Margaret is
a versatile and experienced teacher of:
* piano or keyboard
* the craft of music including musicianship, theory and ear-training
* AMEB 'Music Craft' syllabus ***
* arranging skills and composition
* classical, popular and jazz styles
Her accelerated learning techniques foster easy learning for both children and adults. In particular Margaret has many years of experience teaching adult beginners to play in the shortest possible time using her 'playing made easy' techniques.
***Margaret is the major contributing writer of the written component of AMEB's Music Craft student workbooks - Preliminary to Fourth Grade. (The aural questions for this course were devised by Robert Keane)
Lessons and master classes with Margaret Brandman can be arranged by private consultation.
Margaret also conducts professional development courses for teachers.
Studio Address: 46 Gerrale St, Cronulla, NSW 2230
The studio is close to public transport and there is free parking nearby.
By popular demand after the 2014 presentation in Canberra, again Margaret presented a two-day intensive Professional Development course for teachers in the suburb of Fraser in Canberra on the 14th and 15th of February 2015.
"Thank you for a wonderful weekend of workshopping!"
- Juanita Cucinotta (first on the left in the picture)
Margaret Brandman's 'Scales in an instant'. Part of the training session for Music Teachers, held in Canberra, February 2015.
Here Margaret explains easy ways to learn and remember scales using her Pictorial Pattern approach.
Margaret Brandman demonstrates how the Major Scales in the Cycle of 5ths can be played in 34 seconds.
Two-minute noodle scales. The joy of musical patterns.
On Friday October 10 2014, teachers enjoyed a morning of music and innovation with Margaret at Better Music in Canberra.
Contact: WES at BETTER MUSIC for future workshops or to purchase Margaret's music. Phone: 6282 3199 or sheetmusic@bettermusic.com.au
Comments on this course.
Christine Thompson wrote:"Thank you very much Margaret! Your work is extensive and comprehensive,and l will certainly be using resources! l am delighted to have met you after so many years!!"
ACCENT ON MUSIC
Five Senses Education invites you and your team to a Secondary Music Professional Development Workshop.
Topic: How to fit a jam packed syllabus into a short amount of time.
Date: Wednesday 30 October 2013
Time: 9.30 am to 12.30 pm
Accent on music Margaret Brandman & Lynn Lollback FIVE SENSES PUBLICATION Accent on music is an energetic and stimulating textbook for junior secondary students, Australia-wide.
Accent on music, written by two of Australia's most experienced music educators and authors, is a wonderful resource to help teachers fit a jam packed syllabus into a short amount of time.
The writers of this book, Margaret Brandman and Lynn Lollback, will give information on how the Accent on music book and CD kit can be used to enhance classroom performance in the four key areas of the syllabus:
- Unit 1 accent on duration
- Unit 2 accent on pitch
- Unit 3 accent on harmony
- Unit 4 accent on Australian music
I would like to thank you for the recent Professional Development Course for Piano Teachers. You make everything seem so uncomplicated and easy to follow. I came away with so many new ideas! Kathryn Fallas, Sydney Teacher -Dec 2010
In 2012 Dr Margaret Brandman will be conducting a six-week PD course for music teachers on Tuesday mornings from 10am to Midday.
First session on Tuesday the 6th of March 2012
Venue: Margaret Brandman's Professional Piano Studio
46 Gerrale St, Cronulla. NSW 2230
Fee: $60 per two-hour session. Book by the 16th of February 2012.
To book please contact Margaret on 02 9527 6661
Mobile 0414 185 193, or margaret@margaretbrandman.com
Week One: (06/03/2012)
How to teach both young and adult students efficient reading and learning skills, including transposition using the interval approach, combined with shape and pattern learning. How to achieve the skills for two-part playing in a fraction of the usual time taken!
Have your students functioning successfully (hands together) in a matter of weeks!
