(27oct 2012)
I was informed by a parent that I had high expectations of the standard of my students and her child may not be able to handle it. As a teacher, I aim to impart knowledge and skills to my students. But knowing the labourious work needed to attain a polished performance, I try to ensure that the lesson is always entertaining and encouraging. On many occasions students come to the their lessons with misread notes, wrong rhythm and lacked attention to detail such as not observing tied notes, note values, dynamics etc.. As a student, do you really want your teacher to tell you that you played well when you really played like crap? Or do you want a teacher to tell you that even though there are imperfections in your playing, you can get there eventually with some hard work? I certainly hope it is the latter that you prefer and that you will welcome suggestions to improve your performance.
Those students who plan to take a diploma must be aware that music diplomas are professional diplomas and must thus be treated in a professional manner. The examiners will not give you a pass mark if you do not have control of the instrument as well as the control of the sound that you produce. The only way to attain this is to practise the difficult passages hundreds of times (but with alertness and acute listening). Those who get impatient after only several attempts should seriously reconsider taking any future exams. The preparation must start from the very first lesson, not just a few weeks before the exam! This is what some students still think they can get away with?! Whatever preparation you did in your Grade 8 exam, you must be prepared to triple, if not quadruple your effort at diploma level.
So, having a high expectation in standard is a must if you want to pass your diploma exam. After you have completed your diploma, when you look back, you may then begin to appreciate a fraction of the reasons why a teacher has all these high expectations.
When it comes to cadences in Aural Test in the higher grades, is it enough to just tellstudents to listen to the ended and non-ended phrase? Probably not. When a phrase sounds ended there can be two possible cadence: perfect and plagal. When a phrase sounds not ended there can be two possible cadence: imperfect and interrupted. Many teachers resort to telling students that the difference between a perfect and plagal cadence is that one cadence sounds more ended than the other. The other cadence (plagal) has an 'A-men' effect. This holds true only some of the time but it does not work all the time. The 'A-men' effect only occurs when the melodic line goes from 'la' to 'so', but we all know that there are many more combinations of melodic notes possible with a plagal cadence. Hence a better way to teach student is to first and foremost, ensure that they can hear the bass notes. And then sing the bass notes. This step may sound easy, but it can take several months. Once this is mastered, one can then progress to counting the degree of the scale from the tonic note which will be sounded and named at the start of the test. This step will also take time to master as you will find that most students tend to forget the tonic note halfway through the passage.
To identify the actual chord especially for imperfect cadence is another topic altogether: e.g I-V, Ib-V, II-V, Ic-V progressions are easily identified by accurately spotting the bass notes. For IIb-V & IV-V one must listen to the major/minor/diminished chords to differentiate between the chords IIb & IV. (For those hopeless cases, you can just concentrate on the most common progressions: I-V, Ic-V and IV-V!)
Perseverance is the key to success in this test! Once these are mastered, all the other cadences can be identified easily. The most important thing is to start the training early and do it in systematic stages.
(Another useful tip: For passages which start with a major key and ends with a minor chord, the cadence is definitely Interrupted!)
Is it beneficial to start your child on music lessons at 2 years old?
These days it is not uncommon to see kids attending music lessons at 2 years old and below. 10 years ago, this was literally unheard of. Parents of these kids believe that by starting young, they will surely become more musical. However, parents must ask themselves what their kids will learn at this age. Their motor skills are just developing, as well as their linguistic skills. When the teacher says: 'play the piano', often the child does not know what 'play' in this context mean.
At this age, kids are inquisitive. Their attention span is limited, and will easily lose focus. Half of the time, teachers in these group classes spend their time in settling down the children, often using toys and other means to 'bribe' the children to keep still/quiet.
At the end of the day, even when the children could learn something constructive, their fingers are not developed enough to form a proper hand-shape, hence adopting a totally wrong technique at the onset.
Hence it is best to start your child at a later stage. At the age of 4-5, it is a better age range to start group class, although parents may still be needed in class to watch over the child.
Eventually it is still best to have individual lessons as the child can have undivided attention and lessons can be tailored according to the child's progress.
