Piano and Music Videos

If you were a music student at one time or have a child studying music you might be familiar with the popular numerical grades for music students. In the past I’ve had parents from potential students contact me and reference the student’s grade level. What do these grade levels really mean and are they important for students and parents?

The truth is that on a whole these grades don’t really mean much. In certain contexts they can be beneficial but they aren’t some gold standard to adhere to when it comes to studying music. Grade levels can be arbitrary, they are not universal when it comes to institutions. For example, the MTAC (Music Teachers Association of California) provides grade levels for their teachers and students but these are not universal grades used by other institutions. In different countries they have different grading systems and even in different states within the USA there are different grading systems within different organizations.

So why do we even have these grading systems? They do provide a good use for competitions. Teachers are able to better place their students in competitions when they use the grading system because they will have a good idea of where they fit in and what level will give them the best chance to win. Grade levels can also help teachers identify repertoire for students quickly because they will have a good idea of their skill level when searching for a new piece. If you are part of a music teacher’s association they often publish lists of repertoire and the corresponding grade levels that go with them making the search for a new piece very easy.

Beyond grade levels, musical scores have such a deep and complex nature to them that a number can’t really justify whether it’s a good fit for a student or not. For example, have you ever heard a student play a slow Mozart movement well? It’s very unusual to have a student who can play with the poetry required to play one of these deceptively simple pieces correctly. Just because it’s easy to play the notes doesn’t make it easy to play the piece correctly. Grade levels really don’t take into account the individual characteristics of a student.

Different students excel in different skill sets and these grade levels are really only a rough guideline for a teacher to see how advanced a student is. Any good teacher will recognize the individual characteristics of their students and can probably help select a good piece for them by using both their knowledge of the student and their graded level.

This is a great topic because it applies to so many different types of music. Voice Leadings refer to how each note of a chord resolves to the next chord. This is something found in every type of music you could imagine, from jazz to classical and to the early days of choral writing. While this all might sound confusing now, voice leadings are actually a very simple subject.

If you take the notes of a scale and number them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (being the octave), which in C major would be C, D, E, F, G, A B, C, the formula is this:

– 2 goes down to 1
– 4 goes down to 3
– 6 goes down to 5 and
– 7 goes up to 8 (or down to 5 for better resolution in some cases)

This is true for both major and minor keys.

As for accidentals, raised notes go up, and lowered tones resolve down. So in C major, sharps resolve up and flats resolve down. In keys with sharps or flats, naturals may alter tones up or down depending upon context. But it works exactly the same way. So for example in F major which has a B-flat in the key signature, if you had a B natural, it would resolve up to C!

That’s basically the essence of how voices resolve! Active tones resolve to restive tones. 1, 3, 5, and 8 are the restive tones and the active tones must resolve according to the simple guidelines described above in order to sound fluid. You will find these truths evident in music of all periods to be rather pervasive.

Many people ask me, can you learn to play by ear or is it something you’re born with? I personally believe that everyone can improve their ability to play by ear. Some people just have an innate sense that allows them to play by ear without much effort, while others will have to work harder at it; the bottom line is, anyone can learn to do it.

Now there are limits to what you can achieve. If you’re tone deaf you probably won’t get to a level where you can transcribe Charlie Parker solos but you can definitely train your ear and improve.

When you think about the most impressive feats of human creation – from the great pyramids to an incredibly intricate piece of art-work – it all starts one piece at a time. Meticulously building something while often tedious – can lead to incredible results. The same principle applies when learning music and developing your skills as a musician.

Being able to play a piece of music up to speed and have it flow seamlessly and almost without effort is something you will have to build up to; this is not something that just comes naturally for most people. The best way to achieve this type of sound and skill in your playing – no matter what instrument – is to practice slowly and often with a metronome.

I’ve covered this topic when it comes specifically to piano but I thought I would create a new video and article for all instruments – as some of them present unique challenges. For example, sometimes on a wind instrument it’s not practical to practice slowly – because the breathing will be in all different places. However, when you get to a particularly fast passage it’s a good idea to slow things down, so you can get the finger movements and tonguing in-synch with one-another. If you just play fast all the time there will be a lack of precision.

I guarantee you that any great musician – no matter what instrument – has practiced slowly and continues to reinforce with slow practice throughout their musical career. It is simply something that every great musician does. They might not practice an entire piece slowly – and you don’t necessarily have to either – but you must practice faster and more difficult passage under tempo to develop security in your playing.

Now there is one huge caveat to practicing slowly: you must do it with a metronome and you must incrementally increase your speed. First of all, you will not want to increase the speed at all until you have complete control over the passage you are working on; it should come off completely smooth and almost effortlessly. Only then will you want to increase the speed on your metronome and make sure that you only move it up one notch at a time. Building speed and precision at this pace will allow you to conquer the most difficult passages with ease – they will become almost effortless when you are done with them.

