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Elton Joel RW2 2'25
With apologies to them both. A rock piano solo without lyrics.
Recording (mp3, 1.9MB)
Elegy RW2 2'25
Many, many parts to weave and balance - needs ensemble skills, even though it's for solo piano.
Recording (mp3, 1.6MB)
Recording (mp3, 1.2MB)
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Snowflakes RW2 2'25Recording (mp3, 0.9MB)
Recording (mp3, 0.8MB)
Recording (mp3, 2.6MB)
Running a competition back to magazine homepage
Introduction | Hyping the lead-up | Limiting the time | Creating prize categories
Choosing great rewards | Certificates | The "Doubler" factor | Creating leaderboards | Team based competitions | Strategic timing | Interstudio competitions
Creating a Hall of Fame | Turning it into a fundraiser
Team-based competitions
Your practice competitions don't just have to about solo triumphs—many students will work even harder if they know that their practice times are contributing to a team effort. (It's one thing to let yourself down, but to have to admit to the rest of your team that you've been slacking is something that would make even your most practice-phobic students blush.)
Grudge matchesIf you really want to add spice to things, take advantage of natural divisions in the studio and create teams (and associated hype) that will lead to grudge matches:
Boys versus girls. Neither group is going to want to let the other dominate here—if your numbers are uneven, then you can always base things on averages.
Elementary vs secondary age students. Seems unfair at first glance, but the underdog status of the elementary age students is a powerful motivator...they'd love to show up their older rivals. At the same time, your secondary age students have some upstarts to crush. Plenty of reasons to practice here.
Students who have their lesson on a Saturday vs your Thursday students (this allows team members to actually meet eachother at lesson changeover time)
Right handed vs left handed. Blue eyes vs brown. Blonds vs brunettes. Long established students vs recent students. Dog owners vs cat owners vs no pets - there are countless ways to create the cliques you need for the competition to sizzle.
Creating a sense of team spiritIf you assign colors to the teams, then you can issue students with their competition kit—inexpensive, but packed with items of their team's color. 
So if their team color is blue, their kit might contain:
• A blue notebook (for recording practice times)
• Blue markers
• Blue badge to wear to lessons
They'd walk past the Blue Team Scoreboard to get to their music stand. If you've got one of our musicteaching.com Studio Websites, you can even set up your message center so that you can send an update to all members of the Blue Team at once.
Give them a nickname to suit—the Blue Marlins, the Blue Jays, the Blues Scale, whatever—and let tribal instincts propel their practice commitment to new heights.