Keeping your skills up during school holidays
WOOO it’s the school holidays! No music lessons for at least two weeks. We hear you! It can be so nice to have a break. And we, as teachers, love holidays too!
The only downside to holidays is that all the new skills and knowledge acquired during a term’s worth of lesson can easily … disappear. So here are a couple of ideas you can do during holidays so that when you return to lessons, you still know how to play a couple of things!
Continue playing the pieces you learned this term
Just because the term is over doesn’t mean you have to stop playing your pieces! Keep playing them and polishing them. Become your own teacher, analyse and listen to your playing, and think to yourself, “how can I play this better?”
Play through your very first pieces
This is always an excellent thing to do when learning new repertoire seems too daunting, and playing pieces you’ve been studying all term feels stale. Go through some of your very first pieces and try playing them. You might be surprised how easy they are to play now, and how well your body and ears remember them!
Play a concert for your family or friends
Music is meant to be shared, so share it! If you have family over from overseas, or if you’re having a party with friends, play them a few tunes you know. They’ll totally appreciate it and be so impressed. Go a step further and actually organise a proper concert for them if you like, by planning your programme/set list, setting up lots of chairs for your audience, and memorising your pieces.
Look up some of your favourite songs on Youtube or Musescore, and have a go sight-reading them
If you feel like you don’t really get the chance to play your favourite songs during your lessons, holidays are your perfect opportunity! Nowadays it’s so easy to find arrangements of all sorts of songs online, either for free or for quite cheap. We love the website Musescore and Musicnotes. Download the sheet music and have a try sight-reading it. The bonus of this? You get to practise your sight-reading skills!
Read a book about music, or subscribe to some musicians on Youtube
If you really don’t feel like playing your instrument, this one’s great for you. You can read a fiction book about music, or maybe a book about music theory or history if you’re a bit of a nerd. We also love following musicians and music teachers on Youtube, because they are so relatable, entertaining and can really inspire us.
Challenge yourself to learn a new piece from your music book without the help of your teacher
You probably have a method book that you use for lessons. Go and find this book, open it to a page you’ve never studied with your teacher, and try learning it.
What are some ways you like to keep your skills up to scratch during the holidays? Let us know in the comments!
