Educational

You can access the student projects and outcomes of the projects by visiting their web pages.

Piano and Music Theory

Private Course

Course Objectives: Personalised instruction in preparation for ABRSM graded exams.

Course Book: John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course, ABRSM Piano and ABRSM Music Theory syllabuses

Course Description: This course begins with the development of essential note-reading skills, focusing on recognising pitches, rhythms, and basic musical notation. As students build fluency in reading music, instruction shifts to focused piano study using repertoire first from John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course and later from the ABRSM syllabus appropriate to the student’s level. As students progress, music theory concepts are introduced and integrated with their piano practice, enhancing their understanding of harmony, key signatures, and musical structure. This dual approach promotes technical proficiency while reinforcing theoretical knowledge, leading to comprehensive musical development. Each student’s path is tailored to meet their requirements, ensuring effective progress in both performance and theory.

Analysis and Composition in Classical Style

Private Course

Course Objectives: Study of classical harmony and form. Model compositions and original compositions in classical forms.

Course Book: Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom by William E. Caplin

Course Description: This course begins with a fundamental harmony study in which prolongational, cadential, and sequential progressions are studied. This study is required for the following comprehensive classical forms study. The students who complete the necessary topics in classical forms continue with model composition practices in classical forms. The students complete this course with an original composition in sonata form. You can access the student projects by visiting this course’s webpage.

Baroque Performance Practice

Private Course

Course Objectives: Study of Baroque style in rhetoric, string techniques, and basso-continuo writing.

Course Book: The Baroque Violin and Viola by Walter S. Reiter

Course Description: This course follows the curriculum of the course book. The book’s comprehensive context helps the students grow a concrete understanding of baroque performance practices and string playing techniques. In addition, historical instruments, bows and rosins are provided to students for their exploration. During the classes, students are assigned to present specific book chapters that they may face difficulty understanding. This approach gives them a proper understanding of every subject and experience in studying and presenting new subjects. For the performance-related chapters, every student has to prepare a unique edition by writing the piece on the computer and designing a version with their artistic preferences. This includes understanding the basso continuo part and completing it when needed. 

These editions are performed with the student and recorded. These recordings are sent to other students to evaluate and share their opinions in a collaborative environment. They compare the feedback they receive with their intentions and adjust their performance approach to achieve the result they expect.

Orchestration

Private Course

Course Objectives: Study of orchestration and providing the ability to produce the arrangements for concert projects.

Course Book: The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Adler

Course Description: This course started after the demands of the successful students in composition in classical style course. Their understanding of musical compositions led them to gain the ability to arrange their repertoire for their specific needs. The course gives the student an insight into every orchestral instrument before the orchestration assignments. The course book’s sound recordings help students comprehend the timbral qualities of solo and combined orchestral instruments. The fundamental exercises create a discussion environment for students to understand the orchestral practices more. 

Students continue to orchestrate a composition of their choice. Preliminary studies are for string orchestra or classical chamber orchestra. These compositions will be used in their orchestral or ensemble projects, and they will use this ability in their future careers in many other situations.

Ensemble Performance

Workshop

Workshop Objectives: Improvement in ensemble rehearsal techniques, performance, timbre, and production.

Workshop Description: This workshop was designed after seeing the specific needs of the ensemble performance. The intention was to create a laboratory space to experiment in various areas of instrumental performance. These areas are instrument strings, rosins, performance environment, sound recording, and rehearsal techniques.

The fundamentals of instrument strings are evaluated to understand their function and use cases. The essence of this empirical study is comparing the exact string set with various instruments and providing the same set for all musicians in an ensemble. The instrument specifications and the behaviour of the strings are combined to give the result. The instrument strings and their manufacturers are evaluated in many scenarios to increase the ability to achieve desired timbral results. 

Another essential matter is the rosin. This empirical study aims to understand the effect of the rosin on ensemble timbre and collective performance. All rosins are evaluated in the same manner as the strings. The study shows that the rosin has a more significant effect on ensemble timbre and performance. This study documents rosins and their use cases to achieve desired timbral and performance results.

The performance environment includes the equipment and the physical conditions of performance. The equipment is chairs, note stands, and printed music. The physical conditions are the seating, performance space, and lighting. These variables are combined and evaluated to understand their effects on musical performance. From various chairs and different types of note stands to close and open seating across multiple performance spaces with different lighting are the consideration of this project.

The sound recording techniques are also a prominent part of this project since it provides documentation and understanding of the fine details of sound recording. Different types of microphones are used and combined to understand their use cases to achieve the desired sound in productions. In addition, these recordings are used to increase awareness of the ensemble’s performance. 

The recordings are used in different rehearsal techniques. Different approaches to effective rehearsal techniques provided a method which increased the efficiency by about 80%. 

This empirical study and the outcomes will be used in future performances of the workshop participants and will change the results of their productions.