Recital Time!

Happy Winter!

Our Winter Recital will be held at Dow Rummel Village in the chapel on Saturday December 13th at 3:00pm and 4:30pm.  The chapel at Dow Rummel has a beautiful, well maintained, Steinway grand piano.  I feel that this is one of the best pianos in Sioux Falls!   Dow Rummel is located in the northern part of Sioux Falls near Russell and West.

Whether your child has played in several piano recitals or if this will be their first piano recital please take a moment to review the following:

1.  Please arrive 15-20 minutes early.  If you are not sure where Dow Rummel is located please ask, and also leave early on Saturday so that you will not be rushed.

2.  Please bring your music!  While many students will have their music memorized, some students may feel more comfortable with the music on the stand.  I ask that everyone bring their music to the recital.

3.  As a matter of respect, please plan on attending the entire recital.  The recital should last about 30 to 45 minutes.  All students have worked diligently this semester and this is their time to shine. Students may sit with their families during the recital.  If you have a younger child who starts crying or likes to run around please take them to the hallway outside of the chapel.  Also, remember to silence your cell phones and other electronic devices.

4.  When it is your child's turn to play at the recital they will make their way towards the piano as the previous student has taken a bow and is leaving the piano.  Each student should adjust the piano bench so that they are not too close or too far away from the piano.  After they sit down they should take a moment to think about tempo and dynamics and the first few measures of their piece.  After their performance they will take a bow and return to their seat.  We will go through this sequence and bowing at an upcoming piano lesson.

5.  After the recital there will be an opportunity to take pictures by the piano and we will have cookies and punch in the foyer. 

6.  Along with the families and friends of my piano students, the residents of Dow Rummel are also invited to attend our recital.

The last day of our Fall Semester is Saturday December 13th. If your child’s lesson is normally after 2pm on Saturday afternoon please contact me for a make-up lesson time.  Due to my full schedule, we may need to meet the week following the recital.

November News!

The holidays are fast approaching and here are a few quick reminders:

Thanksgiving Break will last Tuesday November 25th through Sunday November 30th.  I will meet with the Monday students as scheduled on November 24th.  At this time, your child should be practicing their recital pieces daily.  If you are not traveling for Thanksgiving break, please check in on their (practice) progress and encourage the work they have accomplished. 

The Winter Recital will take place Saturday December 13th in the Chapel at Dow Rummel.  There will be a recital at 3pm and another at 4:30pm.  Please let me know which recital will work best for your family by December 6.  On December 7 I will be dividing up the recitals equally.  If you wish to showcase your cooking talents or bring a fruit or veggie tray to share, please send me an email and let me know what you will be bringing and the quantity.  Students who have regularly scheduled lessons on Saturday afternoons (2pm and later) are encouraged to reschedule their lesson for the following week (December 15-18).  If we are unable to reschedule I will credit your Spring Tuition bill for the missed lesson.

The Sioux Falls Area Music Teacher Association (SFAMTA) Piano Festival will take place Saturday March 14, 2015.  The non-refundable registration fee is $15.00 and is due the first week of February.  Students from the Sioux Falls area participate in the piano festival throughout the day in the Humanities Building at Augustana College.  Participants are required to play two pieces from memory and are given a rating, critique sheet, and a certificate. Students who participate in the piano festival for 3, 5, 7,and 9 years earn a trophy.  They will earn an engraved plaque the 10th year of participation and a gift certificate in their 11th year of participation.  Students should be enrolled in piano lessons at least one full year before they participate in the piano festival.  It is best to begin choosing music now for intermediate and advanced students.  Pieces for elementary students will be chosen in January.  If you would like for your child to participate in piano festival please let me know so that I may include the registration fee with the tuition statement. 

The Spring Semester begins Monday January 5th.  Please take a moment and review the Spring Semester calendar on my website.  If there are lesson dates your child may miss please let me know via email so that I may deduct that lesson from the Spring tuition.  My teaching schedule is now very full and it may be difficult to find times to make up a lesson.

