I have neglected writing much over the past year because I went back to school, and without meaning to, had to turn my attention away from blogging and toward my homework. I prefer to use this blog for learning-related issues, but I feel explaining my recent journey will set the stage for where this blog is headed.
Here is the story of how one talk, one hour long, at a hotel one day, changed the course of my life.
The hour was 8pm on July 29, 2015. As I happen to live only one hour away from where the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy holds its biennial meetings, I was fortunate to be asked to work with Becki Laurent to help run the JoyTunes booth in the exhibit hall. By chance, I ended up on my off time in a presentation by Dr. Barbara Lister-Sink entitled, “The Essentials of Healthy Biomechanics for the Pianist.” I had been experiencing some non-playing-related injuries that severely limited my ability to play the piano, so I was intrigued by the session’s description of minimizing risk of injury. I had spent the last six months to a year researching other techniques meant to reduce pain and injury, and had decided on a specific teacher I was going to contact soon about lessons. But what I learned in Dr. Lister-Sink’s presentation blew me away.
She had recently completed her doctorate just months earlier, and as part of her studies, had taken courses on anatomy, biomechanics, exercise science, and neuropedagogy, among other subjects. As one who LOVES connecting knowledge across disciplines (if you didn’t catch that already from the blog title!), I was fascinated that I had never thought to combine such deep science with the study of the piano and piano technique. I was floored to see the research that pianists are becoming injured at an alarming rate, and that that rate has not decreased in the last 30 years, despite all the technology and knowledge we have amassed. It just made so much sense that if athletes can use technology and science to hone their technique and prevent injury, musicians ought to be able to do the same. I felt stirrings in my soul that if there was anything I could do to get this knowledge out there to the rest of the world, I wanted to do it. In fact, when the presentation was over, I even left a voicemail on my husband’s phone (as he was putting our kids to bed) with the exact words, “I found out what I want to do with the rest of my life!”
After the presentation, Dr. Lister-Sink was so gracious to talk with me for a long time about my injuries and my situation. She recommended that I come down to her program at Salem College in North Carolina and study with her. The hybrid option to live anywhere and attend classes via Skype, with one trip per semester to campus, seemed like a good compromise, as I could not uproot my family. It took me a year to decide that I could make it work, but in January of 2017 I began my studies at Salem.
You might think, “Well, that doesn’t sound like it changed your life that much. You are still studying piano.” As I went through the huge stack of books I have added to my library this past year (plus a couple months), I was reminded just how interdisciplinary this program is. (I am putting this list here so I can refer those who ask me for book recommendations to this post. Note: Some of these books were my selection and not for the program.)
Books Read Since January 2017
Somatics: Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health by Thomas Hanna (founder of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training)
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, M.D.
The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge, M.D.
Neurosciences in Music Pedagogy edited by Wilfried Gruhn and Frances H. Rauscher*
What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body by Thomas Mark
Awareness Through Movement: Easy-to-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness by Moshe Feldenkrais*
Body, Breath, & Being: A New Approach to the Alexander Technique by Carolyn Nicholls*
Anatomy of the Moving Body: A Basic Course in Bones, Muscles, and Joints by Theodore Dimon, Jr.*
The Student’s Anatomy of Stretching Manual published by Barron’s*
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, M.D.
Dr. Pascarelli’s Complete Guide to Repetitive Strain Injury: What You Need to Know about RSI & Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by Emil Pascarelli, M.D.
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel*
Body Mind Mastery: Creating Success in Sport and Life by Dan Millman*
The Elements of Skill: A Conscious Approach to Learning by Theodore Dimon, Jr.*
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner*
The Element: Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson, Ph.D.
Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction by Robert A. Duke*
Tone Deaf & All Thumbs?: An Invitation to Music-Making by Frank R. Wilson*
Famous Pianists & Their Technique by Reginald R. Gerig*
The Musician’s Survival Manual: A Guide to Preventing and Treating Injuries in Instrumentalists by Richard Norris, M.D.
The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness by Gerald Klickstein
Professional Piano Teaching, Vol 1: A Comprehensive Piano Pedagogy Textbook for Teaching Elementary-Level Students by Jeanine M. Jacobson*
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life by Parker Palmer*
A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop the Mind and Body for Optimal Performance edited by Kris Kropff*
Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior by Kerry Patterson, et al.
The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage by Brene Brown, Ph.D.*
Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science by Steven Gimbel (Great Courses)
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition by Robert Greenberg, Ph.D. (Great Courses)
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin
The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success by Shawn Stevenson
How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond by John Powell
Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D.
Many articles from medical and trade journals, such as Medical Problems of Performing Artists and American Music Teacher
Various dissertations and white papers
(*Books I am still in the process of finishing.)
Needless to say, I don’t think I have ever read this much in a year, even when I was taking a full load in college. In May, I will graduate with the Graduate Certificate in Injury-Preventive Keyboard Technique. I will be sad I have finished, but so grateful for what I have gained. My final class is a pedagogy course (the method and practice of teaching) in which I will do six weeks of student teaching in a private lesson setting, giving me the opportunity to implement this technique I have learned with my students. I can successfully say my lessons with Dr. Lister-Sink have removed the pain I used to have while playing thus far. I now have a greater appreciation of the human body, and how to use it in every day activities, not just at the piano. I am humbled by the capacity of the mind and brain to direct and heal the body.
