Month: February 2014

Practice is always a contentious issue with students and teachers, and I’m sure that most students feel like their teachers are never satisfied with the amount of practice they have done.  In fact, you don’t have to do lots of practice if you learn to work efficiently: listen carefully, analyse, and correct mistakes as soon as they are noted.  

The question is: How do we know if we are practising efficiently?

Endless mindless repetition is not the key!  Each time we approach practice we should reflect on the last time we looked at this piece.  If it’s new, one might need to consider the basic nuts and bolts of the music – the notes and rhythm.  Going through both carefully and slowly until we are certain they are accurate gives a solid foundation to build upon.  Learning a thing correctly the first time saves a lot of difficulty.  It is far harder to ‘unlearn’ a thing and then relearn it, than to learn it correctly the first time! 

If the piece is a song (as the case with my own students) I expect them to look at the words, read the poem, think about the phrasing, and the meaning.  If it’s in a foreign language they should find a translation immediately – one should never sing a piece if you don’t know what it means!  

Once the piece is more familiar there will doubtless be areas of weakness which have been worked upon in a lesson.  Think about any markings which were made in the score, and make sure any small inaccuracies in notes and rhythm are correct EVERY time you sing that passage.  If one small passage is repeatedly wrong, take it slowly and stop as soon as you make a mistake.  Work on the two or three notes surrounding the difficult bit.  Sing it through SEVERAL times in succession.  If it’s still wrong, go back and do it again.  Until it is right.  Several times in succession.  Then put the phrase in context with the bit directly before and after it.  If it’s still not right, go back again!  

You should also consider the technique ideas which were mentioned or worked on in the lesson.  Why were you doing those exercises, and how did they help?  Try doing them again, and applying them to the piece you are working on. If you don’t understand why you’re doing a particular exercise in a lesson, then ask your teacher so that they can clarify!

If one thing isn’t going well today, leave it and choose something else to work on.  This doesn’t mean you should give up immediately, but if you’re becoming demoralised and stressed then you will not be in the best mental place to work effectively.  If necessary, go away and do something completely different for a while, and come back to the music later.  It’s much better to do this than build up frustration and negativity.

If you don’t have much time to practice in one go, that’s fine.  Break it up into smaller amounts of time, but use each session to focus on one particular technique idea, or one section of the piece.  That way you will be more focused on something specific, will feel more motivated, and get more done.  In fact, I really advocate practising for no longer than 20 minutes at a time.  Short bursts of practice makes it much easier to concentrate as you know that you won’t be there for hours ‘until you get it right’.

Finally, finish your practice session by playing or singing the piece all the way through.  Listen to your performance and assess what has improved, and what still needs work.  Make a note on your music or in a notepad, so that you can get straight back to it when you next have time to work on the music.  If you do this, you will know if you are practising efficiently.  You will be able to recognise what you have achieved, as well as areas which still need work.  You will also be able to start your next lesson well, as you will be in a position to discuss concerns or areas of difficulty with your teacher clearly and accurately, so that they can help you.

Most people practice until they get something right.  The best type of practice is to work at something until it never goes wrong.  It is only this second method of practice which will guarantee the secure technical grounding necessary to really let go in performance and produce the very best levels of musicianship. 

One of the hardest things to teach my pupils has always been sight singing.  Many teachers avoid the issue completely and hope that somehow their students will miraculously work out HOW to sight read by osmosis, or a process of lucky guess work.  As someone who ‘learned’ this way I know it to be deeply unsatisfactory, and I was left after years of lessons with a deep seated insecurity about my ability to sight sing, especially when under pressure in audition or examination situations.  Given that the suggestion to practice sight singing in lessons is often greeted by as much enthusiasm by teacher as pupil, it is hardly surprising that this tendency to hope for the best rather than work out a practical method to help is the norm for most vocal teachers I have met.

There are lots of ‘methods’ out there which claim to make sight singing fun, relevant and easy, and I have tried many out over the past ten years.  Whilst many offer insights into ways which might help certain students, or deal with specific difficulties with useful tips, most are difficult to grasp, and leave students almost as confused as the ‘keep-your-fingers-crossed-and-pray’ approach.  Not one of them could be honestly described as ‘fun’!

