This was the event I knew we SHOULD have – but I just couldnt get my head around fitting it in at this time of the year. Cue my 2 close friends and colleagues, Lindi & Samanatha – who talked me into it (made it sound easy!) and then  proceeded to help with all the organising. I am so glad we did it – it was lots of fun and wonderful to see everyone ‘on the outside’….

So here is my 21st picnic report:

It was a really hot day but looking a bit gray. Miss Lindi had become obsessed with the weather forecast  (apparently there was a 47% chance of rain at 3pm – or was that 74%?) but we kept telling each other it was not going to rain and neither of us would look at the sky. (As the day went on several parents attempted to show us the weather on their fancy phones but we were not looking at those either.) 

We started off with lolly bags, fairy bread, chips & bottles of water. Miss Samantha had the brilliant idea of a ‘fairy bread production line’ which was lots of fun. It was lovely to see all our families arriving! There were a few visits from some ‘old’ AMS students – some of them now married and working as professional musicians. 

There were guest books to sign and the Gumball guessing competition – as well as the check-in desk for our ‘Make Your Own Musical Instrument Competition’. 

Bill had the megaphone and Rafi had the medals all ready to hand out –  so it was clearly time for some fun & games. We got going with some egg & spoon relays  - we used our percussion egg shakers – and the staff actually won one! (Our enthusiasm was not diminished by the fact that the other teams were mostly under the age of 10.) The 3 legged race was hilarious to say the least. Mr Jake decided to carry Luke (is that cheating?) and Miss Chiara & Caleb almost won but crashed & burned badly right at the finish line. We had to disqualify Patricia and Ruby who came apart & ran the whole race ‘unattached’….

 The Hoola Hooping competition was next – and some of the kids are amazing. The last ones standing could keep the hoop going with their hands on their head, their tongues out, clapping their hands, and whatever else we could dream up. There were also a couple of Mums who showed some serious talent! 

Our last athletic event was the Water Bomb Toss. Find a partner, grab a water bomb and gently toss. Take a step back each time you catch one until the balloon finally breaks….quite a few spectacular ‘splats’. I am happy to report that George and I were the clear winners in this event – and we enjoyed getting our well deserved medals. 

Off we went to our ‘Make your own Musical Instrument’ competition. Miss Samantha & Mr Jake did a wonderful job of collecting, recording & judging it – and some of the instruments were amazing! There were prizes distributed amongst the most musical , the prettiest, the most parental collaboration and other wonderful categories. Our 2 big winners went home with a $50 gist voucher from ‘Woodwind and Brass’ at Bondi Junction. 

Then it was time for Ice Blocks, cake and just enough time to sing Happy Birthday before it started to rain. (And then there was the Polyphonic water fight…)

And a lovely afternoon was had by all!

We have had a few parents suggest it was so much fun that it should be an annual event. Yes. Dont hold your breath but we are considering it….

We had a wonderful time on camp again this year. 82 students and lots of staff enjoyed a huge range of musical activities. It was so wet that we had to cancel kayaking but we had plenty of fun indoors! In fact, some of our kids voted that it was better because we got time for extra musical activities.

We happily replaced our kayaking session with some technology based music making. We broke into small groups and devised some groovy compositions using the ‘madpad’ app. There were car, clothing & kitchen compositions. Very creative! We had some demos of various ‘looping stations’ from Oscar & Guy which was really inspiring.

Choir was great. We sang 3 different rounds as well as a Glee mash-up and ‘Pure Imagination’ from Willy Wonka. We learned some new warm-ups and sang in lots of parts. The thing that gets me every year is just how fast our campers pick up new material. With such wonderful ears, they almost teach themselves. We sing it once – and there you go – only some musical tweaking required. Once again we all enjoyed singing with ‘the band’ – our regular combo of Mr Jake with Caleb and Oscar kept us all feeling groovy and Miss Chiara & I took turns playig piano with the band. Always fun!

Everyone performed in an ensemble group: Hands, Tubes or Percussion. We only had 3 rehearsals of 30 or 40 minutes each and then a performance for our parents. These groups might look like fun and games but the skills here are big. Musical memory (and developing it quickly!) is imperative. So is learning to WAIT (very hard) and come in at exactly the right time. The truth is it doesnt take much to muck these ensembles up – but our groups did a terrific job of listening and working together.

