-Jenny

So how can you celebrate Franz Liszt's birthday?

📜 Listen to Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat major.  

📜  Choose a Liszt piece to start learning as a repertoire piece. 

• Here are my personal suggestions!
• Consolation No. 1 in E major
• Consolation No. 3 in D-flat major

📜  Watch Victor Borge play Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

📜  Watch Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry play Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. 

Which one do you think came first? Let's settle this once and for all!

📜  Watch Mao Asada skate to Liebestraum No. 3. 

📜  Learn German and French.

📜  Compare Paganini's final movement of Violin Concerto No. 3 and Liszt's La Campanella. 

📜  Read books about art and religion. 

📜  Read his book, The Life of Chopin. (ebook)

📜  Read The Holy Bible.

📜  Read a biography about Franz Liszt. 

-Jenny

Teaching my students their favorite songs is important to me. 

Sometimes the lyrical content isn't appropriate in pop songs, so I decided to rewrite the lyrics to The Middle for that very reason. 

This parody is based off the song by Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey. 

I hope you enjoy it!

The Griddle

Verse 1

Whisk and beat

Fill it with air, beyond compare

Whip soft peaks

Put sugar in there and I’m unaware

Of just how I made all of this mess, this is impressive

Spilling cream was not my intention

Pre-Chorus

Toast in the toaster

Oh no, I burnt the toast

This breakfast is all over

I gotta let it go

Chorus

You said, Baby, why don't you just put eggs on the griddle?

And only cook mine just a little

Cuz I like runny yolks right in the middle

In the middle

Baby, why don't you just put eggs on the griddle?

And only cook mine just a little

Cuz I like runny yolks right in the middle

In the middle

Verse 2

Ohh, break an egg

Wait for a minute, you’re in the kitchen

Watching me

My spatula’s flipping, now yolks are broken

Oh how did I make all of this mess, this ain’t impressive

Breaking yolks was not my intention

PreChorus

And now you’re closer

Why have you come so close

Oh, you want to take over

I guess I’ll let you cook

Chorus

You say baby, why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

Let’s work as a team just a little

So why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

On the griddle

Bridge

Looking at you, I can't hide

Want you to be cooking

Regardless of my objection

And it's not about my pride

Just pouring ingredients

Just take over, you’re cooking

Chorus

You say baby, why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

Let’s work as a team just a little

So why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

On the griddle no no

You say baby, why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

Oh yeah, Let’s work as a team just a little

So why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

On the griddle Baby-y-y, why don't we put pancakes on the griddle, baby?

Let’s work as a team just a little

So why don't we put pancakes on the griddle?

On the griddle, griddle

On the griddle, griddle 

The piano version we used is in Pop Hits for Kids (Easy Piano) published by Hal Leonard (HL00279378).

I hope you enjoyed this rewrite! I am a huge fan of Weird Al, so if you want more pop parodies, I suggest listening to his music. I love writing my own parodies. If you use these new lyrics, please credit me!

What song should I parody next?

-Jenny

September 26th is George Gershwin's Birthday! 

So how can you celebrate?

🏙️ Watch George Gershwin play his own compositions. Here's I Got Rhythm. 

🏙️ Sight-play his jazz standards like his first hit, Swanee.  

🏙️ Choose a Gershwin piece to start learning as a repertoire piece. 

• Here are my personal suggestions!
• S'Wonderful (improvisation transcription)
• Prelude No. 1
• Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano

🏙️ Listen to Rhapsody in Blue.

🏙️ Watch Kim Yuna win the Olympics skating to Concerto in F.

🏙️ Watch An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly. 

🏙️ Visit The Music House Museum in Traverse City, MI to listen to Gershwin playing Rhapsody In Blue on the 1925 Webber Duo-Art reproducing piano.

🏙️ Listen to Alan Berg's Lyric Suite. 

🏙️ Learn to improvise jazz. 

🏙️ Play tennis.

🏙️ Paint a portrait.

🏙️ Read a biography about George Gershwin. 

What are some of your own ideas to celebrate Gershwin's birthday?

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown, Ph.D. LMSW

For piano teachers and students alike, there are many situations that make us vulnerable. Lessons, recitals, auditions, and teaching are a few of the many arenas we may find ourselves in. If you have ever felt afraid and thought that you are not good enough, I highly recommend this book. 

This non-fiction, research-based psychology book teaches assertiveness, taking risks, and having courage. Brené Brown, Ph.D LMSW presents her extensive original research in shame: an overwhelming emotion with which many of us have suffered at one time or another. It is a subject that we often try to avoid. The purpose of Daring Greatly is to encourage people to take risks, especially in the face of possible failure. 

