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B L O G

10 Tips to Improve your Clarinet Playing

1/13/2023

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We always want to find different ways to improve our clarinet playing, but sometimes we live such busy lives that it can even be a struggle to fit in a couple of minutes to practice. With the large number of school subjects’ and enrichment activities students are expected to take, it can also be exhausting even finding the motivation to practice the moment you have some free time on your hands. Throughout this guide, we’ll walk through step by step some tips that you can use to help improve your clarinet playing. ​

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10 Reasons to Study the French Language

1/6/2023

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Are you undecided to what language your learner should study? The French language is a beautiful and expressive language that can be enjoyable and enriching for children. It can be intimidating at first because you aren’t sure where to begin, what resources you would need, and how to get your learner started? In this guide, we are going to provide some useful resources and 10 reasons why your learner should study the French language.

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Music & Language Learning Center Class Offerings

12/29/2022

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Throughout their early education, children are taught basic subjects like math and science to help them better understand the world around them. Artistic courses were often deemed less important, despite exposing children to a new realm of interests. This is where The Music and Language Learning Center, or the MLLC, comes in.

The MLLC provides a wide variety of courses regarding the study of music, along with three language classes: French, Spanish, and Portuguese. All levels of education are welcome; in other words, no prior experience is needed to take these courses. 
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Each course is held online with three different types of classes: flexible, multi-day, and private tutoring, or one-on-one. Flexible courses do not meet live and are instead taught through assignments. Multi-day courses meet at scheduled times over a period, and private tutoring is individual teaching.

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How to Develop Your Conducting Skills: Basic to Intermediate

12/10/2022

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Conducting can be a tricky business. It’s not only about learning the score, indicating instrumental entrances, or even beating the time. You must be able to understand the people that you’re working with and through that type of understanding of how to approach them whether they are beginners or even professionals, which requires a level of awareness when understanding the ensemble, you’re working with.  

Throughout my career, I've witnessed many different types of conductors - inspiring ones, angry ones, funny ones, and bad ones, but they all have one thing in common: they have the courage and tenacity to be able to stand in front of a group of people to communicate their ideas using musical gestures. 

One of the biggest lessons that I learned throughout my own formation is being able to develop the skills and knowledge to make sure that I have the confidence to stand in front of people and express my ideas through my gestures. There are a lot of conductors out there that talk about butterflies and make comparisons of sound to nature. While it may be useful to make these types of associations with younger ensembles, professionals really don’t care. What would they want is: Do you want it louder or softer?

In this article, I’ll walk you through a couple of basic beat patterns that will help you be able to get started. Keep in mind, that the most important thing is to make sure that the gesture does not happen in real-time, if that is the case, that means that you’re following the ensemble, not actually leading it. There is a great exercise in anticipating the beat that my old mentor and teacher, Dominique Rouits, from École Normale de Musique taught me. What you would need to do is to turn on the metronome at 60 and conduct ahead of the beat. This is a really great way of being able to not only practice a variety of beat patterns but also be able to integrate the sensation of what one should feel when they are leading the ensemble vs. following them.

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Why Study Spanish?

11/26/2022

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Languages can be a fantastic tool to expand your mind and social circle. They can bring opportunities and knowledge about new cultures, besides allowing you to make new friends. 

Language learning is healthy for you because it exercises and activates parts of your brain that aren't often used.  Learning strengthens the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, meaning it produces the gray matter that carries some of the neurons and synapses of your brain. 

Additionally, switching from one language to another can help you focus better and organize your ideas more — it can even help you be a more efficient problem-solver. 

Ultimately, having a bilingual brain can make you happier. So, learning Spanish can be a great adventure and never a waste of time.

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Why Spanish?

There are many reasons to explore a new language, but Spanish might be a bit more motivating than other languages.

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How to Practice: Creating a Routine that Works for You

8/26/2022

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    Have you ever found times when you struggled to find time to practice? It’s almost as if there aren’t enough hours in a day to allow for productive practice with your instrument as we experience problems of overcommitment, fatigue, and lack of motivation. While in an ideal world, we want to have endless hours a day to practice achieving a high level of musicianship, we must make the most of the hours that are given us. 
    A lot of the time, we are under the impression that we must just keep repeating the same passage repeatedly until we get it right. While repetition is very useful, unless you understand what the problem is, this continuous repetition is unproductive and can lead to injuries like tendinitis. Here are a couple of things to be tips to be mindful of when you practice: 

  1. Understand the problem. If you don’t understand the problem, you won’t be able to fix it. If you’re able to isolate the problem and be able to address it directly, it is a lot more efficient and will save you a lot of time. 
  2. Be realistic. If you have a full day of classes, in addition to sports and other enrichment activities, do you really think you’ll be able to have enough concentration to work efficiently? What’s useful is being able to schedule a block of time during your day when you can be concentrated. You can start with a 15-minute block of time and build from there. When we practice music, it involves a high level of concentration when you are alert.  
  3. Set goals. This is probably something that we’ve heard many times, which also ties in with being realistic. While we want to be ambitious and set high goals for ourselves, we also must be able to balance that with the time that we do have. I always found it useful to make a list of long-term goals of what I want to accomplish with the instrument, but also being able to set immediate goals of what I want to achieve in my individual practice that are realistic within the timeframe I must work. ​

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Music and Language Learning Center

Music and Language Learning Center

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 MUSIC AND LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTER 2023
  • Home
  • Classes
    • ABRSM Music Theory
    • Celebrate Theory
    • Music Lessons
    • Ear Training
    • Music Appreciation
    • Music History
    • Music Theory
    • Trinity College of Music
    • French
    • Portuguese
    • Spanish
  • Faculty
  • Store
  • Career
  • Blog
  • About Us