At its core, igniting creativity has to do with putting in place a scaffolding for a voice to flourish. The elements that I am always circling, in my teaching and practice, are play, movement, improvisation, composition, and wellness. In the following weeks I will write about each one of these.
Play
A friend and mentor, Carlos Lloró (Professor at Catholic University of Temuco, Literature and Guitar) introduced me to four types of games: Alea, Agon, Mimicry, and Ilinx.
In aleatoric games, some or most elements are left to chance. In a basic sense, while structure is necessary for a music lesson, breaking that structure brings excitement. In a more specific sense, dice or spinning wheels bring dynamism to what maybe otherwise a simple set of categories. An old and extremely refined form of musical aleatoric game is Mozart’s Musical Dice Game.
Competitive games (Agon) allows us to improve together, like a blade sharpens another. In private lessons the student can be asked to compete with themselves, but of course the more ideal circumstance for this is a group lesson. Through different forms of competition, their attention becomes more focused, as competition raises the stakes.
Mimicry as a game category has to do with role playing, or impersonating a character. In a broader context it is also the use of created narratives
with a purpose. As an example of this category, teacher and student can create a story for a piano piece or impersonate characters to express a specific mood of the piece.
Ilinx, or playing with the senses can illuminate many aspects of music by narrowing our attention at a determined moment. Two fun and useful techniques are: playing with eyes closed and ghost playing, not pressing down the keys.
A project that I would love to undertake with a fellow piano teacher is taking a look at different apps and games from pianimation.com, in order to categorize them and begin understanding when should one use each category. Let me know what you think!
Play
A friend and mentor, Carlos Lloró (Professor at Catholic University of Temuco, Literature and Guitar) introduced me to four types of games: Alea, Agon, Mimicry, and Ilinx.
In aleatoric games, some or most elements are left to chance. In a basic sense, while structure is necessary for a music lesson, breaking that structure brings excitement. In a more specific sense, dice or spinning wheels bring dynamism to what maybe otherwise a simple set of categories. An old and extremely refined form of musical aleatoric game is Mozart’s Musical Dice Game.
Competitive games (Agon) allows us to improve together, like a blade sharpens another. In private lessons the student can be asked to compete with themselves, but of course the more ideal circumstance for this is a group lesson. Through different forms of competition, their attention becomes more focused, as competition raises the stakes.
Mimicry as a game category has to do with role playing, or impersonating a character. In a broader context it is also the use of created narratives
with a purpose. As an example of this category, teacher and student can create a story for a piano piece or impersonate characters to express a specific mood of the piece.
Ilinx, or playing with the senses can illuminate many aspects of music by narrowing our attention at a determined moment. Two fun and useful techniques are: playing with eyes closed and ghost playing, not pressing down the keys.
A project that I would love to undertake with a fellow piano teacher is taking a look at different apps and games from pianimation.com, in order to categorize them and begin understanding when should one use each category. Let me know what you think!
