October 7, 2026 (3 of 8)

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. 🟨 Technical Requirements for Piano, Level 4 (RCM)

THIS WEEK: Same as last week. Notes, fingering and accent practice on the four arpeggios.

NFPER focus: notes, fingering.

  • Yellow this week because the accent practice did not happen and the fingering was off.

  • B-flat major, G minor, E-flat major, C minor. Two octaves.

  • Double-check every fingering against the music. The B-flat major arpeggio starts on finger 4: four, two, one.

  • Accent practice: accent every other note, then switch and do the other one. Do it on the arpeggios, not only the chords.

  • The instructions are in your guide in big bold words. Look at them.

  • Everything has to be memorized for the exam.

Exam session: November 28 to December 10.

Theory

2. 🟩 Celebrate Theory, Level 5, Unit 1 (RCM)

THIS WEEK: Unit 1.

⏱ Max 6.5 minutes per practice session.

  • Level 4 Unit 8 is finished. This is the new book.

  • It is in Newzik. Print it out and put it in your binder.

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. 🟩 Piano Adventures Sightreading Book, Level 3A (Faber)

THIS WEEK: Pages 60 to 67. One page a day.

Practice type: Learning.

  • Page 59 is done. Double-check your rhythm in the first two measures of it.

  • You move on from a page when you can play it through with no mistakes: notes, rhythm and expression, all of it.

  • Press Done for the Week after page 67.

5. 🟪 Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests, Level 4 (Berlin and Markow)

THIS WEEK: Nothing new. Set 8, one day of the set per practice session.

  • We did not get to it. Same assignment.

  • Press Done for the Week when the set is done.

6. 🟪 Note Reading Flashcards

THIS WEEK: Nothing new. Work with a practice partner. Metronome at 60, two ticks per card.

  • Same assignment. One day last week is not enough; this one wants every day.

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

  • Two ticks per card: one to look, one to answer.

  • Correct cards in one pile, wrong or too slow in the other. Then work the wrong pile until it is all correct.

  • 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: Same sprint practice, with the wrist popping forward on every long note.

RCM Level 4, Etude 1

  • Two rules, every time. Start each new pattern slowly to check your position, then speed up. And the wrist pops forward the instant you press the long note.

  • Don't pause and then play the long note. Know what you are going to do, then do it.

  • Round, curved fingers on all of it.

  • Four days last week. That is why it was the fastest and cleanest I have heard it. Keep that up.

  • Ask Mama to watch one session so she knows the rules too.

[INSERT SPRINT PRACTICE IMAGE]

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

THIS WEEK: Hands alone this week.

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

Practice type: Review.

  • You are starting to forget it a little. Hands alone is how we maintain it.

  • The three gentle slow-downs are still there: end of m. 4 into m. 5, the first ending at mm. 5-8, and the first ending at m. 16.

  • Gentle means quieter and a tiny bit slower at the end of a phrase. Settling into a chair, not braking.

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.

  • m. 28. Hold the fermata before you resume at m. 29.

  • m. 32. Change the pedal on the downbeat, and both right-hand chords are staccato.

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

  • We will start this properly next time. Same assignment until then.

  • Record once, listen back for the sixteenths only, mark every group that is uneven.

  • Then take one spot and use a tool: accent every other note, rhythms in twos, or rhythms in threes.

11. 🟨 Fröhlicher Landmann, von der Arbeit zurückkehrend (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

  • Yellow this week. You recorded it and deleted it before watching it back, and watching it back is the whole assignment.

  • Play it through once exaggerating your movements. Then again smaller.

  • Then record, watch, and you be the judge of which places look and sound right.

12. 🟩 Joyous Etude (Bober), mm. 13-17

THIS WEEK: Play along with the video. Measures 13 to 17, and measure 15 is the one.

RCM Level 5, Etude

  • Be able to play it along with the video by your next lesson.

  • The whole focus is m. 15. Get the timing right there.

  • mm. 11-12 and the last measure are both solid now. Nice and clean, hands together.

  • Treat the descending sixteenths as one gesture, together.

🎥 Joyous Etude, mm. 13-17 https://youtube.com/shorts/8DfFQK03W6s

13. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky), right hand, mm. 1-12

THIS WEEK: Right hand, measures 1 to 12. Expression is the focus.

NFPER focus: expression.

RCM Level 5, Etude

  • The three-note slurs have to connect as three, not as two.

  • Every staccato note placed exactly where it is written. You are connecting through rests in places.

  • Measure 3 has very specific articulation. Go slow enough to play it correctly.

  • Clap the rhythm first, then match your fingers to what you clapped.

14. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky), hands alone, mm. 13-20

THIS WEEK: Hands alone, measures 13 to 20.

NFPER focus: notes, fingering, position, expression.

RCM Level 5, Etude

  • Especially expression.

  • This will be really hard to put hands together if you cannot do it hands alone correctly. That is what makes it an etude.

Setup

15. 🟧 Binder dividers

Dividers for your three ring binder. I am bringing them.

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?