Go home and find a recording on Youtube. Just make sure it doesn’t say “this is me playing…” It should be someone on a stage. Even better if it just shows an album cover with no video.
My words to my students. I don’t want to eat up lesson time scrolling through the offerings of Youtube. A bad performance can sometimes be as good a lesson as a good performance. We may or may not discuss the student has found at the next lesson.
It’s been tough to find recordings for much of the elementary and intermediate teaching repertoire. Until now.
Dr. Alan Huckleberry and Dr. Jason Sifford at the University of Iowa have been recording and uploading fine performances of the standard teaching rep. Everything from Czerny, Bartok, Schumann, Debussy, and Bach to composers such as Dennis Alexander and Jennifer Linn who are writing and publishing today. The playlist is already impressive and growing by 100 videos a week. The goal is 9000 compositions in the coming years.
These are professionals making the recordings, not students. Not intimidatingly talented 6-year-olds. They are respectful, musical performances of good music.
*Suggestions for use:
- select several videos, send links to students/parents, and allow them to listen and pick one at home.
- learn new repertoire yourself – just by browsing
- with the demise of so many print music stores, you can listen before ordering something online
- use as a good example of a stylistically correct interpretation. It can serve as a departure point for making the piece more personal.
The University of Iowas Piano Pedagogy Project is a free Youtube subscription. Just click and subscribe and start searching.
One of my favourite teaching pieces – Freddie the Frog by fellow Canadian and fellow blogger Anne Crosby:
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*Suggestions from an interview with Dr. Huckleberry and Dr. Sifford in the November/December 2012 issue of Clavier Companion.
Image: via lukrev
Thank you for the links! Even for someone like me who isn’t studying how to play the piano, they are still really interesting as I never seem to find enough piano pieces that I really love. Some of them will be very useful for writing as I use music a lot to enhance feeling into what I’m writing at the time, and it seems to really work for me! But for anyone studying any type of music or instrument, the internet is so packed with information, but it’s just finding the bits that suit you, can take a lot of time though!
Laughing – yes! The #1 time-waster! Reading about practicing when I should be doing it… Reblogging awesome pics of books on Tumblr instead of reading them… LOVE IT but tough to control!
Well hello “Freddie the Frog”. But does he sing the words?? This is a great project indeed…I remember hearing about it some time ago, but this was the first time I’ve gone to visit and explore a bit. Thanks for posting, LaDona, what a great resource!
Thrilled to see your stuff on there, Anne!
LaDona, you are forever and always a wealth of information…I have the impression that you are a tireless, full-time researcher! This is good to know; I was wondering if there might be such a thing as quality performances on YouTube–but I’ve never had time to browse YouTube much. Thanks!
I have been trying to find ways to get my students to listen to more piano music, including watching youtube videos. I didn’t know about the University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Project, what a great resource for videos to which I can refer my students. Thanks for sharing!
It’s a new project – ongoing – and I am also very happy for it!