Posted on Thu, Jul 29, 2010 @ 10:00 AM
Are you getting ready to take piano lessons? If so, you've made the right choice; you can't go wrong with the piano. However, to make progress between lessons, you'll need to be able to practice the instrument on a regular basis, whether you own or rent one. When it comes to keyboard instruments, you have three basic options: the traditional acoustic piano (and grand piano); the digital piano (Clavinova); and the electronic keyboard.
Acoustic piano: The most appropriate instrument for piano instruction is the traditional acoustic piano. They are available in two different basic shapes and varieties: the upright piano and the grand piano. No other keyboard instrument quite approaches the touch of the acoustic piano keys as they move the hammers to hit the strings; and nothing quite produces the nuances in sound created by the mechanisms and materials (different kinds of wood, metal, and leather) of the traditional acoustic piano. If budget is a concern for you, please note that you now have the opportunity to rent a brand-new upright piano at very low cost.
Clavinova: The closest approximation of the sound and feel of an acoustic piano is Yamaha's Clavinova, the most impressive
representative of the digital piano, which is used at many universities and colleges around the world as a respected substitute for pianos and grand pianos.
Advantages:
- Fully weighted keys (feels like, and sounds like, acoustic piano)
- Many Clavinovas have built-in computers with play-back capacity and internet connection to access a vast library of downloadable songs and educational software.
- Does not require tunings!
- Easier on the budget than traditional pianos.
Electronic keyboard: For students specializing in non-classical performance (rock bands, pop, etc.), the electronic keyboard is the instrument of choice. However, with certain limitations, the
electronic keyboard can also serve as a temporary, low-cost substitute for an acoustic piano or Clavinova. Electronic keyboards come in two different varieties--touch sensitive and non-touch-sensitive.
Advantages:
- Low-cost: Non-touch-sensitive models can be purchased for well under $100. But note that in most cases, adapter, stand, and other accessories must be purchased separately.
- Portable: Insert batteries, put it in your keyboard gig bag, and play it anywhere--much like the guitar.
- Does not require tunings.
Disadvantages and Limitations:
- Touch: Piano beginners wishing to start on the electronic keyboard should use a touch-sensitive model, which resembles the acoustic piano in that dynamic levels (loudness and softness) vary according to how the keys are struck by the fingers.
- Unweighted keys: Though the electronic keyboard can serve as an entry-level instrument, teaching beginners the very basics of keyboard playing (i.e., where the notes are located on the keyboard, etc.), the non-weighted keys of most models can be detrimental to the student if used for extended periods of time. Our recommendation is not to use the electronic keyboard for more than the first year of training. If playing the piano is the overall goal--and this applies to the vast majority of all keyboard students--the muscles of the fingers and arms should be trained properly as early as possible. Otherwise the transition from the light touch of the electronic keyboard ("computer keyboard") to the much heavier feel of the acoustic piano ("traditional typewriter") can be quite difficult to negotiate down the road.
- Dynamic range: Electronic keyboards tend to have a limited dynamic range, which many young students are not too excited about. Let's face it: youngsters like to be loud at times, and if they can't be thunderous and impressive on the electronic keyboard, they will likely lose interest in it!
If you have any questions about these options, give us a call at (908) 782-4943, and we'll be happy to help.
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Posted on Sun, Jul 25, 2010 @ 06:00 AM
By Kindermusik Educator Michele Collins 
It has been many years since I sat in a college classroom, listening to lectures, highlighting textbooks and learning new concepts. With Kindermusik classes on summer hiatus, it seemed a good time to dust off the cobwebs in my brain and broaden my musical horizons. Having sung in choirs since middle school, I’ve always wanted to try conducting. Easy enough, right? Wave your hands around, smile at the singers and tell them when to start and stop. Nope. Not easy at all.
