October 28, 2026 (6 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 writes your practice down for you, no comments needed.

Tap the first assignment on your list.

The timer starts by itself. Read it and practice.

When you are finished, press Done. It saves your time and opens the next one.

Need to stop for a minute? Press Pause.

Lost? Press My Assignment List at the top to go back.

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

Something wrong with the guide? Open the video tool, record yourself explaining it, and press Send to Dustin. It emails me a link straight away.

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.

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.

Official tracking started Monday, October 19.

🟩 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), broken chords and arpeggios, pages 11 to 14

THIS WEEK: All the broken chords and arpeggios, pages 11 to 14. One practice tool on each item, then the metronome at the printed speed.

  • This replaces the three separate technique assignments. All of them, not a selection.

  • Pick one tool per item: close-loud, accent practice, rhythms, sprint practice, staccato, super slow motion.

  • Write the tools on slips of paper and put them in a cup. Draw one. That is the tool for that item that day.

  • Then play it with the metronome at the speed printed on the page.

  • Tuck the thumb under instead of twisting. Keep the elbow from swinging out to the left.

  • Let go of finger 4 on the way down rather than holding on through the cross.

  • Keep the wrist low. It spikes up, and that is part of what makes the sound uneven.

  • G minor, left hand: the fingering is 4, not 3. It is circled in blue.

  • Playing them through at tempo is not practicing them. That is what today showed.

Theory

2. 🟥 Celebrate Theory, Level 5, Unit 2 (RCM)

THIS WEEK: Unit 2. Finish it.

⏱ Max 7 minutes per practice session.

  • Same assignment as last week. It was yellow and it is red now because it did not get done.

  • There are a couple of pages left.

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

Musicianship

3. 🟩 Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests, Level 4 (Berlin and Markow), ear test playbacks

THIS WEEK: Melody playbacks out of the tests, with Mama.

  • New this week. This replaces RCM Online Ear Training.

  • Playbacks only, off the test page.

  • Do them with Mama, not on the screen.

  • A lot of these cross the third degree, so you skip a note where you did not have to at Level 3. Listen for that.

4. 🟪 Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests, Level 4 (Berlin and Markow), Set 10

THIS WEEK: Same assignment. Set 10, one day of the set per practice session.

  • We did not get to it. Same assignment.

  • Sets 8 and 9 are done.

  • 6/8 is compound meter. Two beats in the bar, three eighth notes inside each beat, three plus three.

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

5. 🟩 Piano Adventures Sightreading Book, Level 3A (Faber), pages 80 to 86

THIS WEEK: Pages 80 to 86. One page a day.

  • Pages 74 to 80 are done.

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

  • Look a little further ahead.

  • Press Done for the Week after page 86.

Repertoire

6. 🟩 Ballade in C minor, Op. 100 No. 15, from 25 Études faciles et progressives (Burgmüller), mm. 31-57

THIS WEEK: Memorization work on measures 31 to 57.

RCM Level 4, Etude 1.

Practice type: Memorizing.

  • Hands alone, with the music and then without it.

  • Then hands together, with the music and then without it.

  • Start from a few random measures between 31 and 57.

  • One time through close-loud on measures 3 and 4, and on measures 87 to 90.

  • The last quarter of the hands-together section is where your hands come apart. That is the part to keep working.

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

THIS WEEK: Hands alone, slower. Every single quarter note stickier.

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

No faster than m.m. 66 per quarter note, hands alone.

  • Sticky, not staccato.

  • Slow and medium tempo is the best kind of review practice. Fast review is how a piece rusts away without you noticing.

  • 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.

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

THIS WEEK: Metronome practice on measures 13 to 21, and meditate on the tempo before you begin.

RCM Level 4, Etude 2.

m.m. 132 per quarter note.

  • Measures 13 to 21 is the transition, and it is where the tempo moves.

  • Before you start, close your eyes and think four measures of the waltz swing. That is twelve clicks.

  • One, two, three. Feel the downbeat, not just the pulse.

  • Left hand softer, right hand in focus.

  • Your tempo changes a lot through the piece. That is an easy thing for an examiner to mark.

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

THIS WEEK: Play through from beginning to end, and put the brake on every time the first theme comes back.

RCM Level 4, List B.

  • Name the first theme to yourself before you start.

  • Every time it comes back, think about the speed and slow down.

  • Think of the downbeat of each measure.

  • The metronome on its own will not fix this. You have to be listening when you get there.

10. 🟩 Fröhlicher Landmann, von der Arbeit zurückkehrend (The Happy Farmer), Op. 68 No. 10 (Schumann)

THIS WEEK: Hands together, with extreme expression.

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

m.m. 54 per quarter note.

  • Hands alone is done. Hands together now.

  • Right hand softer than it needs to be, left hand louder than it needs to be.

  • Bring everything up a level and down a level.

11. 🟩 Joyous Etude (Bober), mm. 14-16

THIS WEEK: Measures 14, 15 and 16. The dynamics and the pedal markings in pencil.

RCM Level 5, Etude.

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

  • I wrote the dynamics in. Follow what is on the page.

  • Start piano, then come up.

  • Hold the pedal for the first two beats only, not the whole measure.

  • Keep playing along with the video.

12. 🟩 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky)

THIS WEEK: The last two systems, very slowly, with exaggerated wrist movement and exaggerated dynamics.

RCM Level 5, Etude.

m.m. 46 per quarter note.

🎥 Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 https://youtube.com/shorts/rSf4RxRNgJY

  • Watch the video again, closely. What it shows is the exaggerated wrist movement and the exaggerated dynamics at a very slow tempo.

  • The last two measures are the ones to fix.

  • Shape the phrase to a peak instead of staying flat.

  • Very slow tempo. Fixing this once it is already fast is painful.

Setup

13. 🟧 Binder dividers

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

14. 🟧 Practice technique cards

  • Cards for your cup, one practice tool per card. I am making more of these.

Level 4 Exam Program

Your program is in the practice guide, under Royal Conservatory of Music.

Exam session: November 28 to December 10.

Go through your whole guide and memorize the names of your composers. An examiner may ask to hear the Clementi by name.

Joyous Etude and the Kabalevsky Prelude are Level 5 etudes, so they stay out of the Level 4 program and out of that list.

When You First Sit Down

Close your eyes, put your hands across the keyboard, and feel your way from one end to the other. Two black keys, three black keys, two, three. Flatten your hand out so you can feel the groups instead of one key at a time.

Do that before you practice this week. It is how the keyboard gets into your hands as well as your eyes.

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?