Playing Musically–Using YouTube

For the past few months, I have been using some different strategies to help my students play more musically.  The Caught Ya Makin’ Music Cards have worked wonders for many of my students, young and old!  In addition to these cards, I have also been spending a good deal of time finding good (and sometimes bad) performances of my student’s pieces on YouTube.  I was especially excited when I found the students of Irina Gorin on the site and I have used many of her videos as examples of musical playing for my students.

In one case, I had a student playing Elfin Dance for the KMTA district auditions.  She was playing fairly accurately, and following dynamics carefully, but was not getting the musical sound needed to really set her performance apart.  I found this video of a student performing the piece and though there was a small constructive criticism I shared with my student about the performance, I asked her to listen for the way the young player allowed the phrase to taper off into almost nothing as the theme ascended.

My student listened and came back saying, “Mrs. Wendy, I am determined to play just as fast as she did, and just a musically as she did on the video!”

I didn’t know if she would be able to do this, but several weeks later, not only was she playing as fast as the student (and not missing that big jump!), but she was also playing so musically it was fantastic!  She performed her piece at a practice recital this last Sunday and I had one teacher come up to me and say, “If I had known that Elfin Dance could be that musical, I would teach it more often!”

So, I say all that to say if you haven’t yet tried to use something like YouTube to inspire your students, you might give it a shot.  Of course, there are many, many bad performances on YouTube as well, so I don’t usually tell my students to find their own videos.  If they do, we take the time to analyze what is good and bad.  But, most of us would agree that giving students a recording of music does wonders for their ability to imagine the musical possibilities.  YouTube is just another way of doing this.

Have you used YouTube in this way?  What other ways are you encouraging musical playing in your studio?