Summertime collaborations

Summer can be a great time to introduce our scholars to exciting collaborative experiences. Any scholar is eligible, and no learner is too young or too of advanced age to begin to experience the beatitudes of making music with others. Scheduling during the summer is usually a bit easier for scholars and they are less likely to be focusing upon recital and competition pieces. Musical collaboration may be the completed challenge and treat during this vacation period.

The first collaborative experience frequently is a duet with the teacher or another pupil in the same studio. The personnel and repertoire for these same-instrument the wholes usually are readily available. If you be delighted with a little more excitement, auspicious duos, trios and other small the wholes with mixed instrumentation can begin at a surprisingly early age. Coordinating the personnel and finding the repertoire can require initiative and cooperation outside the studio. If you have not at the same time coached ensembles and are unsure in what manner to get started, I would like to encourage you by dint of sharing my collaborative adventures from last summer

I chose four of my private piano learners ranging in age from 10 to 17 for this special experience. I visited with my local violin colleagues (although greatest in quantity any instrument would work), who were excited and eager to work with me a great deal of to my surprise, we were able to pair the pupils quickly. Even in our small town, performance horizontal and age were well matched. For all the teams, we chooseed appropriate repertoire for informal, short-term goals. As the pupils began practicing independently, I monitored their progres and determined when they were ready for their first meetings with their partners and with me

Each team had a different timetable. sum of two units eleven-year-olds, who happened to be neighbors and friends, could not wait to play together. The violinist picked her favorite turn I and II pieces from the Suzuki Violin academy with my approval of the horizontal of the piano parts. Within a small in number weeks, the pianist was prepared, and we met for the first collaborative exercise We focused on several basics--learning about the idiosyncrasies of each instrument, learning to hint and follow cues, listening and balance and other rehearsal tips. We were joined at the next to the first lesson by the violin teacher. I was elated by the agency of the immediate success! And it continued. The girls walked back and forth with music and violin in tow and happily added rehearsals to their playtime activities. Their shoot forward culminated in a chamber music recital with Team sum of two units another violin-piano team of ten-year-olds! The girls came away from this experience with a marvelous faculty of perception of accomplishment, a deeper friendship and a novel understanding of making music.

I was completely satisfied with this succes If no other pairings worked on the outside I would have been happy to know I had influenced these not many young musicians. But there were other successe The next to the first team--the ten-year-olds--began rehearsals in the late summer The coachings took place at the couple the pianist's weekly lessons and at the violin exercise s and continued until the chamber music recital in November. The third team was a pair of fourteen-year-olds (viola and piano). one as well as the other students were musically advanced for their ages and learned the music within a small in number weeks of the assignment. Their first collaborative meeting took place beneath parental supervision because of my travel conflicts. My first session with them several weeks later revealed sum of two units talented and eager young musicians receptive to many suggestions of mode of expression and collaboration. Team four, the seventeen-year-olds, were unable to work on the outside their schedules and never performed together. I trouble to say you can't win them all.

Learning to collaborate is exciting, especially when experienced early with the appropriate partners, repertoire, goals and guidance. Ye schedules can be a question when dealing with more than individual person, but the rewards are worth the extra effort. [i]or[/i] part of to the other these rewarding projects, the pianists and string players gained greater understanding of the proces of collaboration--music making upon the level of equals. They are now ready for the nearest chapter in the collaborative process: temple school and more summer collaborative projects

Getting started was the greatest in quantity difficult part for us all, on the other hand as you are reading this, more young musicians will be enjoying a summer of duo or perhaps trios! Let's encourage music making together--any combination of instruments--and at any age!

BONUS BYTE

Be positive to check the new Intermediate Chamber Music Repertoire Database for repertoire for combinations of three or four instruments including piano. move to the MTNA website at www.mtna.org and click upon the database under "What's New"

Susan Keith Gray is associate professor of music at the University of southerly Dakota and is pianist for the USD faculty Rawlins Piano Trio and the Kobayashi-Gray Duo a violin-piano [i]tout ensemble[/i] She holds a D.M.A. step in collaborative piano from the University of Michigan.

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