Week Two: (13/03/2012)
Find out about quicker and more efficient way to teach scales, a large variety of chords and arpeggios using visual and tactile understanding of keyboard topography. Make scale learning easy using the gestalt approach to fingering. Application of this approach to simplifying the learning of new pieces and sight-reading.
Week Three: (22/03/2012)
Practical aural and theory training for the well-rounded musician. Techniques for teaching intervals, chords, scales and modes, chord progressions, rhythm transcription and much more.
Week Four: (29/03/2012)
Making four-part harmony easier to understand and teach using innovative approaches including colour-coding. Compare the British and American systems and get the best of both worlds. Use these skills to teach any syllabus including Music Craft with confidence.
Week Five: (03/04/2012)
Easy ways to include improvisation and arranging in your teaching programme. Covering techniques and strategies for working out modulation and chord analysis for pieces in a wide variety of styles. Help for a wide variety of modern syllabus pieces. Week Six: (11/04/2012)
More techniques and strategies for the efficient teaching of a range of pieces. Bring along pieces you would like assistance with using speed-learning teaching techniques.
After the six-week course is complete, there will an option to continue into an Advanced course which will cover the following advanced techniques.
Advanced Course
The topics to be dealt with include:
- Music speed reading and learning advancing techniques.
- Improvisation
- Four-part harmony skills
- Keyboard Harmony from basic to jazz
- Modulation to distant keys
- Contemporary Writing Techniques
- Modal pieces and improvisation using modes
- Blues and jazz techniques including chord substitution
Dr Margaret Brandman is a professional pianist, accompanist with over 35 years experience. Margaret is also a composer, arranger, experienced teacher and author of the Contemporary series of teaching materials. She has been invited to present a paper for the World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Serbia this year. Margaret is the major contributing writer to the Music Craft student workbooks, Preparatory through to Grade Four. Many of her compositions are set as examination list pieces in the AMEB and ANZCA syllabi. Her most recent compositions include the large scale work - Firestorm Symphony and Spirit Visions for two pianos. Reviews of her Contemporary series of teaching materials and Spirit Visions appeared in the Studio magazine in 2010.
Comments on the recent 2010 PD course.
Dear Margaret
I would like to thank you for the recent Professional Development Course for Piano Teachers. You make everything seem so uncomplicated and easy to follow. I came away with so many new ideas.
I have been testing the transcription system you have developed in the Contemporary Aural Course with my HSC students with their own compositions. It has helped tremendously. They walk away from a lesson with big smiles on their faces and not feeling frustrated at the major task ahead.
Your book "Pictorial Patterns" for scales and chords has revolutionised the way I teach scales. It has helped with recognising key signatures and also with correct fingering in such an easy-to-follow way of learning.
Your Contemporary Piano Method helps teaching and improving music reading skills. When tested on myself, I was amazed that I could sight read immediately with the alto clef for the right hand and the bass clef for the left hand instead of the traditional treble clef and bass clef.
Usually by the end of the year I feel ready for a break, but after your course I felt revitalised and eager to pass on my new learnings.
I look forward to a follow up next year.
Best Wishes,
Kathryn Fallas
Miranda NSW
HARMONY
COMES TOGETHER
Workshops
and Presentations 2008
The
official Canberra Launch of Harmony Comes Together
was hosted by Better Music in August 2008.
Margaret Brandman has recently released her new harmony text
- Harmony Comes Together. A series of workshops and presentations
took place to inform teachers and students about this 'seriously
good fun' approach to the study of harmony.
Margaret's
role in the team that worked on the AMEB's new Music Craft course
was to devise the written questions for the student workbooks
for all grades.
As
writer of the workbook questions she is able provide many insights
into how to successfully teach the topics of the course and
show how her new harmony book and existing theory books and
chord workbooks will be of assistance to students of both old
and new courses.
Harmony
Comes Together includes a comparison of terminology and musical
practice of the previous AMEB courses and various syllabi in
the English tradition, to the terminology and musical practice
used in Music Craft which has its origin in European and American
theory texts.
