Teacher Dreamaurora - Piano Q&A

[violet04]

Dreamaurora:

violet04:

[quote=\"Dreamaurora\"]I have decided to start this thread to help parents here answer burning questions about their children's piano lessons or piano pieces. Ask me anything under the sun except about choosing pianos or teacher recommendation since there are already other threads for that. I will try my best to answer the questions based on my experience as a teacher

Hi Dreamaurora,
May i know the meaning of the following comments from ABRSM Examiner. Thks

\"The fingers lacked enough support. The fingers would have benefited from more support from the weight of a relaxed arm.\"

If an examiner writes this, most likely your child's playing suffers from weak or overly soft tone, quite common among young children in lower grades. There are a few factors that may cause this, such as:
- poor hand posture and curvature, some young ones like to play with fingers almost completely flat and with dropped wrists below the keyboard.
- home piano keys too light and the exam piano heavy. Can be somewhat remedied by sufficient rehearsal at exam venue.

Do note that this is just a guess. If you can provide me with a video I would be able to advise you better.[/quote]
Hi Dreamaurora,
Thank you very much on your professional advice. My ds is 8 years old who took Grade 2 practical exam on Mar11. I believe my home piano keys too light compare with the exam piano. Will remedied by sufficient rehearsal at exam venue for the next exam. Thks.

[Dreamaurora]

violet04:

Hi Dreamaurora,
Thank you very much on your professional advice. My ds is 8 years old who took Grade 2 practical exam on Mar11. I believe my home piano keys too light compare with the exam piano. Will remedied by sufficient rehearsal at exam venue for the next exam. Thks.

For your info, you can actually request your piano tuner to add weights to your piano keys. Having a student practice on a sufficiently weighted keys will allow him/her to adapt more easily to different pianos.

[violet04]

Dreamaurora:

violet04:

Hi Dreamaurora,
Thank you very much on your professional advice. My ds is 8 years old who took Grade 2 practical exam on Mar11. I believe my home piano keys too light compare with the exam piano. Will remedied by sufficient rehearsal at exam venue for the next exam. Thks.

For your info, you can actually request your piano tuner to add weights to your piano keys. Having a student practice on a sufficiently weighted keys will allow him/her to adapt more easily to different pianos.

Hi Dreamaurora,
Thks for the info. Will contact piano tuner to check the charges.

[Sarah Tan]

Hi, may I know if you are taking new students? I’m looking for a replacement as the current piano teacher will not be teaching from March.


Please PM your location and charges. Thanks!

[Dreamaurora]

Sarah Tan:

Hi, may I know if you are taking new students? I’m looking for a replacement as the current piano teacher will not be teaching from March.


Please PM your location and charges. Thanks!

PM sent

[Abundant]

Hi,


Do you have any piano tuner to recommend ?

Thks & Rgds

[Dreamaurora]

Abundant:

Hi,


Do you have any piano tuner to recommend ?

Thks & Rgds

Sent you a PM

[metz]

Hi Dreamaurora,


I’m looking for Moonlight Sonata, First Mvmt. Do you have any books to recommend?

About Czerny Op 849 -
1. May I know which level(s) is Czerny op 849 intended for?
2. Does one have to finish all the 30 pieces before progressing on to other books?
3. Is it enough just to master the pieces at the tempo indicated in the book?
4. How would playing at a faster tempo than indicated help in piano playing?
5. Which technics book would serve well after one is done with Czerny op 849?

Thanks!

[Dreamaurora]

chamonix:

Hi Dreamaurora,


I'm looking for Moonlight Sonata, First Mvmt. Do you have any books to recommend?

About Czerny Op 849 -
1. May I know which level(s) is Czerny op 849 intended for?
2. Does one have to finish all the 30 pieces before progressing on to other books?
3. Is it enough just to master the pieces at the tempo indicated in the book?
4. How would playing at a faster tempo than indicated help in piano playing?
5. Which technics book would serve well after one is done with Czerny op 849?

Thanks!

If you are a serious learner, a good urtext edition for Beethoven Sonatas is always a good investment. The standard recommendation for this will be either the Henle Urtext or Universal Edition of Beethoven Sonatas Vol 1. Barry Cooper has also recently published a new critical edition of Beethoven Sonatas under ABRSM and these are excellent for studying as well.

For performance/student edition, you can buy the Schirmer Performance Edition of this particular sonata. It comes with fingerings and also a CD of the performance.

Czerny. Op 849 is intended for intermediate pianists around grade 4-6. The first thing to note it is very difficult to play most of Czerny exercises up to speed because of our modern piano actions. So in general slower speed for most of the exercises are acceptable for students. And be careful also that some of the indicated tempo marking is for minims, so you have to multiply them by 2 to get the actual tempo per beat. You will need some decent technique to attempt all the exercises in this book, especially some of the later ones in the book.

Playing at faster tempo than indicated would of course help in improving the dexterity of your fingers further, but take note that this should not be in the expense of clarity and quality of tone. In fact playing these exercises at slower tempo with even tones and good control is very challenging as well. I personally will not play this entire Op 849 because I am anti exercises that are not musical, and also there are many other techniques not covered by this book e.g. octaves, chord voicing, etc. Personally I feel for intermediate study Heller and Burgmuller Etudes are far superior and worthwhile learning. Consider Heller Etudes Op 45, 46, and 47 and also Burgmuller Op 100 and Op 109. They are musical and often set as exam pieces by the exam boards. Mix and match the ones you like.

[metz]

Thanks for the quick reponse!


Are these the two copies you are referring to?
http://shop.abrsm.org/pages/shop/product_detail.asp?id=2061056&?
http://www.universaledition.com/Piano-Sonatas-Volume-1-for-piano-Beethoven-Ludwig-van/sheet-music-and-more/detailview/UT50107

We have Burgmuller Op 100. However, the teacher only did a couple of pieces with my son (last few) and stopped at that. She finds Hanon boring as well, so I was surprised when she requested for Czerny Op 849. Thanks for taking the time to explain the part on tackling Czerny pieces. Yes, their teacher actually gets them to practise the pieces at a slower tempo. So, I suppose we are on the right track. My daughter has started her first piece while for my son, the teacher just picks and chooses them accordingly. It's relatively simple as she plays at a slower tempo than indicated. Guess she'll have to put in more effort and time as the difficulty level progresses.

Besides classical music, the teacher also includes Jazz pieces in their learning. Not sure where that will lead us to. My son expressed to me that his interest lies only in learning classical pieces. But he still puts in effort to master the jazz pieces. Should I accede to his request to learning classical music only in future? (Currently, my hands are tight as the teacher is rather insistent on Jazz pieces too.) What are the pros and cons of including Jazz music as part of the learning?

Btw, is it a common practice to expect students to remember every piece by heart?