Music Educators' Energiser

Ever feel students' errors worsen rather than improve? We can short-circuit glitches by simply clarifying their music.

Decipher: Asked to help students flummoxed by their tricky marching band rhythms, my first step was to enlarge their music x 4. It's hard to face music that's barely legible.

De-stress complex rhythms Step 2: I temporarily whiteout syncopation ties, even a whole set of rhythmic tails, by tearing off border bits from merit sticker sheets.

De-scribble: Often as a student/fledgling teacher I drew lavish scribbles, pics, arrows to alert mistakes (first impressions stick, so curb too-fast sight-reading). I'd flinch at the sight of offending passages and my brain spasm to decipher at speed right from wrong. Some irresistible magnet would draw my fingers to the errors. Years later, playing that same passage, errors were suctioned in my mind and needed all the practice tips in the book to dislodge them.

Now my teaching and playing is thrifty, even miserly with pencil markings. A small dash indicates a change of direction in a pattern of notes or sequences; a yellow/red pencil (resist permanent highlighter!) draws the eye to an error. Too much information can be counterproductive.

Do Simplify! Those sticky white-outs were useful when no experienced pianist was available for the student/parent concert. My basic accompanying skills were just passable after some thicker chords were reduced to 2-noters, with apologies to the composers. (Memo: remove before 'real' pianists play the parts!)

De-clutter music scribbles - and life generally. After a hard-drive crash, my first thought was: 'What didn't I save?' (Back up, back up!) My second: 'Well, it's got rid of a decades' clutter.' Hence fewer e-zines lately. The upside of technology challenges is that an overhaul of my website has fixed glitches in the shopping cart. Apologies to those who received error links when trying to order my new practice journal.

Ruth's Travels: Finland and Germany - September-October. Before booking direct flights here's an opportunity for workshops en route (Asia? USA? Elsewhere in Europe?) with a round the world ticket/stopover. Reply email ASAP if interested.

Plus: Frequent visits to Sydney mean workshops there don't incur flight costs.

De-brief Please share your student excuses and time-wasters, tips that get results and feedback for a new edition of Practice is a Dirty Word.

A copy of Practice WAS a Dirty Word Music Journal goes to those quoted.