Many of my students love to draw and color. A new practice I’ll be starting in January 2010 is to have my youngsters draw, color, paint, collage, etc one picture for every day that they practice during the week.
All they have to do is create a picture that represents how that practice session was for them. They could draw to show how they felt, how the practice was, or what the music made them think of.
When they arrive the following week they’ll have a small “booklet” of images telling the story of their practice week. Then using Garageband, the iMac and my microphone, we’ll record a brief improvisation that matches the image. The student will create a score for their “mini-play”. I’ll send them the complete MP3 file and then they can have “theatre” performances at home with family members and friends.
My expectation is that some students will be inspired to create scenes/images outside the realm of piano practice and delve into the creative story-telling process with music. My hope is that the activity will be so fun that they will want to practice more days so that they have more images. Of course I’ll have to put a limit of one image per day of practice in order to inspire that motivation!
Anyone who has done this or has any input, comments, etc. please send them to me. I’m grateful for any support I receive.