My favourite example of this which I encountered in my early searches encouraged students to memorise a well known melody or song which started with each possible musical interval you may come across in a song (e.g.. a major 3rd would be known by ‘While Shepherds watched their flocks by night’, or a perfect 5th by ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star’).  The idea was that when presented with an unfamiliar tune, one could access each interval by thinking of the relevant song, and humming the first two notes.  Fine, for the first two notes of the unfamiliar piece (ok, C to G, that’s a perfect 5th… ‘twinkle, twinkle’…. but then you have to think of the next interval, and the next, and this is taking into NO account any rhythm, or tempo marking, or allowing you to keep a sense of ‘home key’.  Go on, I urge you to try this with a random piece of music you have to hand….bet you don’t get further than about 3 notes in, before collapsing in a heap and requiring a cup of tea!)

In my search for a better solution to this perennial problem, spurred on by a frustration that my own pupils usually gained brilliant marks in pieces and aural tests in examinations, and yet were frequently let down by a disappointing sight singing mark, I rather rashly volunteered to start a ‘sight singing club’ at school.  This idea was met by enthusiasm by all the other singing staff, and many of my other colleagues, who felt that this could help instrumentalists cope better with the sight singing sections of the aural tests in examinations, as well as develop a better ‘inner ear’ and overall musicianship.  Fantastic.  Now all I had to do was find a way of teaching sight singing to groups of students of different ages and abilities…  

As with all such problems in life, my first response was to read some books on the subject.  I took home all the dusty sight singing method books from school, read some stuff on the internet and browsed the shelves of Blackwells Music shop for inspiration. It was here that I found a book written on the Kodály method, and whilst a somewhat weighty tome, I had heard good things about the system from other musicians, and was interested to know more about its application.

Kodály was a Hungarian composer, who fed up with his fellow musicians’ inability to cope with basic sight singing and sight reading tasks developed a pedagogy to improve musicianship, the inner ear, and sight reading stemming from the root of his Nation’s Folk heritage.  After years of research and thought, Kodály approached his government who allowed him to operate his new system in one school as a trial.  Alongside language, science and maths, music was given equal precedence in the timetable.  Results in all subjects improved dramatically, and the standard of musicianship was markedly better.  Kodály was allowed to implement his system in more Hungarian schools, and again both academic and musical results improved hugely across the board (see, Mr. Gove – another reason why musical education is SO vital!)  With such a record of success, Kodály managed to get the Hungarian government to implement his system of musical education across the whole country.  Whilst not every Hungarian would consider themselves a musician, nearly every citizen today can sight sing a melody presented to them.  

I decided that this might be the solution to the problem (how amazing if every student of mine could sight sing any melody they were given!), and instantly set about reading more, teaching myself some basics, and acquiring some teaching aids for use with the sight singing club and my pupils in lessons.

The system is based on the solfege scale, which allows recognition of the separate intervals which form a scale (and is thus transferable into any key).  It takes a little while to establish, but once firmly fixed in the brain gives the singer ‘memory hooks’ to be able to work out the intervals in a piece without constantly referring to any other interval than the tonic.  As a teaching tool it relies on kinesthetic learning, as well as aural and visual cues, and is therefore accessible to most students.

It’s true that in Hungary (and in fact across the world where this system is now implemented) most pupils start to ‘study’ almost from birth, and therefore each interval can be introduced slowly and fully embedded over a period of months before adding the next idea.  I don’t usually have that luxury, and my students are generally of an age where repeating one interval for longer than about 2 minutes leaves them bored and frustrated.  

The sight singing club has grown from a very small membership to a much bigger group in recent months.  Some come for just a few weeks in preparation for the examination, and in these cases, instilling Kodály’s sol-fa technique often takes too long.  However, the basic principles can be applied by anyone, and nearly always make a significant difference to the pupils’ ability to read rhythm fluently, and pitch intervals with more accuracy.  Some girls have found it so useful that they have started coming to the club ‘for fun’ so that they can improve their confidence over a longer period of time, and it is these girls that will feel the greatest benefit.  

