by Dr. Noa Kageyama
Picking the best metronome app can be a little difficult since the only way to test out an app is to buy it. Most only cost a few dollars, but that can add up pretty quickly given the number of apps that are available.
Earlier this week I asked which metronome apps you thought were the best, and you nominated 20 of your favorites. Based on the number of nominations I received, here are your top five:
This year marks my 50th anniversary as a music teacher. Over the course of the last 50 years I have witnessed many changes to the ways in which music is taught. Not only changes to the teaching of classroom music to infants, primary and secondary students, for example, but also significant changes to the way in which instrumental music is taught. The changes to classroom music teaching are evident in the way in which many teachers of music have embraced in part, or sometimes wholly, the educational philosophies of musicians such as Jaques Dalcroze, Carl Orff and Zoltán Kodály.
posted by Valerie Strauss, of The Washington Post on January 22, 2013 at 4:00 am
You don’t find school reformers talking much about how we need to train more teachers in the arts, given the current obsession with science, math, technology and engineering (STEM), but here’s a list of skills that young people learn from studying the arts.
New research suggests that regularly playing an instrument changes the shape and power of the brain and may be used in therapy to improve cognitive skills.
It can even increase IQ by seven points in both children and adults, according to researchers.
Experts said there is growing evidence that musicians have structurally and functionally different brains compared with non-musicians - in particular, the areas of the brain used in processing and playing music.
These parts of the brain that control motor skills, hearing, storing audio information and memory become larger and more active when a person learns how to play an instrument and can apparently improve day to day actions such as being alert, planning and emotional perception.
2 hours? 4 hours? 8 hours? 12 hours?
How much is enough?
Is there such a thing as practicing too much?
Is there an optimal number of hours that one should practice?