Tuesday, August 11, 2020 by Bonnie Synhorst | Uncategorized

I love to learn new things!  As some days our world outlook as looked very bleak recently, I turned a bit unsociable (I know it's probably hard to believe that I actually COULD keep more to myself) and retreated to my own pastimes.  Instead of my old standby of learning and practicing music, over the pandemic I turned to language learning and in doing so, I got to experience many of the things students experience as they embark on their journey to learn to play an instrument. Because of that realization, I know I'm far overdue in sharing my experiences and revelations and want to both do that now as well as track my thoughts for future reference.

For me, deciding to dive into language study wasn't so much out of boredom, but instead out of a need to build something and grow for something that I won't reap the benefits of until probably far into the future.  I know one day, we will be able to travel again and there are so many places I want to see in person!  I know that being able to speak fluently with the locals isn't a requirement, but I also know it will make the experience much more fulfilling.  But what language to choose?  Over the course of my schooling, I've had the privilege to learn a bit of Spanish, German, and French already so I really wanted to try something new and different.  Inspired by one of my students and hoping studying a common language that he speaks can help connect more to him, I chose Chinese.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into nor was I aware of the added benefits I would find from choosing this language.

As I jumped in, with any new venture, I was excited and progressed quickly through the beginning levels of the language apps I chose: Duolingo, Busuu, and Rosetta Stone.  One of my early observations, that learning to recognize each character along with the sounds of the words really was not unlike learning to recognize notes on a page or repeat a pattern of sounds.  My reading and understanding skills were increasing while my brain was getting a memory workout!  As the days and weeks progressed, I found the pressure of the increasing difficulty and would shy away from my practice rather than get excited for it as I once did.  I thought of my young students for whom it is just starting to get a bit challenging to either physically play the level of music they are coming to or even understanding the notes and the rhythms on the page.  

I've always said that it's a benefit that I learned some of my instruments as an older beginner because the struggle is memorable to me, but this challenge of language learning is now fresh in my mind and I am thankful to now be able to relate even better to my students.  Even though I am an adult and able to choose whether to practice my skills and/or work on improving them, I could readily see how the apps that provided incentives and reminders were the ones that I gravitated to in my learning.  I especially am still drawn to the one where I earn points and have been able to move up the leaderboard.  

Some takeaways from this process of language learning strongly parallel those young musicians encounter:

1.  Practice is of paramount importance:  If I skip a few days, I feel like a take a few steps back in my ability to recall words or recognize characters.  Daily practice is not always about progress, but about reinforcement of known material and progress can't be made without this reinforcement.

2.  Tracking is key to constancy:  I enjoy seeing my days of consistent practice and if I wasn't keeping track, I likely would be more apt to skip days.  Out of sight, out of mind really is true, and if we don't see what we haven't done, how do we know we haven't done it?  I provide a subscription to Tonara for this purpose and strongly encourage ALL students to use it and if that's not feasible, be sure to track practice AND progress via some other means.  This holds you accountable!

3. Don't forget to set goals:  I can see the milestones in each app and some of little incentives and new items that open up when you hit them.  I also like seeing my progress percentages and want to increase those numbers.  As I release studio events and incentives, please encourage and help the students to participate.  These little projects are preparing them for their future when they have big long term school or work projects.  

谢谢  Thank-you for reading my post and I hope some of you will join me in embarking on new personal goals and adventures!  Maybe those will even be musical goals, in which case I'm always happy to help!

Bonnie

Thursday, January 30, 2020 by Bonnie Synhorst | Teaching & Learning

A brief note of reflection on developing planning on organizational skills through music study.  As our deadline is approaching in less than 2 days, I’ve been observing the students who have been ready with their pieces for a month or more and comparing and contrasting those to the ones that are madly trying to both complete their learning of their pieces as well as the memorization.  

It’s always interesting to me that, although all students received their music at roughly the same time, some jumped right in and worked diligently on the assigned sections, while others  missed deadline after deadline.  I know full well that some of this has been due to circumstances beyond control, but in most cases, most of the students that are behind could have hit their goals if it weren’t for a lack of personal organization and or plain and simple procrastination.

If you know that you have a child that suffers from the latter and tends to put things off until the very last minute, I have some good news and some bad news!  The good news is, they are likely highly creative and therefore also probably quite musically inclined.  The bad news is, they (much like me) prefer to do all their work in a deadline induced panic!  I have found more often than not, this is NOT the best way to go about things in the adult world---or even in the kid world when school assignments require attention.  Because of this, I’m making it one of my personal goals to help these students use their festival preparation experience to springboard them toward the next goal (Piano Guild, Student Day, or Recital), and work on personal improvement both musically as well as life skills!  Stay tuned. . . . .