If you have doubts about this method, I have an exercise for you to try. Take an old piece you have had at performance level – one you haven’t played in quite some time. You might have some trouble areas at first, and that’s fine. Take any parts where you are a bit rusty and try playing them slowly – you don’t even need the metronome for this at first. You will find that if you practice these parts slowly it’s the best way to get the piece back into a high performance level. Some key areas may require working one notch at a time increasing speed with the metronome. However, you may find instant results just from the slow practice!

Slow practice is something I recommend to all my students and it really is something you should do on any instrument. While there are some instruments where slow practice isn’t always a practical, all of them will benefit from slow practice in faster sections. If slow practice is something you haven’t tried or avoided until now I highly recommend adding it to your routine; you will love the outcome, I promise!

This is a very important topic that not only applies to school but applies to nearly every aspect of life. Learning to balance and manage your time is an absolute necessity to finding success and happiness in your life. I learned a long time ago through some personal struggles that sometimes it is necessary to give up things that are good for the pursuit of what is important. You can’t do everything.

As you get older you understand that there is a finite amount of time we all have on this earth and doing something meaningful with your life is vital. When it comes to school and planning your life at a younger age it can be difficult to determine what you really want. But if you have a general idea of where you want to go in life it can be much easier to enjoy an enriching life.

If you are in school now and you are interested in pursuing music as your main focus of study, you might not want to overload yourself with more advanced academic courses. On the surface it might seem important to have great grades in the hardest classes you can handle. But when it comes to studying music, particularly working towards a performance degree, practicing music is the most important thing in getting into a good music school. You will always need good grades but overloading yourself with advanced courses and neglecting your music studies will put you at a distinct disadvantage.

On the other hand, if you are pursuing music as a hobby and are pursuing another career, you probably should prioritize your academic studies ahead of your music practice. You can still enjoy musical activities no matter what career you choose.

You also have to look at yourself and understand the type of person you are and the personality traits you have. Do you like to be alone more and work by yourself? Maybe you enjoy scheduling yourself to the maximum diving into work and study without much social interactions. On the other hand, maybe you enjoy social activities, sports, being with family and other things that take you away from work or studying for large amounts of time. Don’t be afraid to balance your life according to your personality as opposed to forcing yourself into something you don’t enjoy. This will help you to find happiness in life.

The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself. Understand that you can’t do everything and having a focus in life is something that is very important to achieving a successful career and a happier life.

This question makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! It’s a horrifying thought to someone like me having spent my entire life listening, learning and playing classical music. So is it possible that Classical music is dead?

You could ask, is Shakespeare dead? Technically yes. Really though, the work of Shakespeare is something that has permeated throughout Western Civilization for centuries and still holds relevance in our modern society. While he might not be front and center, Shakespeare is still an icon and will be remembered and revered for centuries to come. So what does this have to do with classical music?

Like Shakespeare, most of the great classical composers lived hundreds of years ago. In recent years there have been less and less classical composers in the public eye. So what does this mean for the genre of classical music?

Technology has always dictated the advancements in culture – not just technical innovations, but structural ones as well. For example, the Sonata Allegro form is an invention that came about and was adopted by Mozart and Haydn and countless others. In their time it was a great innovation in musical form. So what would happen if Mozart was alive today? What would his form of expression be? He probably wouldn’t be writing sonatas anymore. Music and art has always been about expression and expression changes over time. So what period are we in now?

If you look at classical music and how it evolved over time throughout the nineteenth century, many of the advancements in music were enabled by the advancements in the instruments. The piano became a robust instrument capable of playing to audiences of thousands instead of the intimate settings of the previous century. Flutes were made of metal instead of wood offering a louder sound as well. In fact, all the instruments of the orchestra became more refined and bigger in volume. The orchestra itself grew substantially in numbers and variety of instruments As a result, the music got more complex and was composed on a grand scale.

Where we are today is interesting. The idea of the concert hall and the symphony orchestra is something that is still prevalent in our society which pays homage to the great composers of years past mostly. This type of performance is not going away anytime soon but there are new means of expression at their infancy. While 19th century music ushered in the modern piano (almost), the symphony orchestra and the concert hall, 20th century technology offered electrified and amplified instruments and recording technologies. The seminal album by the Beatles, Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an example of music co-written and produced not for performance, but as a recorded musical expression. With the integration of people through the internet, could we be that far from collaborative music on a global scale? Already, popular forms of music have utilized snippets of recordings of others in re-mixes. So, instead of trying to compose yet another great symphony, it is possibly more likely that the next great outpouring of creative energy will be in new forms of music we can only begin to imagine.

There will always be traditionalists – Brahms and Rachmaninoff were conservative in their times. In short, classical music is alive and well! It’s not the same as it was in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries but classical music will be here for generations to come. However, music will continue evolving by revolutionaries expanding the genre with both mixing elements of styles from around the world as well as utilizing emerging technologies in innovative ways.