Newsletter #2

LEARN BY PATTERN

As a child, I loved 'playing' piano, music that would impress myself and others. But I did not like 'practicing.' My teacher was a very smart lady, so she didn't force me to learn scales and the like. She played a lot of music for me and allowed me to choose what I liked, whether it was at my level of technique or not. Because I loved the sound, I worked hard to imitate out loud what I heard in my head, even though it often meant devising my own ways of getting all those notes in.

It was only in my mid-forties that I consciously realized I was teaching this way also and termed it PATTERN MEMORY because I introduced pieces to my pupils that included in them the technique that the pupil needed at the time. Perhaps my teacher had also done this, but at the time I was unaware of it. I only knew I was enjoying playing piano and making music.

This is what my 'method' is, this is what my books are about, and this is how technique is learned.

Young beginners learn through fairy tales and the like set to folk music of many lands.

Adult beginners learn the same way using songs like Greensleeves, Michael Row the Boat Ashore and many more.

Non-beginners choose the book arranged for elementary, intermediate, or advanced level. In each of these books I have chosen patterns such as triads, arpeggios, scales, staccato, legato, tremolo--------up to 20 patterns, and arranged them in sections. Each section contains 5-8 pieces in the public domain classical repertoire which use these patterns extensively. The student chooses what he or she is attracted to and then has a list of additional examples to attempt, or go to the music store, and choose something completely different.

In this way, I hope you learn, explore, entertain yourself and others and ENJOY!!!

Don't forget--------Music is SELF-expression through organized sound.

Helena

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