Scale Tag

 Periscope #17
Practicing Some Breathing Exercises

Periscoping with my brother was the highlight of my week. It wasn't until after I viewed the video again that I gleaned the really important insights. 

1. We have to bring the rhythm of one cycle together with the rhythm of another cycle.
2.  When the cycle of breathing interferes with the cycles of playing then we get tense and we don't use our body effectively. 
3. If we are aware of our breathing then we start the phrase with a breath and we end the phrase with a breath. Then we have two cyclic movements going together and enhancing each other.

  This week I started using this knowledge. It happened that I had overlap between two boys at their lessons who were the same age. The exercises described in the video below worked so much better with two boys. They felt less on the spot.


                                 

   Playing scale tag was really fun for them and the emphasis was on breathing and staying on the beat.

    Scale Tag

      One students breathes in and on the exhale goes down on a five finger scale. I chose going down instead of going up because it seems more intuitive with the exhale. The other student prepares by inhaling and choosing another five finger scale to exhale while going down. We played slowly, with intention. We go back and forth, from student to student, finding new scales, or playing the same ones. The next step was turning on a drum track. Now the challenge was coming in on the beat. 

   I have so much more context to work with now as I remind my students to breathe easily instead of holding their breath.

The winner of the book "Fascinations of the Human Voice" is Sara from Sara's Music Studio. It will be on the way soon.

                                                          

                      I am on Periscope on Tuesdays at 10:30 PST and my screen name is GabriB. I hope you will visit me. Next week I plan to introduce some student compositions and make them available to download.

Also check out Elizabeth Gutierrez on Periscope. She does teachings tips in 10 minutes on Tuesday mornings at 8:00am CST and I really enjoy her insights. Her handle is @pianoprof88 and she has a great blog. 

     Periscope is a free app by the Twitter company that allows you to broadcast all over the world. There is no time limit. Viewers can participate by typing messages and questions and by sending hearts for content they like. The recorded broadcast is viewable for 24 hours after airing.