I enrolled in a week-long "Beginning Choral Conducting” class at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. I knew I was in trouble when the professors informed us that “there are no bad choirs – only bad conductors.” All my pre-conceived notions were dashed as I learned to keep time with my hand, listen attentively to my singers and let them know with every subtle movement of my face and body what sounds they should be making. We were asked to sit on large rubber exercise balls while practicing, in order to perfect our sense of balance. We learned that if the body is not properly aligned, the signals to the choir will not be clear. I must say, a room full of adults on big bouncy balls was something to see! Try as I might, it was nearly impossible to listen, to balance, to align my body and to conduct, all at the same time. On a brighter “note” (no pun intended), our practice sessions were pure joy. We spent hours singing beautiful melodies so our classmates could hone their conducting skills and we could learn from the professor’s critiques. We started each day singing vocal warm-ups with an expert choral conductor who taught us how to breathe better, move more and sing with tones that go straight to heaven. She demonstrated how a conductor’s deliberate direction could change the quality of a choir’s sound. Apparently, raising one’s eyebrows makes a choir’s pitch go higher. Who knew? It was great fun to sing with a group who could pick up a melody after one hearing and turn it into a beautiful round. It was like singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
So now it’s back to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for real. I look forward to seeing my young Kindermusik students in September with their lovely, natural voices and their innate ability to move, and dance and learn. Even though I am back from college, Ms. Michele’s musical education continues…
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Posted on Wed, Jul 21, 2010 @ 06:41 PM
This past week, we hosted our long-awaited Pop/Rock Band Camp, and we're happy to say that it was a great success for all involved. A total of 20 students participated this year, and they formed 4 different bands.
Grouping the students into separate bands can be tricky; they come to the event with different skill levels on their instrument and different musical expertise, some having played longer and advanced further than others. Musical tastes can also vary greatly among teenagers. While some may like classic Rock, others prefer Pop or Metal. But we always try to offer something for everyone!
It takes some really experienced instructors to make such a band camp work and get these students ready for a public performance within the span of only a week! We are fortunate to have guitar teacher and professional songwriter Jen Ketrow as well as Robin Stone, a long-standing Rock Band instructor, on our faculty. Working with two different bands each, Robin and Jen made it possible for these students to have a very exciting rock band experience.
For the duration of the week, each band was assigned its own room at our spacious Flemington facility, rehearsing daily for three hours. The bands were quite different in terms of the songs they chose, and two of them even composed their own music!
The crowning conclusion of our Pop/Rock Band Camp was the Battle of the (four) HAA Bands: "Rated Rock," "Fire in Ice," "Dark Energy," and "Different Pages."
This concert, which was open to the public, took place on Friday, July 16 at Camp Carr in Clinton, NJ. Below are some video and sound samples from the concert. Enjoy!
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Posted on Sun, Jul 18, 2010 @ 05:49 AM
If you are a beginner looking for a great instrument to start music lessons, we believe that the keyboard/piano is your perfect choice:
- The keyboard/piano is easy to start, and you are likely to achieve some nice results quickly. You don't have to worry about a multitude of challenges that players of wind and stringed instruments need to tackle from the very beginning, including proper intonation; tone production; tuning of your instrument before every practice session; and in the case of wind instruments, developing facial muscles that are very hard to control.
- Playing the piano provides a solid musical foundation that will give you an understanding of the linear/melodic as well as vertical/harmonic elements of music. It will teach your ears and fingers the intricacies of polyphony and counterpoint--the simultaneous interaction between multiple independent melodies.
- The piano is an extremely versatile instrument with a huge dynamic range, allowing you to play solo on a concert stage, accompany a singer or instrumentalist, perform in a Rock Band, or join a classical chamber music ensemble.
- On the keyboard, music theory comes to life, and actually becomes enjoyable! If you have been struggling with music theory in school, keyboard studies, as an added benefit, will greatly help you improve your theory skills (and grades!). Take the mystery out of scales, parallel keys, cadences, chord inversions, etc. All these concepts become much clearer when playing the keyboard.
