Ideas for technique workshop?

[dpalmqui]

Hi,

I'm putting together a group technique workshop (~ 1 hr) for the students in my studio.  They are of varying ages (5-15) & levels.  I had thought of an idea of technique olympics, or some fun training videos, but am not getting very far.  Any thoughts on what's worked for you?  Aiming for learning, and fun here.

Thanks for your ideas!

[hfmadopter]

You need to define what kinds of technique you will cover in the work shops for one thing and or if it will be a progressive type thing or migrating  perhaps ( progressive being that say each week or month you continue with advancing the technique, migrating being that each week or month it's a whole new subject).

I'm thinking with the ages of your students it would be tough to come up with a technique work shop that fits them all and it's difficult to make suggestions without knowing what sort of technique will be covered.. I think you need to limit this to a certain level student for one thing. I've attended many work shops and auxiliary programs but I can't say that any were specific to technique in say fingering, for instance, but were in terms of learning in general. These were adult classes though. My teacher had work shops , two separate work shops once per month, one for adults and one for the kids under a certain age. I think high school senior aged kids were included in the adult segment ( i say I think because it could have been Juniors and Seniors) and I doubt she had one for the 5 and 6 yo kids, for instance. And the work shops were voluntary based. They were designed to get students playing in front of people and into a performance state of mind vs just hacking something out on the piano .

Auxiliary courses specific to learning techniques were fee based for X amount of weeks. One I took was an 8 week summer course, I think the cost was $300 but that was a lot of years ago now and I'm sure if one were offered today it would be at least double that. This was about taking pop music or other music you liked and filling out the keyboard from a simple melody line, almost like you would do from a cheat sheet..

So many ways to go, presentation I'm sure may be different today than it was 35 years ago. However the real mission is student involvement, absolutely hands on work.