As the date of our concert draws near, whether it be classical, jazz, pop, or any other genre, I am hearing a lot of our students practicing their piece to play. Knowing a bit too well how nerve-racking it can be, I have come up with a few tips to help boost your confidence whilst playing (hopefully they will work!)

1. Practice may not make perfect, but it does come very close, so practice your pieces consistently and daily! You will be more confident if you know your piece rather than going on stage without knowing what you’re playing.

2. Mock performances in front of family, pets or dolls is not such a bad idea, and will give you some practice in playing in front of others.

3. Record yourself when you play and listen back on it. Hopefully you will be able to hear your strong points as well as where you need to improve. Then you can correct and perfect your piece to play more confidently at the concert!

4. Believe in yourself! Look back at how far you’ve come! You are a good musician and you have the potential to be awesome. So hold your head high and play with courage.

5. Lastly, when in doubt, play G. Just kidding, but have fun when you perform. You will not only overcome lack of confidence but also perform a lot better when you have fun.

As the school comes close to the end of the term it gets crazier each time. Exam results coming in, most of them have been very pleased with their results and the comments that have been given to them. The teachers have also awarded their students for their great effort and hard work for the upcoming exam. But just when its time to relax the concert is yet to be reminded to be only a couple of weeks away.

The students are all very excited and yet nervous for their upcoming performances. Many have already told their family and friends to come along to share the special event with them. It’s a busy time yet its in a positive manner as it allows not only the students but the staff to reflect upon this year and how much has been accomplished!

For those who don’t currently or haven’t previously learnt music, looking at a piece of music can be mind-boggling. Everyone knows the basics – treble clefs, quavers and maybe even crochets! But who knows the difference between “mezzo forte” or “crescendo”, let alone what they mean?

Any music students reading this should know that “mezzo forte” means moderately loud and “crescendo” obviously means gradually getting louder! Duh!

Unfortunately to those strangers of music, looking at a sheet of music is almost like looking at a book in another language i.e. trying to read Arabic. From afar, the symbols look pretty cool, but up close you have no idea what they individually mean or why they’re there!

For me, this is the reason why people who play music are respected by all, despite gender, ethnicity and age. When I watch or listen to a young student playing a well-known classical piece whilst deep in concentration, the student has the capability to draw an enormous amount of respect from any listeners. Young people who can play music have a certain charisma, or quality about them that allows them to remain confident yet modest. Getting to this level, of course, requires dedication and passion – but I think the result is definitely worth it.

The case of the ‘bad’ student is a puzzling and mysterious dilemma in itself, and being hard to resolve, one can only sit and observe the peculiar habits and range of excuses that distinguish these so called ‘bad’ students from the ‘good’ ones.

The first observation is that the bad student would hardly practice all week until 10 minutes before class. When rushing out to get to class 5 minutes past the start of the lesson, would forget their homework, which is piled up on a stack of homework given to them by their teacher over the past few months, undoubtedly incomplete.

The bad student would then brainstorm a whole plethora of excuses as to why they did not bring their homework or why it is incomplete. And to top it off, when asked by their teacher “Have you been practicing?”, an awkward, inevitable lie would follow, with a brief glance into the teacher’s suspicious eyes, and then straight down to the floor.

We know, “you do not have time to practice”, “the piece is too hard”, “the teacher forgot to teach you that” or “it does not sound right/good”.

So if you’re reading this as if it were your diary entry, and feeling slightly overwhelmed by guilt, you know what you have to do… Read on.

Dedicating 10 minutes a day to quality practice time not only builds your skills, technique, confidence and musical knowledge, you never know, it might also enrich your life. So challenge yourself to practice consistently, and in no time, you will be playing like a professional!

The five human senses are touch, sight, taste, hearing, and smell. Personally, having always been sensitive to smells. I find that if there is a certain smell disrupting my senses, I am unable to focus on anything else. The thought occurred to me today when one of our teachers complained about a smell. A student’s pet cat had urinated on his bag, which he had brought into the room causing the music room to smell like…cat’s urine. He offered for me to have a smell after the student left, before spraying copious amounts of Glen 20 Odour eliminating spray into the room. I politely declined.

Whilst trying to hold in my laughter, I wondered – what are you supposed to do in those situations? Politely ask the student to wash the bag, or leave it outside – for me to smell at the reception desk! Or put in all of your effort on trying to not breathe, but continue to teach and listen to your student?

