Contributed by Margaret Allen
Learning to play the piano or any other musical instrument is rather like building a house: You can benefit not only from the finished project, but from the process.
In building a house, one starts with the foundation. In music, learning to play an instrument begins with learning the capabilities of the instrument itself, the physical manipulation of the keys or strings and bow. Visual skills involve learning the intricacies of music notation, reading music from left to right, identifying pitches according to their placement on a staff of lines and spaces. Listening skills are developed as the student learns to hear differences in pitch, intensity and duration. These physical, auditory and visual concepts are learned separately at first and gradually linked as the student progresses, rather like building the walls of a house. Once the student has mastered all these details, then the integration of those details, the “roof” may be added in terms of expression and interpretation of existing works of music. Finally, once all these have been absorbed and utilized the student should be able to compose on his or her own, improvise, or transpose existing music.
Eleven students from Margaret Allen's Music Studio gave a successful piano recital on May 12th. The students, aged six to nineteen, performed works by composers ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Philip Glass. We are now into vacation schedule until July 19th, when the studio will close for two weeks and have very limited space for new students. The fall schedule will begin on August 6th, with openings for eight students.
Please call 745-2520 for information or to reserve a space on the schedule.
