The penny game really helps me practice.  If  I am struggling on with one of my lines in music, I can play the penny game.  I have three pennies on one side of the piano.  If I get the line right, I move one penny over to the other side.  Then if  I get  the line right again, you can get another penny on the other side.  If I  get it wrong, I  have to put all the pennies back on the first side.  The goal is to get all three pennies on the other side.  This helped me learn October Wind for Thursday night.

Lately, I’ve been playing “Be Thou My Vision” and have really been working on NOT looking at my left hand while playing so that that hand’s *topography improves. Well, it hasn’t been very easy, and sometimes I just want to give up and look. But I don’t, because there’s that little inside voice that keeps telling myself, “I can do it! I can do it!” However, even after that, I feel like looking, but I just have to keep saying, “Don’t, DON’T, DON’T! Just keep playing! DON’T look down!”

I was a couple days into practicing this way, when a parallel came to mind:

Many times throughout our life we’re tempted to give-up and be done with tough trials, but then our faithful God comes to our side. And he whispers, “You can do it! Don’t give up. I’m here, just trust in me-have faith.” Sometimes, that’s all we need to keep running the race strong.

So when you get discouraged and feel like giving up…DON’T!!! Keep your chin up and instead of saying, “I can’t.” say, “I can!”

(*feeling/playing the keys without looking.)

While at Joey’s cello lesson a couple of weeks ago, Natalie learned something about dynamics that was very enlightening. So, she relayed the technique (I guess you might call it) to me. Here’s what Joey’s teacher said:

Many times when we see dynamics such as “mf, mp, etc.” we tend to think that we must only play those parts “Moderately Loud/Moderately Soft“. While this is correct, we need to think of playing them more in terms of the piece. It’s mezzo forte for “that” “particular” song, so if it’s the second loudest dynamic marking, you should play it as the second loudest-not necessarily “just” “moderately” loud.

Ever since I started incorporating this idea, I’ve really been able to bring out a lot my songs’ character and mood. It also makes it much more exciting to play my music, too!

Having trouble sticking to the correct rhythm in your song? Try doing some of things below:

• Hum the tune while you play.
• Count (mostly with metronome, but after a few times, try counting without it).
• Play just one hand and hum the tune of the other while you silently play its notes. (Then switch.)
• Be the conductor of your song! (Literally. Make your hand [or if you have a wand] do the motions a conductor does and follow your song’s melody.)
• Come up with your own creative way and comment about it.

Each day I tried a different one of these techniques on my song ”Summer Sunset”  and they all worked really well! The two I thought worked the best were the 1st and 2nd ones. (I didn’t try the last one, however.  )

About a year ago I was working on “The Clear Stream by: Johann Burgmuller” and was to the point where I had it down, but the mood wasn’t right and something was missing! Natalie and I tried a couple different things, but the song still didn’t sound like a “stream”. We were thinking through different possibilities at my lesson one day…when all of a sudden, Natalie got the idea to check out YouTube. If I remember correctly, her thinking behind this was to see how others played the song and see how they approached it. So we watched a couple videos, and to my surprise, they were very helpful and insightful! I could see how they were phrasing according to the mood/style; I could tell they really brought out the dynamics (which were very key-especially with this song). And, they applied a very key technique I lacked: Right-Hand Rotation + Smoothness As you can tell, I learned a lot just from watching a couple online videos!

Next time you feel something’s amiss in one of your songs, try watching it on YouTube; I’m sure you’ll gain a few helpful tips.

Here’s the wonderful result I experienced after applying the things I learned from YouTube…ENJOY!: