perform in front of people, the easier it becomes! I'm very excited to watch the transformation as these works go from being sight-read to masterfully performed in only a few weeks! I will keep continue to update as the process continues.... I have now joined LinkedIn! You can view my profile and connect with me at:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/amanda-curtis/71/1/764 Also, if you ever want to check any of my other Social Media sites, you can do so by clicking the icons at the top right hand corner of my page. Another corner of the internet covered! Hello everyone!
In my quest to conquer the internet, I have now created a new Twitter account just for Amanda's Music Lessons: @amandaslessons. I will use this account to tweet out new lesson information and announcements from my studio, as well as re-tweet any exciting news about concerts and music events around Calgary. Thanks again and see you next on LinkedIn! Amanda |