November has been a busy month!  The South Dakota Music Teachers Association held their annual student competitions in Sioux Falls.  Congratulations to Saber DiMemmo who won first place in the Elementary Composition Competition for his original piece "Destroyer of Worlds."  Genet Czarnecki and Austyn Smithback won first place in the Junior Piano Duet Competition. A special word of thanks to the students and parents for all of their hard work! Next year's student competitions will be held in Spearfish, SD.

My Favorite iPad Apps:

1.  Flashnote Derby    $2.99

Identifying notes correctly will urge your horse on to the finish line, while incorrect answers cause you to fall behind. Increase the difficulty by adding more notes and speeding up the race. Before you know it, you're an expert at naming the notes of the treble clef, the bass clef, or both.

• Faster note recognition.
• Fully customizable. Practice only the notes you choose, in treble or bass clefs. Start simply and gradually expand the range of notes.
• Several speed options. Beginners can start out focusing on accuracy and improve on speed over time.
• Learn from your mistakes. Review incorrect answers at the end of each race.

2.  Note Squish    $0.99

Learn to read music the fun way with Note Squish. This simple game will teach you the names of the notes on the treble, bass, and C-clef. Fun for kids just learning an instrument, adults brushing up their music skills, and everyone in between. Great for students of any instrument: piano, guitar, bass, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, saxophone, flute, clarinet, and more.

Game play is simple. On the top of the screen a note is shown that you need to identify. Below little cartoon moles appear with various note names above their heads. Tap the mole whose note name matches the note shown on top to score points. Play over and over and watch your music skills grow!

-Develop the ability to instantly name notes.
-Includes treble, bass, and C-Clef.
-Game can be played in three speeds with a range of 2 to 23 different notes.

3.  Sprout Beat Full Version    $19.99 

Trial version is free with 25 worksheets

Ties back to Fun and Learn Music website

SproutBeat contains over 350 colorful and engaging worksheets organized by topic. Your students can work the worksheets right on the iPad, or you can print them out using your AirPrint enabled printer.

4.  Garage Band    $4.99

GarageBand turns your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play a piano, organ, guitar, and drums. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument. Enjoy Smart Instruments that make you sound like a pro — even if you’ve never played a note before. Plug an electric guitar into your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and play through classic amps and stompbox effects. Use a Touch Instrument, a built-in microphone, or a guitar and instantly record a performance with support for up of 32 tracks*. Record performances from third-party music and effect apps directly into GarageBand using Inter-App Audio in iOS 8. And share your song using email, Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, or AirDrop for iOS.


5.  My First Classical Music App    $4.99

It's the perfect introduction to classical music for children aged 5 and above.

Find out where you hear music, who writes it and what all the instruments sound like. Meet the great composers and be wowed by the orchestra.

Tap any words or pictures and hear the text narrated, extracts of music, and dozens of animations and sound effects. The animals can dance, sing and play!

Ideal for children to enjoy alone or together with a parent, this app is bursting with different pieces of music. It will fire the imagination of children and delight parents.

A full album of music includes Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Williams’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, Holst’s Planets, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and many, many more.

* An interactive iPad version of the hugely successful My First Classical Music Book, published by the world’s largest independent classical record company, Naxos.
* Three main sections: When? Where? / People / Instruments.
* Friendly, engaging narration – tap on any piece of text to hear it.
* Questions and ‘Listen For’ tips from the Music Bird: get more from the music.
* Over 40 different pieces of music featured, in excellent recordings.
* Every instrument in the orchestra is demonstrated.
* Lively, characterful illustrations throughout.

6.  Rhythm Cat  Lite is Free ProHD is $4.99

Above all, Rhythm Cat is an entertaining game with a great soundtrack to play along to, but it also has the added benefit of teaching you how to read the most commonly used music rhythms, with levels that build up progressively. 

- Developed in collaboration with professional musicians and educators.

7. Music For Little Mozarts    $0.99

The Music for Little Mozarts Piano App was specifically developed for the preschool age group (four-, five- and six-year-olds). The games provide a balance between learning key aspects of the piano and the pure enjoyment of making music. Come on an adventure with Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse™ as they learn about music!

