We had a full house mother’s day piano recital at Waterloo Street on 14 May 2017. I
like to dedicate this mother’s day performance to my mum for her unconditional love all these years in supporting my music study and career. I admired her determination to do whatever she could to make me continue learning piano when I was young in spite of me being lazy and wanting to give up. She put in extra effort to put me into all kind of piano performances which at that time I could not understand why she wanted to do so. Her hard work has paid off and I believe this is the best and most unique mother’s day present for her.

I am also grateful for the enormous support from my students, their family and friends for spending their mother’s day with me. We all want to dedicate the pieces that we played in the recital last night to our mothers as the most special mother’s day present in the world.

In busy and fast pace Singapore, parents often encounter problems where their children are not willing to practise piano or practise poorly where they are not able to remember the location of notes for example.

From my years of experience, the real reason is due to the busy school activities and the excessive usage of electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers or even display kiosks. In a well connected country like Singapore where the local mobile penetration rate is above 100%, children will be inadvertently exposed to electronic devices.

The Straits Times has published an article detailing the study of the use of electronic devices by young children. This study done by NIE shows that most parents are not aware of the risks of excessive electronic devices usage.

My experience with teaching kids who use electronic devices excessively is line with the study NIE. The excessive use of electronic devices leads to the following symptoms:

1)            Memory loss: Cannot remember the position of piano keys despite repeated and teaching the same tunes for many months, even after changing different types of music book and teaching materials. This is due to the side effects of prolonged exposure to the monitor screen. According to the latest medical research, fast moving images and lights on the screen will wear out and damage the brain cells and cause memory loss in children.

2)            Lack of patience:  Compared with practising piano, these activities are more fun and give instantiations results which unlike practising piano, requires them to sit in front of piano and practise the same phrases repeatedly. Such repeated and monotonous practice causes them run out of patience very soon and what follows are complains of a boring practise by the child.

3)            Lack of concentration: The fast changing images on the screen especially in action games results in poor attention to detail. During a practise this results in inaccuracy of notes.

4)            Poor seating postures: The child adopts a hunched back position which limits his playing fluency especially on fast passages.

I hope that parents will take note of my observations and limit screen time to children. Also parents should limit their screen time too!

 

The recent piano recital at Waterloo Street is a very good exposure for my higher grade students and diploma piano students to try out their technical and musical capabilities on stage. During the very first lesson when they started the diploma course with me, I will usually go through the requirements to pass this exam with them. This exam requires the candidate to perform about 30 minutes of repertoire on stage and at the level of a professional pianist. From the comment sheets that I’ve read in the past, it seems that the examiners will not tolerate any note errors, be it caused by careless finger slips or misplacement of chords and they would fail the candidates even though they have impressive musical expressions. This means they require the candidates to be able to perform with a high level of technical abilities, with perfect accuracy of notes and rhythm before they move on to judge the musicality and expressive parts of their performance. With such demanding requirements, this explains why the passing rate is less than half of all the candidates.

In order to secure at least a pass for the diploma exam, I adopted the teaching technique that I learned during my music study in Germany, a place where most classical composers were born and which is the origin of classical music. The German piano pedagogist always said that how you practise is how you perform and sight read during the exams, which is very true as I experienced it myself. The German practice method helps the students hit the right note, produce the right tone and ensure that it falls at the right beat with metronome right from the beginning when one learns a total new piece. This allows the students to build a very strong muscle memory in their hands to ensure they will not have chance to produce note errors because they will be stopped once the wrong note occurs and will be asked to focus on that particular section. This ensures the building of strong muscle memory, which ensures that the player remembers the position of notes we hit during practice session. That’s why the teacher’s guidance is very important by making sure that their technique is correct and choose the right metronome speed with appropriate acceleration.

The method worked so well that my students always said that how they practise is how they perform on stage, during piano recital and real exam, their muscle memory is so strong that no matter how nervous they are, how hard the piano is, their hands would always go to the right notes and hit the right rhythm just like what they usually practise at home.