Dr. Brown points out that many of our critics are not "in the arena" with us, they are on the outside and are often projecting their shortcomings on us. She describes the scarcity mindset, characterized by "never good enough," and contrasts that with the abundance mindset. Her practical recommendations for adopting this new mindset are clear and life-giving. 

I learned that failure is necessary to one day be successful. I learned that what I create is not the same as who I am. I learned that I am not the sum of prizes and accolades I have collected from other people. 

I'm finding joy in playing piano and teaching that I didn't have before.  The love of music and curiosity that drew me to piano in the first place is back and I feel freedom to continue to learn. I have also written new music and entered competitions. Rather than stopping myself because I might not be good enough, I decided it can't hurt to try it out. I've had disappointments and hurtful words from professors in the past that I carried on my shoulders for over a decade. When that happens, why even try to improve? But by not taking their words personally, I have found that I have been able to thrive in ways I never imagined. 

Dr. Brown's tone is humorous and colloquial. Her personal anecdotes are descriptive and realistic. Reading each personal story felt as though I was present in the scenario. (As a note, she does use profanity occasionally, so if you are sensitive to that form of language, please be forewarned!)

Some of my favorite quotes from this book:

"You know that you are far more than a painting, an innovative idea, an effective pitch, a good sermon, or a high Amazon.com ranking." (page 64)

"I have never heard one person attribute their joy, success, or Wholeheartedness to being perfect." (p. 128)

"Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It's about courage." (page 248) 

I encourage you to read this book and I hope that you find it to be transformative. 

What books have helped you?

-Jenny

After a confident and amazing recital presentation, my student suddenly decided she didn't like piano as much anymore. I had assigned her an original piece and a simplified version of Fur Elise over the summer and she felt as though they were too difficult, despite playing them for me with a high level of accuracy and understanding of the music. 

I was worried. Having shown amazing work ethic and commitment to musicality, was this it? Was our time together coming to an end? How could I reengage and help her joy to return? 

Well, I didn't do anything! But after leaving her piano books at home during a vacation, her motivation and drive returned! 

What I learned: it's okay to take extended breaks from the piano. Especially after spending so much concentrated time to get to this level!  Now, we are working on some Faber Popular and Rock 'n Roll books. We're also doing some rote pop chord progressions. I'm super excited for what this year will bring with the renewed energy and excitement! 

Have you experienced any student breakthrough discouragement? What did they need? 

-Jenny

August 22nd is Claude Debussy's Birthday! 

So how can you celebrate?

🌊 Listen to Debussy play his own compositions. 

🌊 Listen to my mashup of Clair de Lune and Happy Birthday To You. 

🌊 Sight-play an "easier" piece such as Rêverie or Page d'Album. 

 
🌊 Choose a Debussy piece to start learning as a repertoire piece. 

• Here are my personal suggestions!
• Arabesque No. 1 in E Major 
• Rêverie 
• Prélude from Suite Bergamasque
• Clair de Lune from Suite Bergamasque
• Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
• La Fille aux cheveux de Lin 
• La Cathédral engloutie - I think I will begin learning this one. 

🌊 Listen to La mer.

🌊 Watch Carolina Kostner skate to Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

🌊 Go for a boat ride. 

🌊 Visit The Art Institute of Chicago to view paintings by Claude Monet. 

🌊 Read poetry by Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé.

Clair de Lune by Paul Verlaine

Your soul is like a landscape fantasy,
Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise,
Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.

Singing in minor mode of life's largesse
And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite
Reluctant to believe their happiness,
And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,

The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming,
Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees,
And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming--
Slender jet-fountains--sob their ecstasies.

Apparitions by Stéphane Mallarmé

The moon grew sad, and weeping seraphim,
Musing among the vaporous flowers aswim,
With slow bows from the sobbing viols drew
White tears that sank in their corónals blue.
It was the blesséd day of your first kiss.
My reverie, eager with new miseries,
Was all a-swoon with perfume of shy grief
That leaves the heart to gather its own sheaf,
And frets not, nor yet sickens of its prize.
I wandered, and the worn way held my eyes
When in the street I saw your sun-girt hair
And you all smiling in the twilit air.
I took you for that elf who, crowned with beams,
Once passed before me in my childish dreams,
And shed white posies of sweet-smelling flow’rs
Star-like for tiny hands in snowy show’rs.

🌊 Learn musical terms in French.

🌊 Read Edgar Allen Poe, especially The Fall of the House of Usher. Debussy was working on an opera based on this work. 

🌊 Read a biography about Claude Debussy. 

What are some of your own ideas to celebrate Debussy's birthday?

-Jenny