Yes, it’s an actual skill!
Marking music with purpose and clarity makes for more efficient lessons and practicing. Perfecting this art has been an ongoing goal of mine.
The Issue
Piano teachers are in a constant race against time—there’s so much content to fit in during the 30-60 minutes per week that we see a given student. I am in never-ending pursuit of spending less time talking and writing down assignments and more time making music! My quest to find the most effective way to mark scores is motivated by two questions that I’ve found myself repeatedly asking over the course of my career: “I marked this mistake on my sheet music—why am I (or why is my student) still making it?” and “Are assignment sheets actually useful? How can they be made more practical?”
Why do we mark our music, anyways?
A marking is a call to action—there’s something we want our students to do, and marking their music is a way of getting them to do it. The marks my students and I make usually fall into distinct categories, and sometimes the categories overlap. These categories are not something I thought of before using them; they are borne from reflection on my teaching. Some examples include:
To analyze
To encourage phrasing
To prevent mistakes
To reinforce a new concept
To give meaning to an abstract concept
To guide practice
How Students Interact with Their Scores
I also think of markings as existing on two independent spectrums: passive vs. active and fixed vs. flexible. The former describes the way students interact with a marking when it’s made (usually during their lesson), and the latter describes how students interact with a marking over time (usually during independent practice).
Fixed markings aren’t necessarily better than flexible ones (or vice versa). However, I almost always consider active markings to be better teaching tools than passive ones. It is easy to pinpoint issues and mark them for students to save time, but this passive approach doesn’t provide students with much ownership of their music. It has been my experience that an active approach—when students engage with their scores and make their own marks—ultimately results in greater understanding and retention.
Fixed and flexible markings function exactly how they sound. Fixed marks go on the page and stay on the page—think of circling or highlighting accidentals, denoting formal sections, or marking harmonic events. Flexible marks live and breathe with the student, allowing them to track progress. They are moveable, removable, stackable—the list goes on. I like to use removable highlighter tape, but I have also used erasable colored pencils. The goal is that flexible markings be eye-catching, engaging, and fun.
Glenn Gould’s score to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. (Source)
More About Flexible Markings
I anticipate that most musicians are familiar with fixed markings. Flexible markings, however, probably warrant more explanation. They are great for denoting:
sudden dynamic changes
sudden position changes
practice strategies for particular sections of music
errors made in a run-through of a piece
places where memory slips occurred if a student is working toward memorization
In these situations, I use flexible markings for a few reasons:
The tape can be removed when the student solves a problem. Errors can also be highlighted again in another color to show that a concept still needs another week of practice. Asking students if they think the tape is ready to be removed also sets the tone for self-evaluation.
Visual clutter doesn’t accumulate over the weeks. Students won’t likely practice the same way each week; practice techniques can be swapped in and out.
I can spend less time writing down instructions in a practice notebook and more time teaching.
Students love taking ownership of their scores by choosing colors and applying tape on their own. Even my high schoolers enjoy picking the week’s tape color.
There is no way to “forget” practice suggestions when they are adhered to the score with fluorescent tape. ;)
How does this relate to practicing?
If we expect students to practice independently, these conditions must be met:
The teacher has shown the student how to practice their material in the lesson.
The student has successfully replicated the practice techniques more than once in the lesson, under teacher supervision.
There is a clear, concise explanation of these techniques where the student can review them, like a practice notebook—or, better yet, right on the score where they can’t be ignored.
Therefore, thoughtful, intentional, and dynamic markings that extend the practice notebook onto the score in an engaging way can be considered a student motivator. When we know what to do and how to do it, we’re more likely to take action.
Examples
Burgmüller Op. 100, No. 9: The Chase
Here, we have a few flexible markings that outline which practice technique to use in specific passages.
O.F. = on the fallboard
G.P. = ghost practicing
S/P = stop/prepare
I don’t always use abbreviations, especially with younger students. Practice technique shortcuts like these are only useful if the student knows what they mean and how to execute them, so I write more detailed instructions in an assignment book, if necessary. Many of the nicknames I use for practice techniques are from Piano Safari’s Practice Strategy Cards. Students can buy their own and print the cards on cardstock for under $8.
Kabalevsky Op. 27 No. 13: A Little Joke
Since different practice techniques will be used to master the rapid position changes and left-hand speed and clarity, this passage is a great place to use flexible markings.
B.P. = blocked practice, with circled notes practiced together in a “block” to aid with the rapid position changes in the notorious B section of this piece.
Rachmaninoff Prelude in G-sharp Minor, Op. 32 No. 12
I wanted to include an example using fixed markings to illustrate the potential for creativity; fixed markings don’t have to be passive circles on the score. Here, I’ve quantified the gradual crescendo (an otherwise abstract concept) that begins in the first measure of this page. This activity is a great opportunity for advanced students to listen to recordings of concert pianists, observe the artists’ varying interpretive decisions about the crescendo, and decide for themselves how and when the volume will increase in their personal interpretation of the piece.
The Takeaway
The marks we make on our scores can be active or passive, fixed or flexible.
Categorizing markings allows us to be more specific, making practicing easier for our students because they know precisely what to do and how to do it.
Students should mark scores themselves whenever possible. Older students may also write their assignments down in their assignment books.
Flexible markings extend the assignment notebook onto the score in an interesting way. They also allow students to self-assess and see their progress.