Mr Guy was amazing – he showed us all sorts of instruments including a ‘theramin’ – which was incredible! Liam Strang was so impressed with it, he did some research for us:

Hi AMS, Thanks for having me at camp again. The aspect that I enjoyed the most was the intricate instrument that Guy Gross showed us and that I wished I had was the Theremin. It got me thinking, I wondered why someone would design and build such a weird but wonderful instrument where you don’t even need to touch it to make the ghostly sound effect. I figured out the name of the inventor was Léon Theremin he was born in Saint Petersburg and died in Moscow Russia he was an extremely serious man who had a dream to make the first instrument that didn’t use a strength of any kind. From Liam.

We played games and did some dancing…. and our dress up night was the letter ‘F’. There were fairies, florists, a fork (!!), some freaks, some frenchmen and a pretty cool ‘Friday’ performance. The staff were ‘Fairy lights’ and were either plugged in or solar powered for the evening. (We also wore our matching polka dot PJ pants!)

This year was also our trial run of ‘POLYPHONIC’ – an additional 24 hours of camp for our keen teens. I think it deserves it’s own blog post actually…but let’s just say it will now be a permanent feature of AMS camp.

As always, its the kids & the staff that make camp so special. Thankyou to our wonderful teachers who spent the weekend doubling as counsellors, phramacists, conductors, crowd control, hairdressers, mover-on-ers and the like. Thanks to the parent helpers who transformed themselves into food cutters & bed makers amongst other things.

Another very special year at camp. Another opportunity to get to know our families better and to get the very best from each of our students. Already planning the next one…..

As always, we are very proud…

Congratulations to:
Jack Symonds – Jack is a former AMS student who was in Miss Samantha’s class at Randwick for many years. He recently received his Bachelor of Music degree with First Class Honours at the Sydney Conservatorium and has been offered a full scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London to complete his Masters in Composition. Jack is the 2nd AMS student in recent years to win the University Medal. It was awarded to Tristan Coelho (Miss Michelle & Miss Samantha’s classes) a few years ago for Bachelor of Music, also at the Sydney Conservatorium

Yenlamtam Clark has been accepted into year 7 at the Conservatorium High School for 2012 on French Horn & Piano. Yen is in Mr Jake’s Spectrum class at AMS Dulwich Hill and has his private lessons with Miss Laura

Brendan Stuart placed 1st in Music in year 7 at The Shore School. Brendan is in Miss Keryn’s Extension class at AMS Narrabeen

Rafi Owen placed first in his music class in year 7 at Sydney Grammar School. Rafi is in Miss Michelle’s Advanced class at AMS Randwick

Harley Koltai placed first in his music class in year 7 at Cranbrook. Harley is in Miss Michelle’s Advanced class at AMS Randwick

Remi Owen received a High Distinction in his 1st semester music exam in year 8 at Sydney Grammar School. Remi would also like his starring role as a Munchkin in the ASCHAM Musical production noted here. Remi is in Miss Michelle’s Advanced class at AMS Randwick

Ruby Learoyd received full marks for her music composition in year 8 at St Vincents College. Ruby is in Miss Michelle’s Advanced class and Miss Elisha’s Viva Voice class at AMS Randwick

Eden Dorra received 120% in his school music exam (due to the fact that he not only got full marks but also completed the test in record time!) Eden is in Miss Lindi’s Advanced class at AMS Randwick

Hannah Paul won 1st Place in the Vocal Solo Ballad & 2nd Place in Character Song in Costume in the Northern Beaches Eisteddfod. Hannah is in Mr Jake’s Viva Voice class at AMS Narrabeen

Liam Patterson performed in the Scholars recital at Cranbrook, where he is on a full music scholarship for Bassoon. Liam attends Miss Michelle’s advanced class at AMS Randwick

Jessica Franke has been awarded a part in the Regals Musical Society production of ‘Annie’. Jess is in Miss Elisha’s Viva Voice class at AMS Randwick

Chloe Marshall has a call-back from her audition for the upcoming major production of ‘Annie the Musical’. Chloe is in Miss Elisha’s Extension class at AMS Randwick

Jay Newman & James Laver were both awarded parts in their school musical productions

Harley Koltai & Liam Strang were awarded an A+ grading for their piano exam. Harley and Liam are both in Advanced course at AMS Randwick

The following students all received an A grading for their AMS or AMEB piano exams;
Dylan O’Connor, Melissa Yahghoglu, Ee-shyan Balnave, He-shyan Balnave, Orlando Janschek, Auvro Adhikari, Amber Boyden, Ruby Goldman, Ruby Learoyd, Ruby Newman,

We are still awaiting results from some of our written theory exams and will report back as soon as the results appear. We do know that Miss Michelle’s grade 2 theory class did extremely well – these students all with marks of 95% or higher;
Patricia Lapinski, Isaac Madder, Courtney Coates, Cato Ayyar, Rafi Owen, Ruby Learoyd, Henrietta Burns

Our 21st Birthday party! We had a big picnic in the park last weekend with old fashioned games & races, lolly bags, fairy bread and a whole lot of cake… but the highlight was definitely our ‘make your own musical instrument’ competition. What a clever, industrious bunch of students we have at AMS!