I really feel very lucky that I got the chance to pick up German’s study skill not only in piano playing, but also their study skills on academic side. They are able to simplify the complicated music theory into simple steps. Hence I adopted their systematic study systems into teaching music theory. For example when teaching one of the topics in music theory, the ‘intervals’, I managed to use the same system to simplified the complicated methods mentioned in other text books into three simple steps. The students find it very fun as I designed some activities to teach them the simplified methods.

There are many piano teacher friends who told me that I should keep these as secrets.  But to me I feel that knowledge is for sharing, and believe that the more I share the smarter I get. So I share everything I know with my diploma students, who are going to be qualified teachers. As I believe with my generous sharing of musical knowledge, many more students are going to benefit from their effective teaching method and in fact some teachers who learned from me have already applied the method in their piano teaching and commented that the methods are very effective, their student’s playing has improved tremendously after they applied the method that I introduced.

Appreciate all parents and students support our diploma piano concert this time!

The main participants are mainly diploma students, but I still added in a few graded exam candidates to performed at the opening part of the concert because they like to know if they are ready for piano exams.

A young performer that impressed the audience was an 8-year-old girl Gwyneth, who performed an ABRSM grade 7 piece and her own piano composition, her notes and rhythm were highly accurate and musical awareness was very well expressed with stylish hand’s posture. Her finger works were well articulated throughout her entire performance.

There were 3 diploma students who played the same Beethoven Sonata in E minor Op.90. Although they are playing the same 2nd movement of the sonata, but the feeling was totally different. Joan played with very romantic touch and relaxing tempo, and the sound was very much in an under tone in darker shade. Claire played with every single note clearly projected and articulated, with accuracy of notes and rhythm. Deli’s playing of the same piece was highly expressive in character, she played the loud passages with flamboyant heavy touch and soft passages with gentle and soothing wrist movement, contrast of loud and soft passages were clearly conveyed.

Russell played his grade 8 piece with flowy and flexible finger works in all running semiquavers passages, for loud passages with big chords I advised him to apply more weight from shoulder, so that the full harmony sounded very rich and warm. He also played his octave passages with flamboyant and virtuoso styles that captured lot of exciting moments.

Most of the performers were happy with their playing on that days as they managed to recovered from finger slips and minor errors during the piano recital, and they felt more confident with passing their diploma exams as they have learned how to overcome the stage fright and know how to secure their playing on stage.

I was glad that I got a chance to find out whether they projected enough tone and volume in recital hall and also will advise whether their 2 hands coordination are balanced as I got to make sure that right hand’s melody will not be drown by left hand’s accompaniment especially in the loud passages.

In spite of that, everyone was happy because they had fun making new piano friends and learned lot of things about stage performance from each other’s playing.

Most of the players were first time performers and they are keen to try again because they have learned how to overcome stage fright and technical difficulties through this experience. I believed that they will play much better and become more seasoned on stage next round. Look forward to seeing more fantastic performance on stage next time!

Recently ABRSM launched a new diploma piano exam known as ARSM. The examiners from ABRSM held seminars and events in Singapore’s music schools to encourage more candidates to sign up for this new diploma exam.

What is ARSM?

According to the examiners, this newly launched ARSM exam is a stepping stone for candidates who have completed their grade 8 practical exams and would like to continue their journey to obtaining a diploma in music. Unlike dipABRSM however, this ARSM exam contains only one section of 30 minutes recital. Candidates can choose their pieces from the same repertoire list of DipABRSM. Also, program notes writing, sight reading tests and viva voce sections have been removed. According to the examiner, they still expect the candidates to perform at the level of a professional pianist. Not only do they require accuracy of notes and rhythm, the communication aspect is also included in the marking criteria.

