Melody Music Studio

Welcome to Ten Minute Tuesday!
Keep up those piano skills this summer!
One of the best ways to continue piano practice during the summer is to have your student complete it first thing in the morning. This means that, no matter how busy a day becomes with summer fun, practice has already happened. Short, but regular practice sessions at the piano will maintain their skills, so setting up a routine where they practices right after breakfast would be a fabulous way of keeping skills sharp. Summer practice consists of letting them play any music they love, and make a few request of your own!
In addition, you may want to:
• Sit and have your morning cup of coffee while listening to them play. Students love an audience and will practice more diligently if someone is listening.
• If you will be away on vacation, see if you can find a friend or relative’s piano that can be used for a few practice sessions. If not, bring along the piano book and have them “tap practice”.
• Every time you have friends or relatives over for a summer get-together, ask them to play for them. Having a mini-performance goal is a great motivator to hop on the piano a few extra times.
• Shout it from the Kitchen!- see the attachment for great encouragement during practice, even when your in the other room!

So take 10 minutes today, enjoy a glass of lemonade, cup of coffee or bowl of ice cream and listen to your student make beautiful music!

Welcome to Ten Minute Tuesday!
It’s Here! The first full week of summer break! Enjoy it, go outside, ride bikes, take walks and enjoy some great music moments!

Each Tuesday check your inbox for a ten minute way to enjoy music with your family this summer. It is important to keep up those piano skills and be ready for September!

For students taking a summer break from piano, remember to practice one day per week. Play your current practice list, play your favorite song, and play concerts for your family on rainy days!

Summer Students; enjoy some extra music fun found here!

Extra music fun:

Older Students:
Create a summer playlist; include titles from your music that you can find on Spotify or whatever you use to create your play lists. The more music you listen to, the more it sets your brain up to play music! See if you can find any of the songs from your lesson books on your music app, see how they sound. Be listening for music everywhere this summer.

Younger students:
Tap out your songs! Open a book or use a piece of sheet music and place your hands on a table or any surface. Then tap out the song, using the correct fingers, say the notes out loud, but don’t use the piano!

WHY DOES TAP PRACTICE WORK?
1. While there is no sound involved, your students will still “hear” their piece. The human brain is a wonderful thing – and your students will be developing their ear in leaps and bounds. As they are learning to hear their piece without the ability to actually hear it
2. How do they know they made a mistake when there are no keys and no sound? They know because their ears are connected to their finger movements; and a slight miss-tap with their fingers translates to an off sound in their mind. Your brain is completely engaged during Tap Practice without the distraction of sound… and so learning happens at a faster rate.
3. The only thing they hear is tapping… and so their fluidity improves as they learn to create an even tempo and a sense of underlying beat. Hearing just the rhythm of their piece with no notes attached brings these two aspects to the forefront. When they return to the piano their muscle memory will preserve the evenness they found away from the piano.
4. Kids think Tap Practice is fun! This is one more way of making piano practice fun. Not only is it completely portable, meaning that your students can Tap Practice literally anywhere (my students Tap Practice on the back of a book in the car, on the table of a restaurant… you name it!) but it’s also enjoyable; they love the notion of playing the piano in their mind.
Give it a shot – not only have you expanded practice time opportunities by making it a moveable activity that can be done anywhere, but you have also tapped (pun intended!) into a new way of accessing the brain’s ability to learn to play the piano.
Have a great Tuesday!
Judi Kidd

Music can transform a moment, a morning, an afternoon, and evening or a night. Music Education can transform a life, for a lifetime.