Resources
This is a collection of the resources I commonly recommend to students.
Printables
Note Reading Flashcards (front)
Note Reading Flashcards (back) – Page 1 of the back corresponds to page 1 of the front. Be sure to print both sides so you have the answers and your student can quiz themselves!
Apps
Simple Metronome (Android) – every musician should have a metronome and this free app does the job quite nicely.
Websites
IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library – source for free, public domain sheet music
Articles
How to Play Music Faster: Ideal Practice Methods for Adult Musicians
15 Things You Need to Know About Supporting Your Child Learning to Play the Piano
Podcasts
99 % Invisible – Episode 118: Song Exploder (June 10, 2014)
“The architecture behind a piece of music can be much more involved than meets the ear, and this is what inspired Hrishikesh Hirway to start a podcast called Song Exploder, where musicians “take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.” This week, we’re featuring Hrishikesh’s Song Exploder episode about the main title theme to the Netflix original series House of Cards, by composer Jeff Beal.”
Radiolab Podcast – Speedy Beet (February 19, 2013)
“There are few musical moments more well-worn than the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But in this short, we find out that Beethoven might have made a last-ditch effort to keep his music from ever feeling familiar, to keep pushing his listeners to a kind of psychological limit.”
The NPR 100 – The Story Of ‘4’33″‘ (May 8, 2000)
“In his famous collection of essays titled Silence, John Cage wrote about entering […] a chamber at Harvard and hearing two sounds, one high and one low. The engineer of duty informed him that the high-pitched sound was that of his nervous system, the low one that of his blood in circulation. It spurred an epiphany for Cage, one that would focus much of his musical attention on ambient and accidental sounds as opposed to willful, compositional ones. “Until I die, there will be sounds,” he wrote, “and they will continue after my death. One need not fear about the future of music. Any sounds may occur in any combination and in any continuity.””