- Once you are proficient on the piano, your musical knowledge will give you a head start on learning any other instrument, should you decide to switch.
For all these reasons, piano lessons are the backbone of music education. Hunterdon Academy of the Arts employs a faculty of currently 12 professional piano instructors, who teach in state-of-the-art facilities. Request a Complimentary Piano Lesson!
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Posted on Fri, Jul 16, 2010 @ 06:41 AM
In March, five-year-old William Manno, violin and piano student at Hunterdon Academy of the Arts, entered the 2010 VOICES Music Composition Contest for Children, at the recommendation of his violin teacher, Dr. Russell Hoffman.
The annual VOICES Competition, which is intended for children ages 5 to 12, requires participants to submit an original composition of music with a vocal component. The song may be written in traditional or child-invented notation. Contestants are asked to mail in their song along with a cassette or CD recording of it.
William had observed his father compose music since birth and actually co-wrote a piece with him entitled "Body Song" to teach little children about the organs of the human body. For the VOICES Competition, William decided to work on his own song about a topic he loves: the planets. He asked his dad how he should start, and dad recommended he write some rhyming sentences stating facts about the planets. Knowing quite a bit about the planets and wanting to be thorough, William came up with 3 pages of facts, which he and dad edited down to a page.
William then sat at the piano and plunked out notes to go along with his words, writing the note names, in letter form, above each text syllable. Taa-daa! William said when his Planet Song was complete, and sang it for his mom and dad. His parents were thrilled and dad helped William write down his work in traditional music notation.
At the VOICES Competition, the judges selected William's Planet Song as an outstanding piece. It was performed at the organization's recital in early April, where William and other honored students received awards for their efforts.
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Posted on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 05:00 PM
Hunterdon Academy of the Arts is excited to welcome Erin Chassey as the new conductor of our Training and Advanced Choirs. Ms. Chassey is succeeding Kimberly Hill, who is leaving us this summer to take up a full-time teaching position out of state.
Known to many students and parents in our community, Ms. Chassey has established herself as a masterful conductor of children's choirs through her outstanding work in the Clinton Township School District. Ms. Chassey, who holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Education from Westminster Choir College, previously taught at the Florence Township School District, serving as general and vocal music teacher.
Ms. Chassey is a specialist of the Orff and Kodaly methods of teaching music, which she uses with amazing results. Singing, dancing, playing, and improvising, her students develop a love for music and the process of learning it, as Ms. Chassey's impressive Clinton performances have shown.
To allow Ms. Chassey to bring the full range of her expertise and teaching talents to Hunterdon Academy of the Arts, we have redefined our traditional "Advanced Choir" to include an instrumental Orff component. Starting September, the reconfigured "Advanced Choir and Orff Ensemble" will perform in a dual capacity, as a vocal ensemble as well as an instrumental ensemble playing a wide range of HAA's Orff instruments (Xylophones, Metallophones, Glockenspiels, and other small percussion). Imagine how much fun this is going to be!
The new Advanced Choir and Orff Ensemble is open to all students in grades 4 to 6. No audition is required. Call 908-782-4943 to enroll today!
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Posted on Tue, Jun 29, 2010 @ 06:20 AM
We've been waiting for it all year, and finally it's here: summer vacation is a wonderful time to relax, get a break from the daily grind, and visit beautiful and interesting places near and far. It's healthy for us, physically and emotionally, to take time out and replenish our energies!
However, you may want to think twice before taking the entire summer off. Unfortunately, the flip side of long vacations is learning loss, which is a serious problem among school children nationwide. A quick search on the internet pulls up the following definition of the term: "Summer learning loss is the loss in academic skills and knowledge over the course of summer vacation. The loss in learning varies across grade level, subject matter, and family income. A common finding across numerous studies is that on average, students score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer than they do at the beginning of summer (on the same test). Summer loss for all students is estimated to be equal to about 1 month (Cooper 1996), but this varies across subject matter:
Mathematics - 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency loss
Reading- Varies across SES. Low income students generally lose about 2 months of reading achievement. Middle income students experience slight gains in reading performances" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss)
Furthermore, according to the same article: "Two-thirds of the academic achievement gap in reading and language found among high school students has been explained through the learning loss that occurs during the summer months of the primary school years."
This is rather alarming. But parents aware of this problem are in a position to minimize or avoid the problem altogether by making sure that educational activities will not completely disappear from their children's summer schedules.
Summer learning loss is also a big problem for many music lesson students. At Hunterdon Academy of the Arts, we have seen in past years how students taking the entire summer off had a hard time in their September lessons, due to serious summer learning loss. Some of the young beginners come back in fall, not remembering where the notes are on the keyboard or fingerboard. In some cases, teachers spend up to a month to help students restore the knowledge and skills they had acquired by the end of the past spring semester. On occasion, the experience has been so frustrating to the student that he or she decided to drop out of the program--the ultimate sacrifice of summer learning loss. Financially, too, summer learning loss is a burden because in order to recover lost knowledge and skills, students are paying for essentially the same education twice.
What to Do About It?
At Hunterdon Academy of the Arts, we offer ongoing summer lessons to help students avoid learning loss, and indeed progress even further over the summer months. At the same time, we recognize the need to take summer breaks. To reconcile the two, we prorate tuition for up to two summer lessons, so that you can enjoy your well-deserved, relaxing break. To schedule a complimentary Trial Lesson, call (908) 782-4943
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Posted on Mon, Jun 21, 2010 @ 06:39 AM
When browsing the social media world, one notices that the word "Orff" is used playfully in many different constellations, some funny (as in, "I'm orff to bed"), others apparently meant to be offensive (as in, "Orff You!"). Though the word "Orff" may have a strange, even ominous ring to it, conjuring up images of giant creatures in the woods or on the bottom of the sea, it actually is closely associated with one of the most wonderful methods of teaching music to children.
Carl Orff (1895-1982) was a visionary German artist and pedagogue whose work has enjoyed a lasting presence on the concert stage as well as in the music classroom. Though a prolific composer, Orff is now celebrated primarily for his large-scale 1932 oratorio Carmina burana. By contrast, his pioneering pedagogical research seems generally far less known, though it is very much alive and thriving in school systems around the globe.
In 1924 Orff and Dorothee Günther co-founded the Günther-Schule in Munich--a new type of school that offered instruction in music, dance, and gymnastics. As head of the music program of the Günther-Schule, Orff developed his educational philosophy that music should be learned in combination with movement, rhythm, dance, and speech. Orff's ideas were highly controversial at the time, requiring music teachers to acquire special skills--knowledge of Orff's preferred instruments (recorders, glockenpiels, small metallophones, marimbas, drums, etc.) as well as the ability to improvise, i.e., to create music spontaneously.
Orff's music classroom functions as a "lab" where students explore sounds and develop their innate creativity in a relaxed and friendly group setting (Orff Ensemble). With students singing and dancing to improvised rhythms, and communicating with each other in "call-and-response" situations, music study becomes an enjoyable, playful activity, and an experience involving multiple senses simultaneously.
From 1932 to 1935, Orff collaborated with Gunild Keetman and Hans Bergese in publishing his Orff-Schulwerk: Elementare Musikübung, which presented an introduction to group improvisation and techniques of playing various percussion instruments, as well as a few ensemble compositions. Music teachers at the time were flabbergasted by the Orff-Schulwerk since it ran counter to established concepts in traditional music education.
It was not until 1950, when the Orff-Schulwerk was reintroduced with a second publication, Musik für Kinder (Music for Children). This 5-volume work represents the basis of Orff instruction, providing teachers with a discussion of what is often called the "Orff Approach" or "Orff Method," and a number of ensemble compositions. Due to its universal appeal, the "Orff Method" has since been adopted by music educators around the world.
