Date: Friday O5 June 2009This is the second time that Rhythm MP is conducting Music Performance and Appreciation (MPA) at Sweet Harmony. The ages of the participants range from
6 to 11 a
lthough we also had some who were five years old. We 
started out the first part of theactivity with all the children performing one piece of their music from the book Piano Lesson Made Easy series by Lina Ng. Generally the playing was quite impressive but with a few minor hitches on presentation. A summary of these are described below:
1)Posture and sitting position. This is an important aspect of a performance and also a part of a musician’s general outlook and appearance. A musician with good posture presents himself with confidence and the audience will be able to enjoy listening to him and also watching him perform because he is an interesting person. The sitting position should be with the body about 20cm away from the edge of the piano keys. If you are a smaller person, then you may adjust your sitting position a bit nearer, but not to an extent where some children sit just 4 or 5 cm away. Once you get the distance right, your elbows should be bent at around slightly less than a 45 degree angle with your hand above the piano. Remember to sit with your back straight and not hunched over.
2) Remember to sit with your legs slightly apart and both feet firmly on the floor. If your feet cannot reach the floor, use a small stool to place your feet on. I still see some children hook their legs to one of the piano stool legs to try to maintain balance. Remember to use a small stool. The aim here is to get a firm and balanced sitting position. If the body is not sitting stably on the piano stool, you cannot be in a position to control your playing as you will be constantly trying focus on not falling off the chair. Always remember not to swing your legs. Swing of the legs will only serve to confuse your body’s natural rhythm.
3) Remember to keep the wrists up and not resting on the ledge of the piano keys.
4) Fingering. Some of the children play with fingers too curved to the point that they look like the legs of a spider walking. This will not be able to get you powerful finger strength. Try curving a bit less. One of the ways I find that helps is to practice scales in different speeds starting with a very, very slow speed. If the fingers still curve too much, then decrease the speed even further until they curve naturally. When the fingers curve naturally, they should look as if the hand is holding a basketball and not a tennis ball. Some of the children’s hands look like they are holding a ping-pong or table tennis ball which over-exaggerates the hand curvature.
5) The other observation is about self confidence. Some of these children are playing for the first time in their lives in front of a large audience. So it is natural that they are nervous. But when that happens, their playing becomes extremely fast. They also tend to look away from the piano. When they end their performance or even before they end their performance, they have half of their body almost away from the chair. One way to overcome this problem is to build their performance experience and overcome what most musicians term as “stage-fright”. To do this, parents can help, by organising more small “home performances” for their children in front of their school friends.
I did not mention the names of the people who made the above errors because I feel that even if you did not make these mistakes, all students need to be aware of these problems in order that you do not make the same mistake. This then, is the end of the first part of MPA.
The second part of MPA is centred on developing creativity.
To achieve this, rhythm MP believes in putting head knowledge into practice. Whatever knowledge students learn during music lessons are just tools. What they need to do is to take this knowledge or tools and begin to create. So we started by taking two exercises from page 18 of Lina Ng’s Piano Lesson Made Easy Level 1 worksheet 2 to begin on rhythm clapping. Once the students were familiar with the rhythm, they began to put music notation to the rhythm and began to create their own music. The following are their own creations:
Chloe Ch’ng Pey En Age: 7 Song title: My Little boat
This is a very well written song with a very nice flowing melody. The notes harmonise quite well with the bass clef. Very good work. Keep it up.
Kang Jia Yang Age: 10 Song title: Do Re Mi
This song although has a very simple melody which moves scale-like but harmonises very well with the bass clef. Jia Yang has obviously written his song with the sound of the accompanying bass clef taken into consideration. Very good effort.
Yong Gent Hoong Age: 6 Song title: Rainbow
Although Gent Hoong is still six, he has made a very good effort in creating his own melody. there is still much room for improvement. Since this song is in the key of C major, you can try to end with either a C or E note which is most safest.
Lillian Au Xin Hui Age: 7 Song title: On the flower
Another good effort by Lilian but quite a number of notes do not harmonise quite well here but still is a good effort. Again here you could either end with a C or E note.
