22_Twinkle Lessons: Freedom, Individuality and Structure

Dear Parents,
The recital was really wonderful in so many ways. The children were all happy to be a part of the recital. They listened intently to the performances. The picture session at the end of the recital made all of the students feel important and nurtured. The performances are uploaded to the Core Studio Video Blog. The photos are posted on the Core Studio Photo Gallery. I hope you and the children enjoy looking at them.

I noticed this week the students were eager to play new pieces. I tried to let them play without giving them too many instructions. This can be difficult for adults to do. It's good to remember how important this is to preserving the intrinsic drive/motivation.

This preservation of the freedom of the child is a large part of the Montessori method:

"If it were necessary to compress the description of the principles of the Montessori method into a single phrase, perhaps the most comprehensive would be that it was a method based on Liberty in a prepared Environment."
from Dr. Montessori's writings

Similarly, in Suzuki lessons, the child is motivated by the "prepared environment"- (listening to the disc many hours a day, attending recitals, observing other students lessons, singing solfege, group classes, having an in tune quality instrument to play on.) The child can then freely learn to play the songs they hear. When the student is intrinsically motivated to create the sounds they hear, they will try as many times as needed to acquire the right sound, as long as there is no outside interference or instruction.

The Book 1 pieces are also an integral part of this "prepared environment". In "A Montessori Handbook" EC Orem discusses the development of the child through a multi-sensory approach with carefully structured materials in her method:

"The didactic (teaching) material, in fact, does not offer to the child the 'content' of the mind, but the Order for the "content". It causes him to distinguish identities from differences, extreme differences from fine gradations, and to classify, under conceptions of quality and of quantity...The mind has formed itself by a special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying."

This exactly describes the material in the Twinkles and Book 1 pieces. They are the raw material from which the children learn tonal patterns, harmonic patterns, phrases, rhythms, the rudimentary elements or framework in the language of music.

Individual children will use these beginning materials differently. Some students will learn the pieces in the exact order of the book, phrase by phrase with the help of their parent singing the solfege. Other children will pick out songs solely by ear near the end of the book, then come back to other pieces in a seemingly random order. It is important to allow this process to unfold naturally. It is the child's individual sensibility and motivation that we preserve this way.

The ability is then developed with the assistance of a mentor who gives the right instruction at the right time to aid in the growth of the child. The teacher is coming "behind" the student working on body balance, working on tone, making sure the basics are taken care of. It may be important for the teacher to hear the "new" piece in order that the child feels listened to, and it is a good way for the teacher to evaluate what skills are becoming part of the child's ability to play. The majority of the teachers time is spent developing ability on what the child already can do.

In terms of giving instructions to the child R.C. Orem says about Dr. Montessori's approach:
"Montessori says the teacher should "count her words," that is utilize carefully chosen words purposefully."
In her book Sensibility and Education, Dr. Kataoka says:
"The senses cannot be taught anything with verbal explanations."

The natural body balance and tactile sense is related to the sound so that the child learns through the senses. The instructions are by example, with only a few words, and are the most fundamental point at that moment to allow for maximum learning. This is very much like using composted organic soil amendments for plant health rather than trying to force growth with high nitrogen fertilizers.

It is important to make sure our instructions are really focused on THE most critical point that will enable quality, ease of learning, and skill development. Understanding and utilizing the most fundamental point in instructing students is both subtle and critically important to maximizing learning and avoiding over teaching. This Basics principle of skill development is one of the seven Core Education principles.

So, the way of knowing how to help the child is to always to start with the most basic point. Dr. Kataoka used to use the analogy of building a house to explain this to teachers -You do not want to put the walls on before the foundation of the house is strong.

Skills develop in a spiral so that we are always coming back to the most basic point-internalized sound/intention/ready. So, even at an advanced level of playing such as when a student is playing a concerto with orchestra, we are working on the bow, the ready position, the tone. Of course the balance between the orchestra and the piano, the phrasing, the concept of the whole are all necessary as well, but not possible without continuing to reinforce the most basic points. There is then this basics level of ability that must always be increasing in depth to enable the horizontal progression of advancing levels of difficulty.

Each week I will listen to your child play and will seek to find the most basic point that will produce the best result. Sometimes I will try different words to see what effect they have. I may try different ideas before I determine what is best. If you can understand how the instruction is uniquely suited to the child at that moment, you can really enable your child with the help you give them, and avoid the trap of too many instructions which make the child feel controlled.
Please use the Core Practice Assignment Sheet Books 1-2 (also under the right sidebar Practice Sheets) to help create structure in the weekly assignment. Beside each piece you can list a single focus point. As the lesson evolves you will notice there is one main focus point for the week. Please notate these few things on the assignment sheet to help you in practice. Remember it is not necessary to fix everything you see/hear that could be better. Please use the focus points from the lesson to help you from over instructing. You can mark the boxes to show how much each piece is played during the week. Naturally the child will be drawn to certain pieces at certain times. It is good to honor this, and also to make sure they are playing the pieces they already know well in order to develop their physical ability to produce good tone.
It's always a balance between freedom and structure.

all the best,
Leah Brammer

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21_Recital Preparation

Dear Parents,
The most important point to know about preparing for a performance is that it is exactly the same as every day practice! Day by day the student is building general skill as well as deepening their understanding/knowledge of the particular piece they are playing.