For families in and around Flemington, NJ, Orff instruction is now available at our Hunterdon Academy of the Arts, starting in September 2010. Enroll today since space is limited!
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Posted on Sat, Jun 12, 2010 @ 06:40 AM
Are you a parent or grandparent of a little baby? Are you curious what your Cutie
is thinking? Do you feel frustrated when he cries and you can't figure out what is bothering him? You wish they could speak, articulate their thoughts and feelings, tell you about their needs. But you know to be patient because their time will come! Meanwhile, you try to connect with your baby on an emotional level, read her body language, listen to her voice, watch the expression in her eyes--all of which you learn to interpret as signs of communication.
Time to take the guesswork out of it! You will be thrilled to hear that there finally is a class to teach you how to communicate with your hearing baby, using American Sign Language: Kindermusik Sign & Sing. One of the most innovative classes of the Kindermusik curriculum, Sign & Sing is finally coming to our area, where it will be offered at our award-winning Hunterdon Academy of the Arts! Starting July 22, you will be able to enroll in 5-week Kindermusik Sign & Sing classes at extremely affordable rates.
Kindermusik Sign & Sing is intended for hearing children from 6 months to 3 years of age. Even if your child speaks already, we strongly recommend signing her up for this class; American Sign Languag may be a potentially useful skill for her to acquire early in life!
Kindermusik Sign & Sing will be taught by one of our long-time faculty members at Hunterdon Academy of the Arts--
Jeanine Roberts. For those of you who don't know her already, Jeanine has been with us since 1998. Because of her extensive musical background, she has served in several different capacities at HAA, teaching Kindermusik as well as piano and clarinet. Additionally, she has been the piano accompanist of our Hunterdon Youth Choir.
Jeanine, who also has a degree in music therapy, absolutely LOVES babies! Just watch the big smile on her face when she'll meet yours! We believe that Jeanine's patience, many musical talents, and loving personality make her the perfect teacher for Kindermusik Sign & Sing. Visit our website or call us at (908) 782-4943 to find out more.
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Posted on Sat, Jun 05, 2010 @ 10:04 AM
Twice a year, Hunterdon Academy of the Arts hosts Trinity Guildhall music examinations. Whereas fall-semester exams focus exclusively on music theory, students spend the spring semester gearing up for the Graded Exams in music performance, offered in May. The Graded Exams are administered by a professional examiner from London, who visits all Trinity Guildhall Centres in the U.S. to test students on their command of the Trinity Guildhall curriculum. Subject areas include the performance of prepared music, sight-reading skills, as well as technical skills on the instrument.
This year's visiting examiner was Mr. John Humphreys, a kind man, and aficionado,
collector, and well-known authority of the French Horn. Mr. Humphreys stayed with us from May 24 through May 26 to hear more than 70 applicants from various parts of New Jersey as well as from out of state. We were absolutely thrilled to learn from him that after doubling the number of student participants this past year, Hunterdon Academy of the Arts is now among the top Trinity Guildhall Centres in the U.S., second only to the Baltimore, MD Centre!
This year's examinees were mainly pianists, guitarists, and singers. With very few exceptions, all students passed their tests and and are now anxiously awaiting their Trinity Guildhall Certificates, including Mr. Humphrey's helpful comments on their performance.
With its nine graded exams ("Initial" through Grade 8) designed to become progressively more challenging, the Trinity Guildhall curriculum provides a wonderful motivational tool for lesson students of all ages. Offering Trinity Guildhall training as an option, Hunterdon Academy of the Arts has been very successful in helping students become better musicians and improving the overall quality of its music lesson programs.
At the end of his demanding three-day marathon at HAA, we took Mr. Humphreys to the Tuscany Grill in Glen Gardner, where he concluded his stay with a delicious dinner and a big smile (see picture above).
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