What to practice?

Always make sure that you are covering the work your teacher has set you. Keep a practice diary where both your teacher and you can make notes to help remind you of the repertoire you are to work on between lessons.

At the start of your practice session, it is good habit to begin with a warm up using scales and arpeggios. Start with the ones which are familiar to you and continue by moving on to less familiar or new ones. Keep practicing old scales and arpeggios once you have learnt them to keep them fresh.

When working on your pieces, try to identify the difficult passages that need extra work. You may need to play very short phrases over and over many times, so set yourself a goal of perfecting just a few bars during each practice session. This is a more effective way of learning a new piece, since playing a piece through from the beginning to the end is only really beneficial once the piece is already polished.

Alongside practicing your pieces and scales, try your hand at improvising, sight-reading new pieces or revisiting old pieces you have previously learnt. Most importantly, try to use your practice time productively.

Support from parents

Practicing is a lonely activity and a lot of children benefit from encouragement and support from their parents. Parents’ company and praise is especially useful in the early stages. Take an active interest in your child’s playing and try to periodically sit in and listen to their practice sessions. Create opportunities for your child to perform by playing to family or friends. Perhaps ask your child to teach you something they are currently working on in their lessons?

I hope that these suggestions will be useful to students and parents and that they will help to establish habits through which good progress can be made.

Li Boberg trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. She is currently teaching around Berkshire and she freelances as a double bassist with many of the UK’s major orchestras

The Circus Café, St Mary’s Street Edinburgh, was the venue for the latest Most Entertaining gig in February. Osman Celik, the owner opened the Café especially for us. The gig kicked off at around 8pm with the guitar group and around 10 guitarists featuring experienced and new guitarists. They did a selection of old and new tunes, all getting the chance on “lead”.

We singers did four songs, our own “Transatlantic Session”. We started with Down to the River, made famous in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou which featured George Clooney, and finished with I Can’t Stand the Rain, which Maeve the tutor arranged for us, based on a soul version by Seal. The singer pianist Woodstock Tailor made a guest appearance at the gig, and did a moody version of My Funny Valentine – most appropriate for 15 February.

The two tutors closed the show, Maeve Mackinnon, with a spine chilling Gaelic number, followed by Chris Day the guitar tutor singing and playing. The next singing and guitar workshops are planned to start in May, with a gig in June. Before then on Sunday 1 April, 2012 there will be a performance from some of Most Entertaining students who take one to one music lessons.

Margaret Fletcher, piano and vocal workshop student with Most Entertaining since 2006.

The Mansfield University Jazz Ensemble is a select group of 16-18 students under the direction of Michael Galloway. This outstanding ensemble has been an award winning band at the Villanova Jazz Festival and has also been honored with two appearances at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association State Conference, as well an MENC Regional Convention in Rochester, New York. They have also been featured in a performance in Harrisburg in a concert sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz and have been guests at several Pennsylvania and New York Jazz Festivals.

The MU Jazz Ensemble also hosts the annual MU Jazz Festival, as well as having other jazz greats as guest soloists with the band.  The list of visiting jazz artists reads like a “Who’s Who” in jazz and includes Lew Soloff, Bob Mintzer, Jiggs Whigham, Randy Brecker, Kenny Warner, The Airmen of Note, DIVA, Ryan Kisor, Denis DiBlasio, Ingrid Jensen, Michael Davis, The Commodores, Wayne Bergeron, and many others!

The Mansfieldians numbers eight singers who specialize in vocal jazz. Under the direction of Sheryl Monkelien, their performances have included Music Educators National Conference (MENC) Eastern PA, and in the 2006 Vocal Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall with conductor, Phil Mattson. Two summers ago they won the Jazz Vocal a Cappella Category at the 2008 World Choir Games in Graz, Austria. They have also hosted the internationally acclaimed vocal jazz artists The REAL GROUP in concert.

Concert sponsored by Most Entertaining Music Tuition

Venue: Main Auditorium – Tynecastle High School, 2 Macleod Street, Edinburgh
Concert Time: 8pm (music on from Edinburgh Schools Symphony Orchestra will play from 7pm)
Date: 12^th March
Cost: FREE ENTRY
Call our office to book your place 0131 477 7821 or email [email protected]

As an instrumental teacher I am often asked by parents how much time their child should spend practicing between lessons. When taking up an instrument it is important to create good habits of practice from the beginning therefore I have put together some suggestions which I hope will be helpful:

When?

Find a regular time slot for practice and try as far as you can to keep that time. Don’t leave the practice until the end of the day as you maybe too tired by then. Schedule your practice time for when you are fresh, perhaps in the morning before leaving for school.

How much?

Regularity is the key here, not the amount. Much more will be achieved with 20 minutes practice a day throughout the week then trying to do a marathon practice session the night before the next lesson. For young beginners, 5-10 minutes a day can be sufficient. When students get to grades 4 or 5 they should be aiming to do at least 30 minutes a day.

Li Boberg trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. She is currently teaching around Berkshire and she freelances as a double bassist with many of the UK’s major orchestras.