I know what I want to do with the rest of my life. This isn’t about just teaching piano--it’s about teaching biomechanics, neuroscience, educational psychology, physics, psychology, and somatics, all in relation to music...
connecting everything we learn to everything we want to learn.
Going Further with Lead Sheets - NCKP with Bradley Sowash
Another session taught by Bradley Sowash that I attended at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. This workshop was a nice follow-up to the Understanding Chord Symbols class. Once we understand and can process the language of chords and chord symbols, we can take lead sheets to a whole new level and stretch a one-page lead sheet into a full performance. Sowash used the perfectly fitting acrostic LEAD to break it down into a step-by-step process.
L - Lay it out
E - Embellish the melody
A - Add a solo
D - Dress it up
Sowash mentioned that this pattern follows some of the research in human psychology (I think he referred to it as auto form) in which we first establish a pattern and then mess with it. (Can I admit that this got me excited to study the relationship between self-determination theory and piano pedagogy? More on this later.)
L - Lay it out
Learn the melody, then decide on a style choice to go underneath the tune. It is best to know the melody inside and out before starting to add chords so you are free to focus on thinking about harmony and bass while playing, instead of thinking about how to play the melody. This step also refers to what you would do in a performance--give the audience a sense of what is coming. It’s a front door for the rest of the song.
Sowash covered a large range of style choices (from easy to advancing):
--roots only, or roots & 5s (C G C G C G etc.)
--block two-note voicing
--block triads with common inversions
--block triad rhythmic pattern (short short long)
--reverse rhythmic pattern (long short short)
--simple stride, non-alternating bass (boom chick)
--basic waltz (boom chick chick)
--broken chords in 3/4 (closed pattern - CEGCEG, closed then open - CEGCGE)
--jazz waltz (do-dah do-dah syncopation)
--Alberti bass (bottom top middle top)
--syncopated broken chords in 4/4 (123-123-12 rhythm)
--basic boogie (intervals of 5th 6th 5th 6th)
--New Age bass with RH harmony (with melody note on top)
--walking bass (scale steps: 1 3 5 6 7 6 5 3 or 1 2 3 5 will do)
These were all outlined in the workshop handout, as well as a few others. It was nice to have just one place to see them all next to each other. (I highly recommend getting Sowash’s ebook here to see these choices laid out in notation form. This book is very easy for teen and adult students to follow as well.) It was fun to hear him transform a basic tune like Happy Birthday from folk to jazz to classical just with simple style choices.
(I loved his demonstration for what to do if you get stuck in a party situation where they ask for something classical and all you can think of is non-classical tunes--just turn the style into alberti bass and it will instantly sound classical to the majority of party goers. I had heard of this trick before in other materials, but Sowash was a true master at disguising rock/pop hits with Alberti!)
E - Embellish the melody
Great ways to embellish the melody are by:
--using repeated notes
--adding neighbor notes (including mordents up or down, turns and trills)
--filling in the gap between two notes, when there is a gap bigger than an interval of a 2nd (such as playing a scale)
For neighbor notes, Sowash used the language “moving one house over and back” for explaining this concept to beginners. For filling the gap, it doesn’t have to only be the major scale notes. Chromatic and whole tone scales work well, too.
A - Add a solo
This refers to having some space to improvise in the performance. If we stick to pentatonic “safe notes” (half-steps removed), it creates a very flexible scale, where there are “no ouchies” as Sowash called them--nothing that will clash with the LH chords. This allows us to break tradition, so we don't have to feel like LH chords must contain the RH melody notes, and it opens up more chord possibilities.
Another simple option is to “hover” over the chord tones and experiment with the rhythm. If you have practiced the harmonic progression with blocked chords in both hands ahead of time, you will have the foundation and structure down, which then frees up our mind to think more about playing with the styles and rhythm, even if it’s very different from the melody.
D - Dress it up
Go back to the melody, but add a key change, a different LH, or more embellishment--essentially have an ace up your sleeve so you end in a big way. If you use all your cards up front, you won’t have anything to offer later.
If you want an easy way to modulate, Sowash discussed playing the V chord of the key you want to modulate to and it works almost every time. Dominant chords help people hear what the first note is.
Sowash went over some popular ending styles (outros, as opposed to intros): repeat the last few measures and add a ritardando, play the final chord in a couple different octaves like a concerto style, use the ever-showy Liberace-style hand-over-hand chord with the final low tonic note, add an ascending scale, or a corny ending like “shave and a haircut.” His demo mashup ending was quite impressive!
Other great articles Sowash has published that cover this topic in depth are found in the Clavier Companion magazine issues Nov/Dec 2013, March/Apr 2014, and May/June 2014. I also highly recommend the supplementary article “Unlocking the Mystery of Playing by Ear” found in the same publication, Nov/Dec 2009, or here as part of the free resources packet you can request on Sowash’s homepage.