8.  Most Addicting Sheep Game    $0.99

Run, jump and roll to the beat in the easy-to-learn, tricky-to-master most addicting sheep game.
Simple side-scrollers with catchy music and cutesy graphics are awesome. And rhythm games rock. In fact, we like them both so much we decided to make them into one. The result? The Most Addicting Sheep Game. It’s an engagingly simple rhythm platformer where jumps and rolls must be perfectly timed to the music to complete the increasingly complex levels with maximum score. Oh, and it has a cute sheep.

Preparing for Fall Piano Semester

Happy August! Can you believe the kids will be back to school in 8 days?! The summer has sure flown by for me. I am simply amazed at the progress the summer students have made the past couple of months. The best part of my summer was spent attending the Dakota Sky International Piano Festival and piano teacher workshops. I learned a great deal and I am looking forward to beginning piano lessons this Fall where I can apply everything I have learned. Our first day back will be Friday August 22nd. There will be a break for Labor Day weekend Friday August 29 through Monday September 1st and we will return to our regular schedule on Tuesday September 2nd. Be sure to check the Upcoming Events page for the full calendar. You should also receive the 2014-2015 yearly calendar for Christina’s Piano Program with your bill in the mail.

I have now scheduled most of the piano students for Fall Semester. If you still need to set up a lesson time for your child, I would like to encourage you to set this up before Wednesday August 20th. Feel free to contact me by email at christinaspianoprogram@gmail.com or call or text 351-7785. After August 20th, I will begin contacting families on the waiting list in order to fill unused time slots.

There are only a couple weeks before the Fall Piano Semester starts and here are some ideas to jump start the semester. If your child took a break this summer, I would like to encourage you to dig out those piano books and assignments and begin reviewing some of the latest lessons. Start small by setting up a daily practice time of about 15 minutes. If your child has been working on 5 finger patterns or other warm-ups it is best to begin by reviewing those, and then take some time to review the spring recital piece or other pieces your child enjoyed playing last spring. Also, review the theory or activities books and complete pages that we may not have had time to finish in the lesson. If your child took lessons throughout the summer it may be best to make sure they get a small break before we begin August 22nd.

Thank you again for all your support at home in encouraging the kids to practice, play, and create some awesome music! Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Christina Humpal
Christina's Piano Program

Music Olympics!

On the evening of February 13, 2014 the young Music Olympians gathered at the office of Christina's Piano Program to participate in our first ever Music Olympics.  They proudly carried their music torches down the hallway to the conference center where they participated  in games of musical skill such as rhythm clapping, music bean bag tic-tac-toe, mini-keyboard key identification, musical board games, and fly swatter flash cards.  The Music Olympians were awarded medals, prizes, and candy.  Great fun was had by all!  If you missed this round of Music Olympics we may have a summer event which will be open to elementary school age students in their first 1-3 years of study.

Happy New Year

I have a feeling that 2014 will be a great year.  I am the type of person who likes to make New Year's Resolutions and then re-evaluate the resolutions each month.  It is amazing what we can accomplish when we aspire to higher goals.  This is the year I would like to purchase a grand piano.  This has been a lifelong dream for me and now I see this goal is within reach.  My first step is to shop around and gather facts.  I have visited a few piano stores and Sioux Falls main store is Schoppert's Piano Gallery located in the Schmitt Music building near 41st and Cliff Ave.  Here are some of the pianos in the running.

1.  Kawai RX-1

 
2.  Boston (a division of Steinway) GP-156 PE or GP-163PE  
The Boston grand piano offers a larger soundboard in comparison to other pianos of the same length, due to its innovative “wide tail” design. This wider construction of the case means that a 5’ 10” Boston grand has the same soundboard area as a typical 6’ 2” grand piano, creating the power, richness, and feel of playing a much larger piano.

These piano are at Schoppert's Piano Gallery and if you are in the neighborhood, you could stop by and try out the pianos and give me your opinion.  

Also in the running is a newly restored 1914 Steinway Model M Grand Piano.  This piano is at a store located out of state.  

Of course it is always fun to dream and Steinway pushes the limits of creativity with their collection of  art case and limited edition pianos.  Here is my favorite:

The  Rhapsody!  Isn't it amazing!