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.
When you are finished, 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 Section-Work colors? They are in Practice Tools. 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. Official tracking starts Monday, October 19, the Monday after our first group class. Logging now is how we get the kinks out.
🟩 on track · 🟨 needs extra attention · 🟪 didn't get to it at the lesson · 🟥 priority · ⬛️ on hold, don't practice this one · 🟧 mine, not yours
[PRACTICE TOOLS]
Technique
1. 🟩 RCM Technique, Level 4
THIS WEEK: The four new arpeggios: B-flat major, G minor, E-flat major, C minor. Notes and fingering, with accent practice.
NFPER focus: notes, fingering.
Practice type: Learning.
Arpeggios as written: B-flat major, G minor, E-flat major, C minor.
Accent practice: accent every other note, then switch and do the other one.
Notes and fingering only this week. Everything else is blocked out on the tool.
Two octaves. Look at the music, the fingering is printed there.
Do the accent practice on the arpeggios too, not only the chords. They are new and they need the extra work.
Your broken chords need two octaves, not one. That is where the stumbles were coming from.
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: Memorize all of the music terms and signs on pages 86 and 87. There is a test next week.
⏱ Max 3 minutes per practice session.
Practice type: Memorizing.
Pages 86 and 87. Review the terms and the signs.
You had presto and accelerando today. Prestissimo, mano destra and tempo primo need another look.
Musicianship
3. 🟪 RCM Online Ear Training
THIS WEEK: Nothing new. 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.
We did not get to it. Same assignment.
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 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61. One page a day.
Practice type: Learning.
You move on from a page when you can play it through with no mistakes: notes, rhythm and expression, all of it.
Do it as many times as that takes.
Press Done for the Week after the fifth page.
5. 🟪 Four Star, Level 4
THIS WEEK: Nothing new. Set 8, one day of the set per practice session.
Practice type: Learning.
We did not get to it. Same assignment.
Set 7 is finished.
Press Done for the Week when the set is done.
6. 🟩 Note Reading Flashcards
THIS WEEK: Work with a practice partner. Metronome at 60, two ticks per card.
Jane Smisor Bastien cards, low C up to high C. Green rubber band only.
Set the metronome to 60. Two ticks per card: one to look, one to answer.
Your partner holds the cards and you say the note.
Correct cards in one pile. Wrong, or too slow, in the other pile.
Then pick up the wrong pile and work through it until it is all correct.
Too slow counts as wrong, and there is no pausing. Let it go and keep moving.
Sophie or Mama can do this with you.
Repertoire
7. 🟩 Ballade in C minor, Op. 100 No. 15, from 25 Études faciles et progressives (Burgmüller)
THIS WEEK: Sprint practice. One long, then five short, then rotate which note is the long one.
RCM Level 4, Etude 1
Sprints are new. One long note, then five short ones, landing on the downbeat of the next measure.
Then rotate. The second note of the measure becomes the long one, then the third, and so on. Six rotations in all.
The long note is strong. The shorts are soft, light and fast.
Your fingers already have command of these notes. The two rhythm patterns and the alternating accents did that. Tell yourself you can do it.
Where you get stuck is the top of the ascent, on the high C. Think “switch direction” before you get there, not faster.
Left-hand thumb gets stuck at the top because you are holding it down. Let it go.
Use the paper copy I made you until the picture below is in here.
[INSERT SPRINT PRACTICE IMAGE]
8. 🟪 Minuet in D minor, BWV Anh. 132 (Anonymous)
THIS WEEK: Nothing new. 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: Nothing new. Four spots: m. 8, m. 28, and the pedal and staccato in m. 32.
⏱ Max 5 minutes per practice session.
RCM Level 4, Etude 2
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.
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: Nothing new. 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: Nothing new. Video-record yourself playing it, then watch it back and judge your own movements.
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.
12. 🟨 Joyous Etude (Bober), mm. 11-12
THIS WEEK: Speed build from 60 to 84. Three correct in a row, or five correct in total, at each speed.
Speed building: 60 to 84.
Practice type: Spotting.
RCM Level 5, Etude
The left-hand downbeat in m. 12 is an eighth note, then three sixteenths. Eight, sixteen, sixteen, sixteen. Plum, apple, apple, apple.
Establish the beat in your head before you play that downbeat. That is the only thing going wrong.
The right hand has to come in in the right spot. It came in early every time.
Then add the measure before it and do the same thing.
Watch the video for this one and play along with it.
🎥 Joyous Etude, mm. 11-12 https://youtube.com/shorts/L0H_SvAh4vE
13. 🟨 Joyous Etude (Bober), the last measure
THIS WEEK: Fix the fingering in the very last measure of the piece.
NFPER focus: fingering.
Practice type: Spotting.
RCM Level 5, Etude
Fingering only. Nothing else to fix there.
You had a bad habit of tension right at that spot. Start low, then pop up.
Think more from the G.
14. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky), mm. 1-4
THIS WEEK: Learn mm. 1-4, hands alone.
NFPER focus: notes, fingering, position, expression.
Practice type: Learning.
RCM Level 5, Etude
Brand new piece. Celebration Series Piano Etudes, Level 5, page 4.
Photocopy page 4 twice. One copy in your three ring binder, one kept clean.
Hands alone this week.
It goes back and forth between staccato and legato between the hands. That is the whole challenge of the piece.
The descending scales are where it gets messy. Slow them down.
15. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky), mm. 5-8
THIS WEEK: Same as mm. 1-4, now for mm. 5-8.
NFPER focus: notes, fingering, position, expression.
Practice type: Learning.
RCM Level 5, Etude
Exactly the same assignment as mm. 1-4. Hands alone.
16. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky), mm. 9-12
THIS WEEK: Same as mm. 1-4, now for mm. 9-12.
NFPER focus: notes, fingering, position, expression.
Practice type: Learning.
RCM Level 5, Etude
Exactly the same assignment as the previous two. Hands alone.
Setup
17. 🟧 Binder dividers
Dividers for your three ring binder. I'm bringing them next lesson.
Level 4 Exam Program
Your program is in the practice guide, under Royal Conservatory of Music.
Joyous Etude and the Kabalevsky Prelude are Level 5 etudes, so they stay out of the Level 4 program and out of that list.
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?