2026-2027 Events

October 17-18, 2026 — Group Classes
December 5-6, 2026 — Group Classes
January 24, 2027 — Performance Class & Guest Artist Workshop
February 27-28, 2027 — Group Classes
April 10-11, 2027 — Group Classes
May 22, 2027 — Student Final Recital

How to Practice

Use the Practice Guide below. It logs your practice for you — no comments needed.

Press Start from # whatever number it shows. It picks up where you stopped last time.
Press Start, read the assignment, practice.
Tap the kind of practice, then press Done.
Press Next practice item and go again.

Capped items count down and chime. Keep going if it's going well.

Some assignments finish. Those carry a Done for the Week button. Press it when the job is done and the assignment comes off your list. Technique and repertoire don't have one; those are every day.

Need the metronome, a recorder or the NFPER colors? They are in Practice Tools, right under the practice types. Tap one and it opens inside your assignment. Tap Close to put it away.

Got something to say about an assignment? Paste the line it gives you into the comments and add your note.

Log only what you actually did, on the day you did it. Five minutes is a real entry. Logging starts October 1.

🟩 on track · 🟨 needs extra attention · 🟪 didn't get to it at the lesson · 🟥 priority · ⬛️ don't practice this one

[PRACTICE TOOLS]

This week: 351 minutes over 8 days, and nothing on the list went unpracticed. Great consistency, except both Tuesdays. The RCM online got the least: 10 minutes over 2 days, when it's a three-day assignment.

Technique

1. 🟩 RCM Technique, Level 4

⏱ 5 minutes per day.

You're through page 13 and the solid and broken chords. Now do all of the chords, including the ones that look too hard. Bring me those.
Arpeggios: we start them next lesson. Leave them for now.
Everything has to be memorized for the exam. If I ask for a formula pattern, play it without the music.
Track it on page 6 with the writing tool: check off each item as you do it, then erase and start again.

Exam session: November 28 to December 10.

Theory

2. 🟪 Theory 4, Unit 8

Unit 8 is done, which finishes the level. We didn't check it today, so bring it next lesson and we'll go through it together.

Musicianship

3. 🟩 RCM Online Ear Training

⏱ Three days a week, max 10 minutes per session.

Get all three days in. Melody playbacks only, and this is now the only place they live. Your clap-backs and playbacks are both getting better.

4. 🟩 PA Sightreading, Level 3A

⏱ One per session.

Pages 47-52. Splitting a two-day page across two days is exactly right.

5. 🟩 Four Star, Level 4

⏱ One day of the set per session.

Set 6 is done. Move on to Set 7.

6. 🟩 Note Reading Flashcards

⏱ 5 rounds of 10 cards per session.

The YouTube video comes off the list — your reading today was clearly better. We're using the Jane Smisor Bastien cards I left with you, low C up to high C.

Shuffle and lay out 10 cards without looking at them.
Head down, good hand position.
Left to right: say the note and play it, as fast as you can.
Shuffle and repeat. Five rounds.

Green rubber band only. Leave the red and blue sets aside.

Repertoire

7. 🟩 Ballade in C minor, Op. 100 No. 15, from 25 Études faciles et progressives (Burgmüller)

RCM Level 4, Etude

Your strong notes in the right-hand melody have real command in the approach now, and the sixteenth passages sound worked on.

Right-hand thumb

On a close-loud thumb note your wrist drops. Pop it forward instead. That's what was making those notes mushy. If it isn't tidy and fast, do it again before moving on.

mm. 2-3 technical exercise (new) — a few minutes a day

Start in motion, not from still. Still means tense before the first note.
Drop into the key with the left hand in m. 3. At the end of m. 3, lift to the top of the fallboard, repeat m. 2, drop into m. 3 again.
The lift is what keeps the wrist relaxed. Think "easy" on the drop.
Build speed until it's as fast as you can go with control. Lose control, slow down, push it back up.

mm. 87-90 rhythm work — three shorts, 3 to 5 minutes a day

Same idea, with an extra short note. Keep using your mother's highlighter system.

Long notes are close-loud: from the key, strong attack, immediate release, forward wrist. Short notes as fast and light as you can play them, and softer — that's the part still missing. Prepare before each long note, then go. It should feel like effort. If it feels easy, it's wrong.

[INSERT RHYTHM PATTERNS LONG SHORT IMAGE]

Tempo

mm. 5-6. You sped up. For now, slow 5 and 6 down to match the opening, not the other way round.
Imagine the sixteenths before you start, then set the eighths against them.
mm. 1-2. Left hand in your lap, drop into it first. Bring the hand up in m. 2, not at the last second.
C minor triads in the right hand stay crisp, not mushy. That's the tension in the piece.

8. 🟩 Sonatina in G major, Op. 36 No. 2, III. Allegro (Clementi)

RCM Level 4, List B · back on the list

⏱ Max 10 minutes per session.

This went missing off the blog, which is why you had no List B piece. You've already played it, so there's no new piece to learn and we can move toward Level 5 sooner.

Assignment: get it back in your fingers, hands together.

9. 🟩 The Happy Farmer, Op. 68 No. 10 (Schumann)

RCM Level 4, List C · from Album für die Jugend

Play it through once exaggerating your movements. Be weird about it.
Play it again with the movements smaller, and find the places where you actually want to move because the music asks for it.