Communication In Music Exams

In my experience, many piano tutors and students do not understand what ‘communication’ means. It is stated as one of the marking criteria on the examiner’s marking form. It means stage presentation and how you carry yourself and express yourself on stage in general. It includes the way you walk, the way you bow, your dress code and page turning. Factors such as whether you look like a seasoned performer or you look uneasy on stage are also considered. He mentioned that candidates who memorised the music will definitely play more expressively and enjoyable than candidates who play from the scores as page turning can be quite disturbing when it is not properly done.

But looking at a typical Singapore student’s daily activities,  it is hard to expect them to spend many hours every day memorising the music. From the examiner’s point of view, he will reward those candidates who play from memory with a higher score as professional piano recitals are performed without music score. It also means that the pianist has already studied every single bar of the music thoroughly and can interpret the style awareness perfectly.

Base on my experience, the above marking criteria is not only applied to ARSM diploma exam it also applies to Trinity diploma and London College of music’s diploma exams, as the same comments are made in the marking sheet.

ABRSM Diploma Exam Requirements

In fact, ABRSM has stated very clearly in the diploma exam’s requirements the following
1) Accuracy, continuity and fluency
Accuracy refers to the technical control and two hands tonality balance to produce consistent speed and rhythm, as well as a smoothness of performance. The candidates should choose an appropriate tempo and maintain consistency throughout the entire piece. Also to produce a good sense of performance directions, with accuracy of notes and rhythm, focus and well centred touch weight of every key. Finger slips and note errors will cause a loss of marks, in overall note errors of more than 10% throughout the entire performance will be considered failure for the exam.

2) Musical character and a sense of performance
Musical character must be built upon application of technical skills, which means the student must obtain a very strong base and foundation of technical skills before he or she can vividly convey the mood and stylistic expression to the listener. Strongly built foundation and good technical skills indicate the level of commitment and conviction evident in the piano performance.

Important Requirements In A Music Exam

From my experience, most students have focused too much on stylistic awareness and interpretation of the music and they neglect the building of foundation and accuracy of notes and rhythm. I had students who failed their diploma exams in the past and wanted to start lessons with me. But an analysis of their playing revealed that their notes and rhythm lack accuracy. Hence no matter how well they shaped the phrase and brought out the mood expressively, the note errors and distorted rhythm would make the phrases sound broken. During their exams, marks will be lost badly as a result. On the exam comment sheet the examiner also emphasised that it is important to produce firm and focused tone projection in order to score well before the candidates can express the mood of the pieces. In other words, candidates who were not that good in expressing the style and character but produce firm accurate notes and rhythm can score much better and pass the exam.

Besides accuracy of notes and rhythm, candidates will also be tested on their sense of musical character in performance where candidates who can memorise the music and express freely and confidently on stage will be awarded.

ABRSM has released a new certification called the Associate of the Royal Schools of Music. This ARSM award creates an opportunity for students to demonstrate their performance skills after grade 8. The exams, that are available from January 2017, are designed so that candidates instead prepare a 30-minute programme where you are assessed on your performance solely. This can appeal to candidates that don’t want to perform a study and complete a Viva Voce as found in DipABRSM, but feel they have a solid grounding with regards to repertoire. The ARSM exam aims to bridge the gap between those that have achieved Grade 8 in their instrument/voice but are not yet ready to start a DipABRSM, offering a more specialised marking criteria in order to analyse a musicians capabilities based on a single performance. The repertoire candidates must prepare for their ARSM includes 20 minutes of music that must be chosen from the same list offered in the DipABRSM, with 10 minutes allocated for own-choice repertoire (of grade 8 standard or above). The ARSM is marked out of 50, 30 marks for the pieces, and a further 20 for the performance as a whole.

Jenny, an experienced piano teacher who also offers DipABRSM courses, suggests the ARSM exam gives students the confidence to then go on and tackle the DipABRSM, where candidates must perform not only a balanced recital programme, but also play a study and complete a Viva Voce.