Heap Sen Li Age: 6 Song title: Twinkle twinkle
Sen Li has written a very nice melody. Unfortunately, some of the notes do not quite blend with the harmony in the bass clef. By itself, the melody sounds very very lively but if you have a bass clef given, you might need to try to hear the harmony. One way to do this would be to try to play each bar that you have written and try to find the notes that you think will sound nice when they are played together.
Darren Khoo Kai Jie Age: 8 Song title: The Engle fish
Darren, maybe "Engel" should be spelt "Angel" but if you are writing your own song, it is OK! Your song is very nice and you should continue to write more. Your notes harmonise very well with the bass clef. Don't stop writing.
Derrick Khoo Age: 5 Song title: Mother
Although Derrick is only 5, still this is a good attempt by him to write his own song. Keep it up!
Khoo Ming Jing Age: 11 Song title: Skateting time
Your first line is very impressive and the melody is nice and sweet. The second line sounds a little bit off when played together with the bass clef. You will be able to write better if you can play the bass clef and listen to how it sounds and then write the notes that you think will sound nice when played together with the bass clef.
Sim Ch’ng Vee Ter Age: 8 Song title: Robot
Ver Tee's song is very nice and he likes to play with scale notes. This is a very good effort by Ver Tee and the music sounds quite in harmony with the bass clef.
Cray Ch’ng Kai Juan Age: 9 Song title: My tree and me
A good effort by Cray. You could also try not to make the notes skip too much. Bar 2 to 3, and within bar 3, you have a lot of big skips. You can m,ake it better if you try to play out what you have written and then make the necessary changes of you hear the notes "jumping around" too much. The secong line sounds much more flowing. Again, at the last bar you could try to end your song in C or E note. In this case, the most suitable note to end your song would be C.
Sim Yu Yin Age: 6 Song title: Happy Day
Yu Yin, although is 6 only, but the music you write is very nice and flowing. The only thing is, your music does not match the bass clef accompaniment. You can try again but try to play what you have written to hear the sounds of the treble clef and the bass clef and if they will sound nice together. You have the potential to write more songs. Don't stop writing.
Jordan Chan Yin Jun Age: 9 Song title: My flower and me
Jordan is a very active fella and can be quite creative. He actually asked me if he could add more notes to his song. And he actually did it quite well. Very creative. Good job.
Elizabeth Yonicole Age: 6 Song title: Rainbow
Elizabeth is very young and at age 6 she actually made quite a good attempt at writing her own song. Keep trying and you will definitely get better.
Lim Celine Age: 5 Song title: My Family
Good try by Celine. Your melody is quite nice. It is a good start and if you try to write more, your songs will get better.
Lee Khoon Hong Age: 8 Song title: Home on the range
A good try by Khoon Hong. What you can do is to try to write again but this time play the bass clef first and try to hear what the bass clef sounds like. Then you add the treble clef notes and play together with the bass clef to see if they sound nice together.
Lye Wei You Age: 8 Song title: Westminster chimes
A good attempt by Wei You. You have to write more music and very soon your song writing skills will begin to improve. This is your beginning so continue to write more.
Tan Yan Ni Age: 8 Song title: Westminster Chimes
Nice attempt in song writing. Continue to write more and just like Wei You, you will improve.
Chee Tsu Ling Age: 5 Song title: Flower
You started your song quite nicely. Continue to write and you will be able to improve on your song writing skills. This time try to play what you have written. When you can hear what you write, your songs will always get better.
Renelle Koay Age: 7 Song title: Blue Star
You have quite a nice melody here. Try to keep the notes close to each other and keep the interval slightly closer. You could also try to end your song on a E or C note.
On the whole, I would consider this as a very good attempt by the children to write their own songs since they never got the chance to hear what the pre-set bass clef accompaniment sounded like and still some of them wrote very good melody line to harmonise very well with the accompaniment. In fact, they also never got the chance to play what they wrote and still could come up with some very good melodies. I believe that every ons of these children are actually gifted in their own way. All they need is the opportunity to develop it. And now they have.....
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