Using her Artistic Preparation and Performance Series and From Mystery to Mastery publications as a model, Professor Clarfield will show how these concepts can be applied to repertoire of all levels. Teachers will learn how to create effective preparatory exercises, break down technical problems, and incorporate performance choreography that will lead to artistic performances. Participants may submit in advance works that they would like discussed.

One of the most important parts of any lesson is analyzing where and why students are having technical/musical problems. This workshop includes explorations of how to select efficient practice techniques that yield the most effective results. Standard repertoire from all levels will be discussed and demonstrated. Participants are invited to bring in some of their favorite “trouble spots.”

These workshops explore standard repertoire as well as works by pedagogical composers that will prepare and enhance students’ understanding of basic style traits and technical requirements to play the music of Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. Performance considerations to be addressed are articulation, phrasing, ornamentation, dynamics and pedaling. Early intermediate through advanced repertoire will be performed and discussed.

Repertoire that will prepare students for the stylistic traits and technical problems in Chopin will be discussed and demonstrated using early intermediate through advanced repertoire. Participants will learn about stylistic considerations that need to be addressed for teaching and performing Chopin’s music. Attention will focus on melodic shaping, voicing and tone production, phrasing, harmonic implications, pedaling, and rhythmic freedom.

The Road To Technical And Stylistic Mastery

This workshop examines the essential elements of building a solid technique that leads to greater musicality and stylistic awareness. Attention will be given on how to achieve the correct sound that will result in desired musical purpose. An overview of the stylistic traits of the musical periods will be presented as they relate to how a student learns and polishes their repertoire for performance. Repertoire and exercises will be demonstrated from Elementary through Advanced levels. Professor Clarfield will incorporate examples from her books, Burgm ü ller, Czerny, & Hanon: 32 Studies Selected For Technique and Musicality , and Keys to Stylistic Mastery (Books 1,2,3 co-authored with Dennis Alexander) published by Alfred Publishing Company.

Sonatina/Sonata Syndrome: Preventing Predictable Pianistic Pitfalls

Sonatinas contain the major building blocks that will lead to an artistic performance of sonatas. During this seminar, strategies for teaching sonatinas which anticipate challenges encountered in sonatas will be discussed. Topics to be addressed are technique, style, and interpretation. Musical excerpts will include sonatinas by Beethoven, Clementi, Diabelli, Kuhlau, and Lichner, and sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Teachers and students are invited to bring in sonatinas or sonatas to perform and/or discuss.

Preparing for Auditions and Competitions: Turning Fear Into Fun!

Proper preparation for performing situations is an essential component for a successful experience. This program includes such topics as choice of repertoire, understanding and solving technical problems, memorization, performance anxiety and stage poise. Choosing the right performance activity to match each student’s needs will be discussed. This workshop will provide useful strategies to help teachers prepare their students for all kinds of performing experiences.

The Road to Impressionism: Introduction to Teaching Style and Interpretation In Debussy’s Piano Music

This 2-part workshop will provide teachers with an extensive list of Impressionistic-style beginning and intermediate teaching literature that will prepare students for the technique, pedaling, sonorities, and imagery needed for Impressionistic piano music. A detailed description of stylistic traits and the major influences on Debussy’s style will be addressed with practical applications to performance. In addition, this workshop will provide suggested sequencing of Debussy’s piano music at all levels.

What You See Is What You Hear

How we move at the keyboard definitely impacts how the audience hears the music. Teaching artistic performance chorography should be an integral part of the artistic process from the beginning stages of learning. This session will address the importance of teaching opening and closing gestures, as well as adapting body language to match the music’s changing moods. Stylistic differences and propriateness will also be discussed.

Several contemporary composers have written an abundance of repertoire that will prepare students for the musical and technical elements required to play the music of Chopin, Brahms, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Schubert and Schumann. This workshop will demonstrate this preparatory repertoire, and show how these elements can be found and demonstrated in early intermediate through advanced romantic compositions. Attention will focus on phrasing, rubato, pedaling, tone production, and voicing.

Difficult stretches, awkward unpianistic writing, and technically demanding passages are all part of the piano repertoire . Often, redistributing the notes between the two hands would make these passages easier to play. There are other times that redistribution can facilitate leaps and speed, or improve voicing. Numerous examples from early intermediate through advanced repertoire will be demonstrated. This workshop will provide teachers with helpful hints on how to decide when, why and how redistributions should be used to best serve the music.

This seminar helps teachers develop motivational strategies for dealing with students of all ages and levels. Ms. Clarfield shares her philosophical and pedagogical approaches to successful practice that will be effective as well as fun and inspiring. Factors and challenges that effect productive and enjoyable practice such as student learning styles, parental involvement, as well as variety in practice strategies will be discussed. This seminar will focus on how to introduce repertoire effectively as well as how to help your students make up goal oriented practice assignments. Innovative technical drills and useful memory aids will also be covered.

One of the greatest challenges teachers face is transitioning students from method books to the classics, and helping them to understand stylistic differences. This workshop will provide teachers with useful information outlining the stylistic traits for each period and how students can apply these principles to effectively learn, practice, and perform music from all five periods. Repertoire will be performed and discussed from Professor Clarfield’s unique series with Dennis Alexander, Keys to Stylistic Mastery , Books 1,2,& 3 (Alfred Publishing Co.), as well as other music from upper elementary through advanced levels.

Teaching Rubato: Bend It, But Don’t Break It

We, as piano teachers face many challenges, perhaps one of the greatest being the maintenance of a steady tempo in our students’ playing with a strict inner pulse. But what happens when they reach all of that splendid repertoire that demands rhythmic freedom? This workshop will provide teachers with ideas on when and why we use rubato, as well as techniques for how to teach students to play with rhythmic freedom beginning at an early age. Professor Clarfield will perform and provide an extensive list of repertoire form early intermediate to advanced levels that are effective in teaching rubato.

Master Classes

Workshops may be combined with master classes using students of all ages and levels of advancement.