Another AMAZING AMS camp – this year with ‘POLYPHONIC’ –  an additional 24 hours for our keen teens. A wonderful experience for all of us! Stand by for some gory details…

Another fantastic AMS Piano Eisteddfod – with gorgeous George Machado taking out the big award… and some new insights from our brilliant adjudicator Kate Lidbetter…

Another round of AMS Piano exams. Well done all you clever pianists out there!

More outstanding results from our AMEB written exams. They just keep coming!

And right now we are gearing up for AMS COMPOSERS DAY – only a few weeks away. And after that (and our end of year party time) I really will write & catch you all up on our big year!

When you learn to play the piano, we can skip step 1 and modify step 2. We don’t need to learn how to put the piano together or hold the piano – we need to learn how to hold OURSELVES. This is so that we can make a decent sound and develop the technique to play fast & complicated pieces as we progress – and so we don’t tie ourselves up in knots & land ourselves at the chiropractor.

The truth is that with many instruments, even as a beginner we are forced to stand/sit/hold correctly in order to  produce a good sound – or sometimes any sound at all. The trap with the piano is that as a beginner, you could pretty much stand on your head and the notes would still actually play…..the problem is that without good  posture we will never develop a good technique – and then we will never play very well.

Good posture is everything when it comes to playing the piano. It needs to become a habit – something that is automatic as soon as we sit down to play. This takes a LONG TIME to acheive and only comes through constant attention and a conciousness about the way we play.  As teachers we are always reminding and correcting posture in lessons but this is not enough! Good posture needs to be PRACTISED at home so it becomes second nature.

Its a big topic – but take it in little steps  and will make a huge difference.

When PRACTICING good posture, we are aiming for (more or less) right angles – we want about 90 degrees at the elbow joint, hip joint and knee joint. To get this right, we need to be really fussy about 3 things:

1   Distance from the piano

2   Where we sit on the stool

3   Placement of feet

The most common ‘mistakes’ that we see in piano posture are:

1   Sitting too close (with knees tucked under the keyboard)

2   Taking up too much of the stool (we only sit on the front half)

3   Feet tucked under or feet dangling (our weight needs to be forward, onto the feet)

Having someone observe from the side as we sit is a very useful exercise – it can really help to get into the ‘right angle’ shape.

Here are a whole lot of bits that go together to make up a good piano posture:

• Straight back – lower as well as upper
• Sit on the edge of the seat. That’s right – we only use the front half of the piano stool….The seat should be ‘under the sit bones’ at the top of the legs, not under the bottom! This should put the weight forward onto the feet.
• Feet take the weight of the body: slightly out in front, never crossed or linked behind the chair.
• Footsteps are wonderful for little people – use one until the floor is easily reached or until the pedal is required
• Knees should be JUST under the keyboard, not under too far – ask your teacher to show you the ‘karate chop test’

Once we get that right, we can think about ARMS, SHOULDERS & WRISTS

The most common mistakes here are:

1   Shoulders that tense up or rise (they need to be relaxed at all times)

2   Wrists that drop

3   Fingers that ‘cave in’ at the first joint (all joints need to curve)

So ….

• Arms & shoulders must be relaxed (& not allowed to creep up when playing something tricky!)
• Wrists are straight but relaxed for some movement. They are not high & not low. Wrists stay strong when playing chords (they never drop) and wrists stay straight even when the hand is ‘waiting’ to play (they never drop!)
• Elbows do not move much in the early stages of piano development – you can use them more as you advance

What’s next?

Now it is time to think about what we are doing with all those fingers and thumbs!

THUMBS:

• Need to be ‘watching’ all the time and never be allowed to drop
• Need to stay strong – no ‘caving in’
• SNEAK under when required – no big arm movement
• Can go under fingers, but they NEVER go over fingers

FINGERS:

• Stay close to the keys, they do not stick up in the air while other fingers play
• Play the note using the padded part of the tip – not too close to the nail
• Have trimmed nails! (Long nails do not work for playing the piano)
• Curve at every joint – especially the stubborn ‘first joint’. (For many students this takes lots of boring EXERCISE but is VERY important. Fingers must not be allowed to ‘cave in’)
• Pinky should be relaxed and ‘watching’ (not up in the air)

Lots to think about! And it takes time, effort and concentration – but it’s worth it. A relaxed piano posture is a life-long investment in musical enjoyment. Good luck!