Hi there, it’s Nina Nesbitt here again with a little update on my recent musical adventures 🙂

Since the last time I posted my blog here I have been busy receiving a lot of music video entries for my competition to find some fabulous support acts for my Mini UK Tour in April/May 2012. It is still open for anyone to enter, with the deadline being 1st March 2012. Here are the details again if you are keen to send in an entry and get a chance to play in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester or London.

For my mini tour in April 2012 I have a main support act travelling with me. However, in each city – London, Manchester, Glasgow & Edinburgh – I’m going to have someone different to open up my show each night. I’m really supportive of other upcoming or aspiring artists so I’m going to select 4 different people for the different cities to open up each show for me. If you’d like a chance to support me in one of the cities please email ”[email protected] ” with your cover of one of my songs from the Nina Nesbitt ‘Live Take’ EP and also the city you’d like to support me in. For the gigs in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester you must be 14+ and for London gig it is 16+ to take part in the competition. You do not have to have gig experience, I’m just trying to give some new artists a platform to showcase their talents. You can find my ‘live take’ Ep tracks on iTunes, Amazon and YouTube to listen to, search Nina Nesbitt. Good luck!

Part of my job as a musician is to travel a lot and see many places as I write, play and record in a lot of different cities. But, when I am back home in Edinburgh, I am also learning to play the piano at the moment by having tuition with the fantastic Will Pickvance. I’ve really been enjoying these FUN piano sessions and it’s certainly making me feel a lot more confident in using a digital piano for my live shows. It’s also giving me better skills with my composing on the piano. I would recommend anyone to learn more than one instrument if you are a keen musician, as it can really enhance your performance and also encourage you to write music in many different ways.

I write my own songs and sometimes I use the guitar and other times it will be the piano that brings me a melody that I really like. People write in many different ways, and often ask me how do I do it? Well, sometimes a melody comes to me first, other times it’s maybe a guitar riff that sounds interesting that I build on. However, it is not always that I write the melody first, sometimes it is the lyrics that come to me from observations I make in daily life or even experiences myself and my friends have. I can remember once sitting on Bus 44 and something caught my eye which inspired a song. I always carry a little writing book in my bag and write down lyrics/ideas as they come into my head. Occasionally you will find me sitting on the train or the bus when I’m on my travels singing quietly into my mobile phone to record a melody or lyric that has just come to me, haha! Mobile phones are great for writing your lyrics down on or recording your melodies so that they are not lost, it may give you a few funny looks on the bus but you get used to it 🙂

Soon I will be heading back to London again to co-write with a few very experienced people that have written for artists such as Adele, Ellie Goulding, James Morrison and Ed Sheeran etc. I do prefer to write material on my own but also find it very interesting to write with others. One can learn a lot about the processes they use and techniques to write those very successful and beautiful songs that many of them have had major hits with. They are very experienced writers, sharing skills and experiences with each other can only be a good thing. The same as learning to play an instrument really. Sharing skills is great fun & so very creative!

My recent headline gig in Glasgow in early February was one of my favourite shows ever!! Both Chloe Latimer & Jonny Downie were brilliant as my support acts and they both rose to the challenge big time of showcasing their talents – they really rocked it!! Everyone in the crowd where absolutely amazing and very supportive. They listened intently to my music and I had the most fantastic time meeting all my fans after the show, by spending time chatting to them all and responding to photo requests & autographs. I think it’s really important if you are an artist out there ‘gigging’ that you definitely take time to meet the people in the audience who very kindly made the effort to come and see you play and continue to support your music. Without them a successful music career as a performing artist would not be possible, so to me they are the most important people. Most of the fans also follow me on Twitter, @ninanesbitt , and on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ninanesbitt , where I makes sure I interact with them by trying to respond to most of the comments on my music FB page and some tweets here and there. It is a great forum to be able to give a little bit back to the people who have supported you along the way and continue to do so and spread the love of music to others as well.

If you are a budding musician I would advise you to set up an artist page on Facebook and a Twitter account, it is very important in the music world at this moment in time 🙂 Get online, use YouTube to post things your music on and look for gig opportunities and instrumental / vocal tuition to help you fine tune your skills and build your confidence in your chosen instrument.
One of my other little past times is that I do secret gigs around the UK from time to time, to gain more performance experience and to have the chance to play along side other more experienced musicians also.
I recently did a gig in Newcastle at the Cluny 2 with three other lovely touring musicians who very kindly introduced me to their audience as their special guest of the night. It’s a brilliant way to gain more experience and quite exciting to be the surprise guest that no one may have heard of before and extend their musical interests hopefully by putting on a good performance.

The BRIT AWARDS are on the cards next for me to attend and then I’m away on a Tour around Europe with Ed Sheeran & Passenger, which will be an amazing experience no doubt. I shall be back to share more of my musical adventures along the way. I will give you an update on my Brit Award experience & share with you all what life is like touring on a double decker bus for 2 weeks! I bet I will miss my own bed, ha! Watch this space!! 😀 Nina x