Monday, January 13, 2020 by Bonnie Synhorst | Teaching & Learning

Back in my time as a young student, I was troubled and vexed by the very idea of memorization.  This may be because I did it poorly, and I know it was partially due to multiple failures.  When I began to teach, I wanted to make sure my students (usually) never have the problems that I ran into personally when memorizing.  This post is devoted to my list thus far of how proper and solid memorization is accomplished.

1.  Don't wait until you can already play the piece well to begin memorizing.  This point is so important if you are a reader and can simply play the piece by looking at the music.  As a reader myself, I find that I can often let my mind wander (although I shouldn't) while reading and playing through pieces.  With my focus elsewhere, I can only guess that my understanding of what notes I'm playing gets passed to an area of my brain that usually deals with things I don't have to think about too hard like walkiing and breathing. Therefore, I walk away from the instrument still having no idea what I just played from a memory perspective.  

Instead, I recommend to play the piece in little sections or chunks.  Analyze (to the best of your leveled knowledge) the structure of the section and then play that part with full focus on what you are playing with the intent of removing the score.  When you know the part well enough through this focused and thinking involved playing (it may take a few tries), turn the music away and then practice going through that section several times without looking.  While doing this, it's also good practice to do one hand and then the other hand and then put them back together paying particular attention to how the parts interact with each other.

2. Structure your practice time and log it to keep yourself accountable. The part of the music that you spent your time and effort in step one will fade away quickly if you don't practice it repeatedly.  We all have pieces that we learned back in the day that we can attempt to play now, but just can't remember the whole thing.  Where did the memory go?  Well, we didn't continue to exercise those memories so they faded.  Just like the body we once had when exercising daily, if we don't keep it up, we lose it.  We can get it back, but we will have to go back to the literal and figurative gym!  

In order to solidify and strengthen memories of the section(s) you've learned, they must be repeated over a period of several days.  That's why I stress the importance of daily practice.  Maybe you've heard that you should only practice on the days you eat---while this is especially true when working on memorization. Thinking of your brain as a muscle, you need to exercise it daily.  During this practice, though, it is highly important to focus both on the recognized patterns from step 1 as well as the sounds of the patterns.  Notice I didn't say to play mindlessly and hope the fingers remember the section.  This is muscle memory only and how I'm fairly certain I memorized ALL of my pieces as a young student.  (Remember how well that worked for me. . ..ahem.  .. .yeah, it didn't!)

Be sure you have a goal for each practice session and WRITE IT DOWN, or check it off your list.  Tonara is a great tool for this as the teacher can help you set the goals and the amount of time and days, and all you have to do is follow the plan and the items check off your list.  If you are a teacher, keep a practice journal. If you have a piece you want to learn, set a goal date and then break the piece into sections to memorize with dates by which you want to accomplish the memorization. 

Young students work well with more visual representations of repetitions.  One of my favorite techniques is using objects such as little figurines or erasers and challenging the student to 'earn' an object (it comes and sits on the music holder) for each repetition they complete well.  Sometimes they will want to repeat it many times to earn all of the items!  If you are a parent encouraging this technique at home, think of all the toys they have and use those.  You could add on pieces to a Lego model, or something similar.  

3. Reward yourself (or your student or child) for their efforts  In order to associate that hard work reaps many benefits and rewards, sometimes we need to start by tricking our brain into enjoying the process.  The easiest way to do this is with rewards.  It doesn't have to be expensive or tangible, but it does have to be something that allows you to feel happy about the effort you put in.  For example, spending time and effort in cleaning the house results in a pleasant environment (for a few days or a few hours depending upon the other people that live there!).  Maybe some video game time equal to the amount of practice time the student has accomplished or a small sweet if it is something that would not be normally given.  Personally, I will take some time out to play a video game or browse on Facebook.  

4. Sleep and exercise Don't neglect the idea that the brain needs both sleep and active time to grow and develop.  Sleeping after practice allows  the brain to solidify the memories of the recent practice.  Active time creates new activity and thoughts surrounding the material.

5. LISTEN to your music  This is one that actually is not a step but can and should be used in conjunction with the practice.  If you don't know what the music is supposed to sound like, you can't play it (at least not effectively and sometimes not at all).  The brain is amazing and can fill in the blanks IF you enable it and let it!  We have so many tools to be able to access our music aurally that I did not have when I was growing up.  Use Youtube, ask Alexa, or Siri, or simply ask your teacher to play the piece for you!  

Memorization is a process and can be very rewarding as the end result will give you something that you can carry with you and produce at a moment's notice whenever the opportunity arises.  After all, don't we study music to be able to play it and share it?  Give it a try!