This summer I’m sending my piano students home with the Summer 60: 60 Days of Piano Music! The goal is for them to listen to a piece most days over summer vacation and complete the entire list by the end of August.
It is SO immensely important for students to listen to music and it’s often one of the things that get lost in the shuffle of life. But the summer, the time of long car rides and barbeques, basically demands music! So why not add a little piano music into the mix?!
The Summer 60 is divided into six categories:
- Top 20 Sizzlers: 20 pieces for solo piano that most people would recognize even if they don’t listen to classical music
- Baroque Beach Bonanza: A selection of eight pieces from the Baroque period with pieces by J.S. Bach, Arcangelo Corelli, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Domenico Scarlatti
- Classical Campfire Concert: A selection of eight pieces from the Classical period with pieces by C.P.E. Bach, J.C. Bach, Muzio Clementi, Luigi Boccherini, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Joseph Haydn, and Carl Czerny
- Red-Hot Romantic Remix: A selection of eight pieces from the Romantic period with pieces by John Field, Felix Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Edvard Grieg, Modest Mussorgsky, Antonin Dvorak, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Amy Beach
- Modern Midsummer Melodies: A selection of eight pieces from the Modern period with pieces by Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Scriabin, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bela Bartok, and Dmitri Shostakovich
- Contemporary Summer Coda: A selection of eight pieces from the Contemporary period with pieces by Philip Glass, Gyorgy Ligeti, Unsuk Chin, Luciano Berio, Lera Auerbach, Errolyn Wallen, Ludovico Eunadi, and Takeshi Kokayashi.
You might be asking, where’s Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Brahms, and all the other heavy-hitters?! They are in the Top 20 Sizzlers!! I decided, in order to have a wide variety of composers and music, anyone who was in the Top 20 Sizzlers wouldn’t be added to the period selections (with the sole exception of J.S. Bach because we ALWAYS make an exception for Bach!).
Each piece on the list is around 5 minutes (or less! Only a few are longer) so it should be easy to squeeze a quick listen in among all the fun summer activities! Some great times to listen are while driving around town, while winding down before bed, while setting the table, and before practicing (wink! wink! Summer is a fantastic time for practicing!!).
Students can listen to the pieces in any order (but listening to them in order does give them an idea of how piano music has changed over the centuries, which is really neat!). When they’ve listened to a piece, they can check the box next to the piece and rate the piece on the emoji scale on the right:
- Frowny face: Ugh… I never want to hear that again
- Straight face: That was good, but not my favorite
- Smiley face: That was fantastic! Why did it have to end?!
The emoji scale can help students to figure out their musical taste!
Summer 60: 60 Days of Piano Music is available as a printable download in the Toucan Piano Store. Happy listening!!
- Rhythm Olympics
Students will go for gold in the Rhythm Olympics, a multi-level multi-week rhythm game! Students compete in 5 rhythm sporting events in the hopes of collecting all 5 gold medals and being crowned a Rhythm Olympics champion!!! - Slurs & Ladders: The Recital Prep Game
If there is one game my students beg to play year after year (and sometimes when we don’t even have a recital anytime soon!) is this recital prep game. It’s a great de-stressor and it shows students how prepared they are to perform while also injecting some fun and joy back into those recital pieces that may be sounding a little tired. - Music Friendship Bracelets
Colorful friendship bracelets make great student gifts for your next recital or they could be a craft for your students to make at a group lesson or studio event! They are colorful, easy to make, and show off our piano pride!
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