What kind of happy farmer is this? Quirky, funny, sincere? Play it like an actor conveying that through your hands, body and face. When you moved a little today, your arms loosened on their own and the sound got better.

Avoid collapsing forward and down. That position wrecks your alignment.

Also: in motion from the start, tidy attacks, left hand commanding at the opening, right hand softer. Treat a run-through as a performance, no stopping for mistakes.

10. 🟩 Joyous Etude (Bober)

RCM Level 5, Etude

mm. 24, 25, 26. Lift the right hand at the end of each slur for breath. Two places per measure in 24 and 25.
m. 12. The left-hand downbeat is an eighth note, not a sixteenth. Count it.
m. 15. Right hand too fast, the whole measure. It's duple against triple. I'll bring you exercises for it.
m. 29. Don't rush the last two eighth notes, circled in yellow.
Play-through: beginning to end, no pausing, no going back to correct. Getting off between the left-hand eighths and right-hand sixteenths happens. Stay on the beat, fix it after.

11. 🟪 Minuet in D minor, BWV Anh. 132 (Anonymous)

RCM Level 4, List A · from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach

Good work fixing the orange circle in m. 7. Keep thinking about an even pulse.

Spot the endings

First and second endings of each section, back to back, three times each — twelve repetitions in a session, around five minutes.

First section: start at m. 6, play the first ending, back into m. 1. Then from m. 6 again, second ending, on into m. 9.
Second section: start at m. 14, first ending, back into m. 9. Then from m. 14 again, play to the end.

12. 🟪 Masquerade, from Fancy-Free (Niamath)

RCM Level 4, Etude

m. 34 — do the fermata.
m. 35 — spot the first two beats in the left hand. Throw the hand up and land light and on time. Use the pedal. Left hand alone 3 times in a row correctly, then beats 1 and 2 hands together 3 times, then start at m. 34 and play through 36.
Not so loud there. It's a mezzo forte.
Pedal, mm. 32-34. Catch the bass note in m. 33 and again in m. 34. Don't put the chord down early.
m. 31 — left-hand arpeggio fingering 5, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1.

13. ⬛️ Level 5 Repertoire, List A

I'll bring the Level 5 books next lesson. Nothing to practice yet.

Level 4 Exam Program

List A — Minuet in D Minor, BWV Anh. 132
List B — Sonatina in G Major, Op. 36, No. 2, third movement, Clementi
List C — The Happy Farmer, Op. 68, No. 10, Schumann
Etude 1 — Ballade, Op. 100, No. 15, Burgmüller
Etude 2 — Masquerade, Niamath

Joyous Etude is a Level 5 etude, so it stays out of the Level 4 program.

Review Pieces

Level 2

List A: Minuet in G Major, BWV Anh. 114, attr. Christian Petzold (1677-1733), from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach
List B: Sonatina in G Major, Anh. 5, No. 1, II. Romanze, attr. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
List C: Play by Béla Bartók (1881-1945), from Mikrokosmos
Etude 1: Prelude No. 4 in F Major by Elvina Pearce
Etude 2: L'Arabesque, Op. 100, No. 2, by Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller (1806-1874)
💚Bird in the Bebop by Wynn-Anne Rossi (L. 2, Etude)
Etude in F Major, Op. 190, No. 27, by Christian Louis Heinrich Köhler (1820-1886) (L. 2, Etude)
💚A Ditty of Yimeng Mountain (L. 2, C)
💚Minuet in A Minor by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) (L. 2, A)
💚Rhyme Time (L. 2, B)

Level 1 and Preparatory

💚The Snake by Renée Christopher (L. 1, C)
💚Andante in G Minor by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) (L. 1, A)
💚Detectives by Christine Donkin (L. 1, Etude)
💚💜Angelfish (L. 1, B)
💚Celebration by Anne Crosby Gaudet (b. 1968) (L. 1, Etude)
💜💚💚The Calico Cat by Helen Marlais (b. 1966) (Prep. B)
💚💚💚Freddie the Frog by Anne Crosby Gaudet (b. 1968) (Prep. B)
💚💚💚Allegro in C Major, Op. 1, No. 4, by Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809) (L. A)
💚💚💚A Skating Waltz by Boris Berlin (1907-2001) (L. A)
💚💚💚What's That Noise? by Martha Mier (b. 1936) (L. A)

Seasonal

💚The First Noel, Traditional, arr. Edwin McLean
O Christmas Tree, Traditional

Step-by-Step Practice Flow

Record your section once — video is best, but audio is fine too.
Listen back with one color/goal in mind.
As you listen, mark your music using that color anywhere it needs improvement.
Repeat for each remaining color, one at a time, until all five have been addressed.
Choose a small "spot" section from your markings — just a few measures or a tricky passage.
"Spot" until it's solid — ✅ 3 times in a row correctly, or ✅ 5 total correct repetitions, then move on.
Focus on one or two colors at a time while practicing that spot.
Use the troubleshooting checklist below if you're stuck.

🔧 Troubleshooting Tips

🎯 If you've tried to fix something three times in a row and it's still not working, don't just repeat it — troubleshoot:

Do you need to slow down?
Should you practice hands alone?
Could you make the spot even smaller?
Would technical exercises help (staccato, accents, etc.)?
Do you need to think ahead more clearly?