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.

Log every practice session from today. The competition starts October 1 — practicing and logging now is how we get the kinks out.

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

[PRACTICE TOOLS]

Technique

1. 🟩 RCM Technique, Level 4

THIS WEEK: Accent practice on the E-flat major and C minor broken chords, and learn the notes and fingering for the D major, B minor and A major arpeggios.

⏱ Max 7 minutes per practice session.

Print your technique pages. All of them, so you have the fingering in front of you.

Chords, accent practice

Accent every other note. Two modes: accent-weak, then weak-accent.
E-flat major broken chord and C minor broken chord.
Close-loud on these too.

Arpeggios, new

D major, B minor, A major. Notes and fingering only this week.
Two octaves. Instead of going to first inversion, play the tonic again, then back down.
Look at the music. The fingering is printed there.
Tuck under and let go. Don't twist, and don't hold on to notes you can release.

Everything has to be memorized for the exam. If I ask for a formula pattern, play it without the music.

Exam session: November 28 to December 10.

Theory

2. 🟪 Theory 4, Unit 8

THIS WEEK: Find Unit 8, get it into your binder, and review it so it is fresh. I may quiz you.

⏱ Max 3 minutes per practice session.

Unit 8 is written and finishes the level. I still haven't checked it.
Bring it ready to go next lesson.

Musicianship

3. 🟩 RCM Online Ear Training

THIS WEEK: Melody playbacks only. Three sessions and you are done with these for good.

⏱ Max 8 minutes per practice session.

Done for the week after 3 sessions

Last week of playbacks.
After the third session the button appears and the assignment comes off your list.

4. 🟩 PA Sightreading, Level 3A

THIS WEEK: Pages 53, 54, 55, 56 and 57. One page a day.

No time cap.

You move on from a page when you can play it through with no mistakes: notes, rhythm and expression, all of NFPER.
Do it as many times as that takes.
Press Done for the Week after the fifth page.

5. 🟩 Four Star, Level 4

THIS WEEK: Set 8. One day of the set per practice session.

Practice type: Learning.

No time cap.

Set 7 is finished.
Press Done for the Week when the set is done.

6. 🟩 Note Reading Flashcards

THIS WEEK: Five rounds of 10 cards per session. Same as last week.

No time cap.

Jane Smisor Bastien cards, low C up to high C. Green rubber band only.
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.

Nine cards in 18 seconds today. We'll talk next lesson about where this goes next.

Repertoire

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

THIS WEEK: Rhythm practice on mm. 87-90: three shorts and two longs. Rotate through every mode until the timer goes off.

⏱ Max 6 minutes per practice session.

RCM Level 4, Etude

Long notes are close-loud: from the key, strong attack, immediate release, forward wrist. Hang on the long note a little longer than feels natural, to prepare the next burst.
Short notes as fast, as light and as soft as you can. Tidy attacks.
Look at the music while you do it, and think about where you are going to land before you go.
If it comes out mushy, do it again. If it stays mushy, slow it down.
By the end of six minutes your fingers should feel worked.

[INSERT RHYTHM PATTERNS LONG SHORT IMAGE]

Do one of these sessions with Mama watching. This one has to be done a certain way to be worth anything, so check in with her once early in the week rather than practicing it wrong all week.

Carried over

Right-hand thumb: on a close-loud thumb note your wrist drops. Pop it forward instead.
mm. 2-3: start in motion, not from still. Drop into the key with the left hand in m. 3, lift to the top of the fallboard, repeat m. 2, drop into m. 3 again.
The crescendo: it is marked, but stay soft longer first. Don't arrive loud on the crescendo measure.
mm. 5-6: you sped up. Slow 5 and 6 to match the opening, not the other way round.
C minor triads in the right hand stay crisp, not mushy.

8. 🟩 Minuet in D minor, BWV Anh. 132 (Anonymous)

THIS WEEK: Mark the three places we slow down gently, and practice easing the tempo at each one.

⏱ Max 6 minutes per practice session.

Practice type: Polishing.

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

The three spots

End of m. 4, into m. 5. Slow gently and take a slight breath before m. 5.
First ending, mm. 5-8. Gentle slow down at the very end of m. 8.
First ending at m. 16. Gentle ease at the end.

What gentle means

Quieter and a tiny bit slower at the end of a phrase. Not a brake.
It should sound like settling into a chair, not like stopping.
Don't speed up when you get louder.

Also: try the exaggerated-movement work from Happy Farmer on this piece.

9. 🟩 Masquerade, from Fancy-Free (Niamath)

THIS WEEK: Four spots: m. 8, m. 28, and the pedal and staccato in m. 32.

⏱ Max 5 minutes per practice session.

RCM Level 4, Etude

m. 8. Don't cut beat 3 off. Full beats in the measure. The meter doesn't change.
m. 28. Hold the fermata before you resume at m. 29.
m. 32. Change the pedal on the downbeat.
m. 32. Both right-hand chords are staccato.

Your ending is much improved.

Next lesson: memorization techniques for this piece. You are close to having it memorized.

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

THIS WEEK: Audio-record one play-through, mark every uneven sixteenth-note passage, then spot those passages.

⏱ Max 10 minutes per practice session.

RCM Level 4, List B

Record yourself once. The recorder is in Practice Tools inside the assignment.
Listen back for the sixteenths only. Mark every group that is uneven or mushy.
Then take one of those spots and use a tool: accent every other note, rhythms in twos, or rhythms in threes.
Rotate through the spots for the rest of the ten minutes. Only where it needs it, not the whole piece.
mm. 1-2 and mm. 5-6: crisp triads, not mushy.

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

THIS WEEK: Video-record yourself playing it, then watch it back and judge your own movements.

No time cap.

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

Play it through once exaggerating your movements. Be weird about it.
Play it again smaller, and find the places where the music actually asks you to move.
Then record a video and watch it. You be the judge of which places look and sound right.
Avoid collapsing forward and down.

What you did today worked. The expression sounded natural, the upper notes came forward and the inner notes softened on their own, and it didn't look like you were trying. If it feels a little awkward, that is probably right.

12. 🟪 Joyous Etude (Bober)

THIS WEEK: Nothing. We didn't get to it, so we start with it next lesson.

No time cap.

RCM Level 5, Etude

mm. 24, 25, 26. Lift the right hand at the end of each slur for breath.
m. 12. The left-hand downbeat is an eighth note, not a sixteenth.
m. 15. Right hand too fast. It's duple against triple.
m. 29. Don't rush the last two eighth notes.

13. ⬛️ Level 5 Etude

I'll bring you one 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?