Music Curriculum

In our studio, we introduce music to students in the context of genre and history. Our one-on-one lessons include classical piano techniques, music theory, music history with composers' life stories, and hands-on activities/games. If students are interested, contemporary pieces can be included to enrich their experience and broaden their view.

Our approach is quite different from the traditional way of learning piano: heavy emphasis on classical techniques only. Our goal is to help students truly own the skill. This way, they are able to understand and enjoy music in a deeper level.

For the classical piano technique, books from different publishers are used to help students with different learning styles.

An overview of the curriculum:

Now let's take a closer look:

Starting from the upper right corner in the above picture are books for the beginners, usually kindergarten-1st grade.

Prep Courses
Publishers: Alfred and Bastien


Beginner level and up:
Alfred (level 1A-3A shown here)

John Thompson (level 1-3 shown here)

In addition to songs, here are drill books for techniques.
The following are a collection of all levels.



Collections by composer-
There are many more.
The following are just some examples.



Besides classical pieces, sometimes we include contemporary pieces such as movie themes and musical numbers for fun! This enriches students' music experience, too.


Let's continue with classical selections as we move up the level of difficulty:
Burgmuller's collection

Photo Courtesy: Amazon.com (click to order)

Sonatina by a variety of composers:
ĵ
Photo courtesy: Amazon.com (click to order)


Sonata

Photo courtesy:Amazon.com(click to order)

Concert piano pieces by composers



If you are not sure what level your child/yourself is at, check the following link. It includes information from several of the most well-known organizations in music certification:
http://www.classicalmusicdb.com/levels
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For more information, call/text 
Ms. Helen @ 408-667-2907 
or
email: AtropolisMusicNArt@gmail.com

Learning Styles

Before we talk about the curriculum used in this studio, let's talk about learning styles first.

It's obvious that people are born with different temperament and personality types. This affects our learning styles. In our studio, we believe that good teachers should be able to recognize students' learning styles to make sure learning is fun and effective.

The common learning styles are:

Auditory learners-people who learn the best by listening/sound

Visual learners-people who learn the best by seeing pictures, shapes, colors, or things written on paper, a whiteboard, etc.

Kinesthetic learners: people learn through physical experience. They have to touch or feel things, or even move around to have what they are learning registered in their mind.

Social learners: people who learn best from interaction with others. If you or your child understand a new concept the fastest by talking to the teacher or discussion with other fellow students, this is your major learning style.

Now this is just a rough classification. Of course there are many who learn best with two styles together, sometime one style being the dominant and the other style is just helping.

For example, colorful images seem to be the best way to get William's attention. He also likes to use blocks to learn math and drum pads/drum sticks to learn rhythm. But if you just explain a new concept to him by words, he gets lost easily. During classroom discussion, he would rather look at the raindrops and falling leaves outside the window. Guess what might be William's learning style(s)? Visual and kinesthetic. This is very common in boys.

Here is another example. Katie likes to talk. In her 4th grade classroom, she tends to engage the teacher or classmates in discussions. She understands and remembers what she learns better if she can talk about it. But sometimes the teacher would mistaken her desire to talk as interrupting the teaching. Obviously Katie is a social learner. And her teacher is probably a different type.

As we grow our brain matures and develops. We grow to become more adaptable to learning styles that we don't prefer. 

A knowledgeable teacher should be aware of his/her own learning style since this affects the teaching style tremendously. This awareness allows the teacher to go beyond his/her own natural inclination to help the students learn in effective ways. This can eliminate frustration and make the whole experience more fun.

After reading this post, we are ready to talk about our curriculum.
Coming soon, so stay tuned! ;-)

The Answer is...

Mozart's Symphony#40 in G minor.

Conducted by Bernstein. 

This is one of my favorite symphonies.

Before I answer the question from the last post:
"How many songs are there in the clip?"
Let me share just a bit about the structure of symphonies.
Symphonies are just a form of music.

According to dictionary.com, a symphony is  "an elaborate instrumental composition in three or more movements,similar in form to a sonata but written for an orchestra and usually of far grander proportions and more varied elements."
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/symphony

There are usually 3 or 4 movements in a symphony.
Each movement is one complete piece of music.
As you probably already know, classical music is the old time "pop music" among the royal families in Europe hundreds of years ago.

OK. Now, answer for the question in the last post.

0:00 It began with the theme of the 1st movement of Mozart's Symphony #40.

0:10 The pianist started to sneak in the theme of 007.  It caught the violinist by surprise(he paused a bit).

0:13 The ever-faithful violinist tried hard to take the pianist back to the Mozart theme.

0:19 But the pianist was too excited about 007 theme, it over-powered the violin.

0:29 The violinist tried again to get the duel back on the right track(Mozart).

0:39 The pianist was too persistent.  The violinist totally forgot about Mozart. He started playing 007, too!

...This tug-of-war continued, until...

1:02 The violinist was totally confused.  He started playing the theme of the old movie: "Love Story".  (One of the main character had cancer, remember?)

My favorite part is when the pianist played 007 on the left hand, while playing Mozart on the right-at the same time!! 

1:13 Mr. Bond appears again.

1:21 Mozart struggled to take the stage.

1:22 The End.

Isn't this fun? 
Part of music training is to train the ear. This is a nice practice.
See if you could hear what I wrote above.
If not, don't stress about it. 
Just read my blog and follow my listening guide, it'll come to you over time.

Most important of all, enjoy it!

Classical Music and Humor

Joo and Igudesman, a violin-piano duet, are famous for their skills in classical training and elements of humor in the performance.

Listen to this one, and see how many songs they put into it.

"Mozart Bond".

The answer will be posted at the end of this week. Have fun!

Being a Conqueror

I talked about the cognitive benefits of learning music instruments in the last post. Other great things about learning music are: helping you relax, enjoying the trill of being able to play your favorite music pieces, and making friends with music/jamming with like-minded musicians..., you know, all that jazz.

In this post I want to speak from my personal experience with children.  To me, one of the best thing about learning an instrument is to build up a "can-do attitude" and a habit of overcoming challenges.

Please allow me to explain.
I read this from books and heard from successful people I know:

First of all, successful people, such as entrepreneurs, artists, etc, worked their way to success for their passion, instead of laboring only for fame and money.

Second, they have an interesting attitude when they face challenges and difficult situations:
They feel excited about having the opportunity to overcome a challenge, instead of feeling intimidated or frustrated.  (Isn't this something?) In fact, they live for the thrill of conquering obstacles and finishing missions impossible. Challenges make life fun.

Wait a sec, what do these have to do with learning music?
A whole lot.

A child usually takes weekly lessons while learning to play an instrument. Every week the teacher would give the student one or more songs to practice.  It takes one to several weeks to learn a song and be able to play it in a presentable way.  Then the student is rewarded by compliments from the teacher and parents, and some new songs.  And the saga continues.

Over the years, the student not only progresses in his/her skill and knowledge, they also develops a habit of having new challenges and goals (new songs) and overcoming them on a regular basis.  The student would know, consciously or subconsciously, he/she can overcome challenges. And challenges can be fun! To me, as a teacher and a parent, this mentality is invaluable. It is even more important than being able to play the instrument!

Take a look at the Herbaceous Peony from my back yard.

Let the brain scan speak

Why learn music?

To be specific, why learn a music instrument?

A common thought is that learning music instrument makes a child "smarter".  Well, is it true?  Or is it a myth, or simply wishful thinking?

As former science researcher, a music teacher and a mother of three children, I want solid evidence.  Let's look at the results of a few recent clinical research.

The following articles from the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry support the hypothesis that music training does help improve brain functions and development/maturation in children and youth.

http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(14)00613-3/abstract
http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(14)00578-4/abstract


How about older people like us? Other studies show that people who play music instrument(s) throughout the whole life preserve more brain functions as they get older.  Isn't this good news?!

Here is a reference of a clinical study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21463047?dopt=Abstract

So, learning music is a good thing for the brain. Even the brain scans can prove that!

Learning Art and Music

I often hear people say something like this,
"I'll learn how to paint after I retire."

Or "I'll learn to play ____(any instrument, you fill in the blank) when I have time."

Well, the problem is , you'll never have time for something unless you begin to make time.

So why not now?

I began to paint in oil when my children were still young.  I was struggling to have personal time just so I can keep my sanity(direct quote from my 2nd son).  Learning to paint in oil changed the way I look at everything.  Before I started to paint it felt like I was seeing through lenses that made everything dull.  As I paint more and more, I began to see the world in technicolor.  Even the path of my daily walk in the neighborhood was adorned with splashes of colors that I somehow never noticed before.

The Good News is: the nature paints a whole different color scheme every season, and it's free for everybody!