E.M.L. Music Tuition

22/05/2024

Yea... we are back!!! so proud of these two picking up their certificates this week! Both grade 1 and both Distinctions... well done Girls you are AMAZING

01/02/2024

…Lydia receiving her double achievement this week with the completion of her book and a “10 tune challenge”
Go on lass.. Grade 1 here we come!!!

11/01/2024

What a wee star 🌟 first week back and Esme gets promoted to the next level… look out grade 1 we are coming for ya!!

02/12/2023

Super fund day with the MAD crew at the P*P … 🎄

28/11/2023

These kids make me smile so much!!

28/11/2023

It’s been a busy week with singing with my MAD crew at the switching on of Newton Aycliffe lights … from now till Xmas will be full on so, watch this space

11/10/2023

I am going to have a rant here. And I am going to rant about something which I thought was no longer a thing, and yet apparently it’s still rife.

The “three pieces a year” teaching model.

As in:

- do a tutor book

- struggle towards Initial grade in year 1

- do Grade 1 (by copying the teacher) in the next few months

- do a grade a year, ONLY LEARNING THREE PIECES PER YEAR, ad nauseum.

Here’s the thing. If pupils are taking four months to learn one piece, it’s too hard. Simple. There are too many new concepts for the pupil to comprehend.

If they cannot read the exam piece fairly independently, *they are not ready*.

If they can only learn two to four bars a week, it’s too hard for them.

Take Stealth Mode, which is on the former Trinity Grade 1 syllabus. Let’s look at *some* of the concepts that need to have been developed, conceptualised and practised before starting to learn this piece:

🎹 landmark Cs: this piece ranges around Cs in various octaves, so it’s important that students can recognise and read around various different Cs.

🎹 staccato touch

🎹 hand crossing with a staccato touch and evenness of tone 

🎹 sforzando - the sforzando sound and technique

🎹 chromatic scales

🎹 moving out of a five finger position in a scalic passage

🎹 reading and recognising sharps, flats and naturals

🎹 playing three and four part chords.

Imagine the student who has not explored these learning concepts BEFORE beginning to learn this piece. No wonder the piece takes four months to learn! They are having to learn “on the job”, so to speak, and such hard mental concepts, presented all at once, become cognitively overwhelming and can make the student disheartened.

Ultimately, the teacher “gives up” and simply shows the student how to play it by rote, because too much time is going by.

Yes, I’m ranting. Because I FIRMLY believe that a skilled teacher should present a range of concepts in an imaginative, creative and musical sequence of learning which mean that the student is ultimately empowered to work on material such as this pretty independently and with ease.

This means that the student isn’t just struggling merely to play the notes, but has the freedom, cognitive space and technical ability to allow the music to sing and dance.

End of sermon.

02/10/2023

Edwin Pitt Mansfield reviews the 2023 LCME Musical Theatre Handbooks.

24/09/2023

31/08/2023