Personally, I would have left the door open and stood outside whilst listening to the student play inside – door half closed to keep the smell in. Poor teachers, who have to deal with this type of situation daily.

After having written a few too many blog posts for my liking, I have finally reached that point where I am quite sure I am actually starting to feel small amounts of stress along the back of my neck every time I have to come up with a new blog topic (not really, but just for a little more dramatic effect).

This new challenge that has been sprung upon the girls at reception has proved to be particularly difficult for me, a person of few words. I sometimes find myself dreading the unholy hour before the shift ends when we would have to submit a new blog entry. The 30 minutes before that is spent looking through the past blog entries, and I cannot help but feel a pang of disappointment when another girl has already covered the topic I was thinking of doing for that shift.

Although our blog entries may not always be stunning, thought provoking or life enriching, thank you to all our readers who do take a few minutes of their time to read the posts. I hope they inspire you… or at least entertain you for 5 minutes.

Can you imagine what your music teacher would have been like as a student? Would he or she have practiced consistently every day, or have never done her/his homework? As a student, it can be hard to imagine what teachers would be like in their position. Teachers are the experienced professionals who are expected to know the answers to almost every question and be pretty much perfect!

I was surprised to overhear some of the teachers discuss the amount of practice they have to do, their occasionally incorrect techniques which need to be corrected by their very own teacher! It’s a comforting thought, that teachers are still students – aren’t we all, soaking up everything we can, learning something new every day?

Teachers make mistakes, once in awhile, and students need to understand that teachers, too, need to practice and learn just like they do. Only that way, students can develop and become teachers themselves – whether it’s teaching your own younger sibling certain keys or notes on the instrument, or becoming a professional teacher themselves!

As one of our guitar students was absent today, our guitar teacher had some free time to sit and play freely until his next student came. In this time, I listened to his private ‘jam’ session, and wondered what it took to get to that stage. The most obvious factor would inevitably be loads of practice day and night, and motivation and pure determination to not give up at any stage.

Continual support from family, friends and teachers would definitely be a plus, as well as confidence in their musical knowledge and talent. Their yearning to pass their invaluable musical knowledge on to the next generation might have also have made them take the initiative to walk down the teaching path.

But first and foremost, the strongest driving factor for musicians like our talented teachers would have to be pure love and passion for music and everything about it, because without this, learning music and its theories would be a lost cause.

Hanging over your head, waiting patiently in the dark to catch you unprepared and nervous, is one type or another of end of year exams. Being a uni student, I have finished my semester and am preparing to sit my end of semester exams. I know that many of our students are preparing for their November AMEB exams which are coming up in a few weeks time.

Remembering the days when I had to go in for my upcoming AMEB piano exams, I shudder at the thought of sitting in the stuffy corridor of the exam location, anxiously awaiting the examiner to call out my name. For some reason, the walls of the corridor seemed to be closing in, and it seemed to be getting harder and harder to take in breaths of air as the time drew near for my exam.

And maybe it was just my paranoia hitting me, but for some odd reason, the examiner always seemed to be an old, grumpy man or woman who never wanted to pass anyone, but just exerted their dominance and authority over you to see if you would crack under the pressure.

Now I’m sure these days, all examiners are friendly and warm, and do not mark you harshly for one error or fail you for not sitting up straight, but in the unfortunate event that you do get a grumpy old mean examiner, here are a few tips to help you pass:

1. Know your pieces back to front! This means practicing every day until the day of your exam.
2. Revise your theory well before the exam day. Cramming the night before will not get you far!
3. Eat a good breakfast and take a bottle of water with you. Drinking plenty of water will ensure that the walls will stop closing in on you.
4. Listen carefully to your examiner’s instructions. They might only say something once.
   
5. Be confident! You are a good musician, have come very far, and you are only sitting the exam because your teacher knows you can pass with flying colours.

So good luck to all our students undertaking their exams!

After several weeks even months maybe I finally find myself working on a Wednesday. As students come in, I look up and some are faces of new students that I’m not familiar with. While, others are faces I know but I find hard to recognise because of how much they’ve grown.

The growth however is not just in physical changes; it is also evident through playing their instrument. Most of them have mastered skills and techniques that they have once in the past have complained/ stressed over. Also, some interests have changed the once pre-loved song of “Green sleeves” has now developed to the main interest of the Metallica Album “Death Magnetic”.

Whilst, it does seem like a long time, the memory still remains and it’s not too long until a new student comes along with a similar experience which triggers that feeling of déjà vu.