Piano Can’t @#$% Fly

Poor grand piano ... so much baggage!

I'm guessing this image from the cover of the Faber Piano Adventures lesson book series is meant to impart a sense of adventure through music and the piano. 

However, when I first laid eyes on the book in my piano pedagogy class all I could see was a cursing piano!

If you were a huge, bulky grand piano trying your best to get off the ground but having little success despite your large, swan-like wings, wouldn’t you get frustrated? 

I suppose your consolation is that since you’re a piano, whatever you express is arguably musical, and so is your cursing. 

(No disrespect to the Fabers!)

Why You No Practice?!

A question for the ages

If you've ever taught piano to kids of any age, you might have felt this way. Wait; I guarantee you’ve felt this way. I was inspired to create this image (based on the 

"Y U NO Guy" meme) by my talented and inimitable Taiwanese classmate Nina, who left our piano pedagogy class momentarily agape when she recounted a very trying class: She’d asked her young student point blank, her voice full of frustration for both parties, “Why you no practice?” and “Why you crying?” 

These have become favorite exclamations for our little group of MFA classmates. It's funny how the expression of frustration about the very real challenge of getting students to practice and to find intrinsic motivation has become a source of humor for us. Misery loves company, but more important, life is what you make of it: Make lemonade from lemons! And students, go practice! (That includes me. I'll be going now ...)

Raisin Brahms: Part of a Healthy Breakfast

This is possibly one of the most memorable public service videos I’ve ever seen. Even better, it’s to promote the arts! If I was eating breakfast one morning and Johannes Brahms crashed through my wall with his grand piano à la the Kool-Aid man to give me a dose of music, I’d gladly call up my home insurance. I want my Raisin Brahms! 

PS: It was Brahms' 180th birthday on May 7th.

I Hate Solfege!

Music Cat disapproves your use of solfege ;-)

This is what started the whole darned thing! Don’t get me wrong, I believe there are effective ways of learning notes and scales, but I’ve always been somewhat chagrined when forced to use solfege.
My first observation of its use was when I was a kid playing trumpet in the pit orchestra for a musical: The director would lead cast members in solfege singing exercises. I saw that solfege was a quick way to help people with little or no previous musical training learn relative pitches. No reading of music necessary. Hooray! ... Right?
Remembering this made me realize why solfege bugs me: For me and many others who learned formal musicianship - I'd asked around to see if I was an outlier - solfege is largely irrelevant and annoying. Why? Because we have music we can read!
I know this smacks of snobbery, but at least we're being honest.
Or, if could be that I associate solfege with that (in)famous song "Do-Re-Mi" from the Sound of Music. Yeah, maybe that's it.