Siok Lian Tan is Associate Professor of Piano at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. She teaches applied piano and piano pedagogy, and coordinates the class piano program at the Department of Music. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). A native of Penang, Malaysia, Tan went to Cincinnati in 1988 as a scholarship student of Frank Weinstock at CCM. She has been heard in live broadcasts on Cincinnati Public Radio Station WGUC and has appeared as soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Miami University Symphony Orchestra. As an active pianist, Tan has performed in Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, and the United States. Her recent performances include solo and chamber music concerts in New York, Chicago, Luxembourg, Cologne, Cape Town, Hong Kong, and London. She also performs regularly with her violinist husband, Tze Yean Lim. An active clinician and adjudicator, Tan has presented lectures at College-Music Society-Great Lakes Conference, Ohio Music Teachers' State Conference, and the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum. She has also presented master classes at University Sains Malaysia, Sedaya International University in Malaysia, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the University of Cape Town.
Siok Lian Tan
Department of Music
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
513.529.3072
tansl@muohio.edu
Dr. Lisa Zdechlik presented a session on how she used recording and sequencing technology to enhance her teaching of keyboard skills and comprehensive musicianship in her group piano classes at the University of Arizona. She shared her ideas on teaching repertoire, harmonization and transposition, improvisation, and score reading with the conference participants in a Yamaha Clavinova Lab.
When teaching repertoire, Dr. Zdechlik asked her students to record, listen, and evaluate their own playing at different junctures in the learning process and prior to testing and performance. Using a skill checklist, her students were guided to develop strategies for improvement and practice based on the listening and reflecting process. Dr. Zdechlik also used recordings to provide feedback to her students and to serve as a performance portfolio and "journal" of development.
In learning to harmonize a melody, Dr. Zdechlik's students recorded the melody first and "accompanied" themselves by playing appropriate chords along with the melody. They were encouraged to explore every possible choice of chords to harmonize the given melody and select their best choice. Using two-track recording, her students recorded their chosen set of chords on top of the pre-recorded melody. Dr. Zdechlik also extended this assignment to include ear training and harmonic dictation components. In this case, each student recorded a harmonization on a disk and exchanged the disk with a partner. The student had to listen critically and notate the partner's harmonization. To develop transposition skill, her students used the "transpose song" feature on a recorded melody. They then played the harmonic changes along with the melody in the new key.
Using a completed harmonization recording from above, Dr. Zdechlik's students could improvise and record a countermelody or additional parts on top of the melody and accompaniment.
Finally, to enhance score reading skills, Dr. Zdechlik assigned her students to record a two- to eight-track sequence of an ensemble or vocal score. The assignment helped to develop a better understanding of the overall texture of the music and how different parts of a score integrated with each other. In order to hear each part clearly, students sang each individual part before they recorded them. They were also encouraged to be creative in their instrumentation for their sequenced ensemble.
This was an informative, hands-on session. Each participant at the session sat at a keyboard and was given the opportunity to record two musical excerpts during the presentation.
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