Ross was after something a bit different from all the regular stuff like rock climbing and fishing trips and wanted me to teach a bunch of guys to play the AMS Tubes. Ross has seen the tubes in action - with AMS staff performances at concerts and his own kids in Tubes groups on AMS camp.

My first response to the idea was a mix of  ’Wow – fun!’ and freaking out. I expressed my reservation to Ross - while we all look like we are having a ball up there, playing the tubes is deceptively difficult - to which he replied, ‘I’m hoping it will be!’  - he was keen for a challenge.

In the few days that I had to think it over, all sorts of questions were running around in my head – but the biggest one was:  ‘Is this going to work?’

We take it for granted that The Tubes will go brilliantly with our students on AMS camp – but they are musicians with fantastic aural skills who just need a bit of organising. The AMS staff rehearsals on The Tubes are a hoot - but we also experience frustration as we struggle to get things just how we want them to be. What was going to happen with a bunch of scientists & engineers in polo shirts!? And – just how ‘bonding’ would this session be? Assuming they could actually cope with the activity, would they like it? Or think it was silly….?

After a couple of sleepless nights and some very entertaining conversatons with some of the AMS staff, I decided to go for it.

So my husband bundled up enough PVC to plumb a house (an entertaining exercise in itself!) and off I went to present myself at the oversize luggage counter at Sydney Airport. (Extra plug for husband – he also cleaned and re-felted all the tubes before I left….)

I started off with ‘easy peasy’ pieces - songs with words. (Think ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ – ‘You play on the word STAR’) These went pretty well and got the bonus factor of a few (nervous) laughs along the way.

With a couple of those under our belt we moved on to some trickier things and as the music itself started sounding… well… more like music, there were lots of decisions and ‘team building’ elements that were happening along the way: 

• Using  eye contact to start, finish or play chords together. (Harder than it sounds when you are concentrating like mad on your own part) 
• Going over a difficult section and getting input from the others as to how best to play the note.  (You HOLD it, I’ll HIT it)
• Patiently dealing with the person who alwasys rushes and just cannot wait his turn to play his note. (Are you LISTENING to anyone else at all?)
• Experiencing the fact that it is easy to tell someone what to play when – but that doing it yourself is a whole different thing! (And how many times does that happen out there in the business world!?)

And then, we actually started sounding GOOD! We mastered several pieces including the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ and the ‘William tell Overture’. We were working towards ‘recordable’ performances, without me conduscting / singing / telling everyone what to do next. Sometimes that worked, sometimes they REALLY needed help. We did get a decent recording of each piece – and I left in a few of the laughs to capture the ’atmosphere’ of the session.

All up – very successful and great fun. A very interesting exercise in teamwork and quite enlightening as to strengths and weaknesses of the individuals. And guess what? I’ve already got a booking for a Sydney group in January – and I can’t wait!

Enjoy….

http://www.blitzbooks.com.au/Blog/tabid/64/EntryId/19/Piano-Lessons-are-like-Swimming-Lessons.aspx

In Samantha’s entertaining style, she unveils the top seven excuses and gives practical tips on how these might be avoided. As she so aptly puts it: ‘To students who use these a lot, beware… we’re on to you!’

It is my greatest hope that parents & students read this article and at best, change their practice routines – and at worst, come up with some NEW excuses! 

http://www.blitzbooks.com.au/Blog/tabid/64/EntryId/17/The-7-Deadly-Practice-Excuses.aspx

We are both passionate about improving our students’ sight reading, aural skills, practice skills and enjoyment of being a musician! Sometimes it’s hard to define who came up with which idea… I guess that’s what happens when you are constantly in discussion about life, the universe, music education and everything!

Samantha recently wrote a fantastic article about PIANO PRACTICE entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Practice Sins’ for her www.blitzbooks.com.au website.

This is a must read for all parents, older students & teachers. Every one of these ‘sins’ is common – and avoiding them will revolutionise the progress of the piano student!

Here’s the link:

http://www.blitzbooks.com.au/Blog/tabid/64/EntryId/14/The-Seven-Deadly-Practice-Sins.aspx

Have a quick look:

www.australianmusicschools.com.au