It is so exciting to see a student who is unable to read basic rhythms, and tackle a simple scale-based exercise after a minute of prior study transform into someone able to read dotted rhythms and pitch intervals of up to a fifth with no preparation time in the space of a few minutes.  Often this initial transformation occurs within one or two lessons or sessions in the sight singing club!  Whilst the system needs perseverance to become completely useful at all levels of sight singing (and this commitment is not often forthcoming in younger students) it is lovely to see so many of the girls approach sight singing tests with a higher degree of confidence in their ability to make a reasonable attempt at the task ahead, and a smile on their face!

I don’t claim that any system is a substitute for practice (or perfect pitch!), but it seems to me that Kodály certainly seemed to know something about teaching.  I will continue to learn more about the method, and am seriously considering investing on going on one of the Kodály Academy’s intensive training courses. In the meantime I look forward to seeing many more girls in the sight singing club over the coming months. 

The British Kodály Acadamy (www.britishkodalyacademy.org) has more information if you want to read more about Kodály or the method!

Teaching a number of my students this week has led me to reflect on perfectionism.  Whilst in many ways a desire to achieve the highest possible standards is a welcome and positive character trait in students, there are some ways in which an inability to accept that mistakes and flaws are part of the learning and creative process can really hinder progress.

Working in a high achieving school is in most ways a joy.  My students are polite, motivated, supported by parental interest and instilled with a recognition that education is a good thing.  However, when this desire to ‘do well’ tips over into despondency when students perceive that they are not ‘achieving’ as well as their peers, or even as well as they can as an individual, a perfectionist character can really suffer.

Today I taught L, a young singer who shows huge amounts of promise in her singing, and has already achieved a high level of technical control for someone her age.  Last week, I gave her a new piece to look at, and she arrived at the lesson having got to grips with the basic notes and rhythm.  Before she even sang it through she apologised that it ‘wouldn’t be very good!’  L proceeded to sing the song with a good legato line, mostly open vowel shapes, and a lovely open tone, with only a few slips on the very highest notes, and some breath control problems in the longest phrases.  “See” she announced as the last notes of the accompaniment died away, “That was rubbish”.  

Rather than allowing this negative line of thought to continue, I asked L to think of three things she had done well in her performance, before she was allowed to mention anything else that she felt was ‘rubbish’.  When she thought about it, there were several things she was able to mention (although a few criticisms did slip in too!).  Once she had analysed her performance with a more friendly pair of ears (I call this the ‘audience perspective’: no-one ever goes to a concert hoping to hear a bad performance, and therefore your average audience is far more likely to focus on the positive aspects of anyone’s performance than the mistakes), I allowed her to focus on one or two things to work on, so that she was happier with her performance the next time through (the ‘examiner/adjudicator perspective’: one who listens for points to improve, as well as praise).  These problem areas then became the focus for the rest of the lesson.  At the end of our time she sang through the piece again, and we went through the same process.  L was able to hear that some things had improved whilst others still needed work – and of course those are the things that she will be practising this week!

Of course, in order to become a better musician it is important to develop critical awareness and the ability to step back from your performance and look for areas which need improvement.  It is these skills which form the basis for practice, and help us to make changes necessary to improve. However, this criticism must be tempered with an ability to recognise what is good in our performing, so that we are able to keep doing those things well, whilst making changes to other areas of our playing or singing.  A student who is too critical of their performance can be just as destructive as one who cannot hear anything which needs improving.  The creative arts can be punishing if you only see and hear the negative side of things, and a lack of positivity can crush one’s enjoyment and love of the activity completely.  

A ‘perfect’ performance is nigh impossible to achieve; even the greatest performers and musicians say that the number of these truly ‘perfect’ performances can be counted on the fingers of one hand in a lifetime (and even then don’t always coincide with an actual public performance!)  Evidently, those students looking for perfection so early in their musical development are going to have a very hard time of it…  

So to L, and all students who give yourselves too hard a time: remember that is is natural and healthy to make mistakes on the road to making your performances the best they can be.  Allow yourselves to make errors.  Hear them.  Try not to repeat them. Finally, forgive yourself when you do, pick yourself back up again, and keep trying!  Be a little more gentle on yourself, for in life there will always be other people who will gladly offer you criticism – even if and when you don’t ask for it.