Before a performance the practice should have become easy. Do all of the spots many times. Practice slowly, hands separate. Practice with metronome if assigned. Memorize tempo by playing the beginning phrase/part many times. Practice the ending. Go through the same process that has been assigned in previous weeks.

At the lesson before the performance there are no "new" points. This way the piece will be internalized and feel easy without lots of things to remember.

In the few days before the recital teachers and parents can help focus attention on the sound.
For example, "Listen for the the deep and light sounds." It is good to make the instruction on listening one holistic point rather than several different points of listening to remember. When the child is able to go directly to the sound awareness they will be able to concentrate in the performance environment.

It is not useful to play the piece through at the performance tempo hands together many times. This can actually create anxiety about performing when the student makes a mistake, or the quality goes down.

It is useful to practice the performance aspects of the recital ahead: Bow, get ready, play the beginning, play the ending, bow, walk off stage. This gives the child a sense of the whole performance.

It is also good to let the child focus on their performance piece 2 or 3 days ahead of the recital, without working on the other parts of the practice (technique, new pieces, review, reading.) This will also enable them to spend more time on the piece.

This is a critical time for repeat listening of the performance piece only on low volume. This will make playing the piece very familiar and natural for the child. It gives the student freedom to create the piece as they want it to sound.

On the day before and day of the recital it is good to take care of the basics carefully-enough sleep, good food, good feelings, practice, space to relax, and enough time to get ready and drive without rushing. It takes a whole day to do the best preparation. This is an important ability to foster in the child: preparation- the process of making ready.

20_Ability Development and the Growth mindset

Here is a quote from Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test in the early 20th century:

"A few modern philosophers...assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism...With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before."

It is interesting that the Binet-Simon scale was adopted in the US and has come to represent a number which defines a persons "fixed" intelligence.

Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, has written the book mindset: The new psychology of success. She defines two types of mindsets about learning-Fixed mindset and Growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which you believe your intelligence or the "way I am" is "fixed" or not changeable, and a growth mindset is one is which you believe that you can develop talent/ability/habits with practice.

Her documented research over many years shows just how much a persons mindset affects their ultimate ability to learn. When students believe that intelligence is fixed they are set up to need to prove their intelligence, do not want understand the value of working hard, and become fearful of mistakes which would make them look dumb. Their thinking is "If you have to work at something, you must not be good at it" and "things come easily to people who are true geniuses."

One of the interesting parts of this book is the research on how much praising children about their intelligence negatively effects their performance. She says: "If success means they're smart, then failure means they're dumb...If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way their children don't have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence. "

How do we "teach" effort and determination? As I said in the last blog, infants and toddlers already have an intense amount of determination and drive. Our job is to preserve it by not praising results which focuses the child on getting praise for being smart or fast, and instead appreciate the process of repetition and effort. Dr. Dweck says:

"When we say to children, "Wow, you did that so quickly!" or "Look, you didn't make any mistakes!" what message are we sending? We are telling them that what we prize are speed and perfection. Speed and perfection are the enemy of difficult learning."

Dr. Suzuki says: "Knowledge plus 10,000 times equals ability." Malcom Gladwells book "Outliers: The story of success" second chapter is entitled "The 10,000 hour rule."
He discusses several breakthrough thinkers/performers/achievers from Mozart to Bill Gates. In each case he approximates it took them 10, 000 hours to acquire "true expertise". In Mozart's example he cites the point that his "masterworks" were composed at age 21 and later, after he had been composing full pieces for over ten years. He also points to the variable of opportunity (environment) and shows how each great achiever had the right opportunity at the right time.

Last week I attended the Piano Basics Workshop in Phoenix Arizona where I had a lesson. It must seem so odd to think after thirty years of studying and teaching Suzuki piano, I am taking a lesson on Twinkles. Yet each time there is something new to learn and improve, and I come back motivated to continue practicing and working to improve my tone.

There were several students in the workshop who are now graduated from high school and still coming to the workshops to study and perform. I believe one of them is majoring in piano, the others are not. To me this shows how wonderful the Suzuki method is! The students after all this time are still studying piano because they did not grow up only practicing for the next competition, but instead for their own learning, to participate in non-competitive graduations which are based on skill acquisition, to play together with others in a 10 piano concert, or for a Friendship concert. They have a lifelong love for music and sound they hasn't ended when they graduated from high school and listed their competitions on their college application.

A growth mindset enables a person to continue to improve even after they are already one of the "best" in their field. It sustains intrinsic motivation by keeping alive the drive to learn for self-
improvement and for a sense of contribution and purpose. This is Life Ability - the ability to live life optimally.

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