Margaret
will also demonstrate her aural transcription short-hand techniques
and various other concepts to aid students in successfully completing
the aural questions of the course and building aural skills
in general.
She
will also show how the understanding of the harmonic structure
extending beyond the traditional requirements, can be of benefit
to the study of selected contemporary and jazz pieces in the
Piano for Leisure syllabus.
A
downloadable chart of Music Craft topics and
their correlation to pages in the existing Brandman educational
materials that may be used for extra practice and preparation
is available on the this website.
All
workshops include breaks for refreshments
VENUES
In 2008 Margaret visited these venues and conducted successful
workshops:
Saturday
17th May 2008 -2pm
Gold Coast Pianos and Music - Robina Super Centre.
Allans
Music -Kew, Victoria
Educational evening - Wednesday 11th of June
Thursday
the 12th of June (AM)
Hans Music Spot -Croydon, Victoria Thursday the 12th of June(PM)
Music World Enterprises
Venue: 440 Waverley Rd, East Malvern 3145
Saturday
14th of June - 3.30pm
Official Sydney Champagne Launch of 'Harmony Comes Together'
at Music on the Move, Hurstville NSW
with special guests: Dr Rita Crews, Dr Judy Fisher and
Anthony Clarke, conductor of the Sydney Sinfonietta.
Further
Music Comes Together workshop venues
to be advised..
International
Engagements
In
July 2008 Margaret was invited to present a lecture on Music
and the Brain using powerpoint slides, in the Neo-Brain Science
strand of the ICISTS-KAIST conference held in Daejon, Korea.
Theme
of the lecture: Why is music so popular? In a similar manner
to painting, music stimulates parts of our brain, generating
emotional and thought-provoking responses.
Consequently, music is quintessential in our lives.
Professional
Development Classes
for studio teachers and school music teachers
In 2006 a Professional Development seminar was held for the
Tasmanian Music Teachers Association
Annual Conference at Launceston Grammar School
"Thanks
so much for your very informative sessions for TMTA. I have
lots of follow up work to do with chords and aural, and you
have certainly set me on the right path. Just need more time.....
I've had a quick sightread of Dreamweaving pieces and love them!
"
Thanks
again and best wishes, Jenny Wilkinson., Secretary TMTA 19/03/06
MARGARET
BRANDMAN'S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES FOR STUDIO MUSIC
TEACHERS
Download
this Flyer to find out about the topics for the Professional
Development courses.
"It's Easy To Improvise"
Music Flyer
Review of "It's Easy to Improvise" seminar
conducted by Margaret Brandman
"It's Easy to Improvise" was the title of the workshop
run by Margaret Brandman at by the Music Teachers Association
of Queensland Sunday April 3rd 2005 , but how much more she
covered!
Those in attendance learnt how to approach the difficulties
in teaching pupils their scales by seeing the patterns in fingering
and key signatures; we discovered the exciting sounds to be
made by using modern chords, and how they have been used in
music of past eras; we had an insight Margaret's pieces that
are included in new syllabi; Margaret's CDs used in conjunction
with texts are a really fun way of teaching the aural component
of music education, and we all participated in some of these
examples. Margaret gave generously of her time, and demonstrated
her own skills by playing a great deal of her own compositional
output.
Thank
you Margaret for a very valuable session,
and an opportunity to examine closely many of your method and
music books.
Lynn
Haug - Councillor MTAQ
MARGARET
BRANDMAN
Professional Development
It's Easy to Improvise
Topics included
Speed
Music Reading and learning techniques
The
Sound Pleasures and Patterns of Scales, Modes and Harmony
Modulation
Made Easy
Discovering
the connecting threads between the Classics and Jazz
Tools
for Improvisation
The
pleasures and patterns of Rhythm
Longer courses - contact Margaret to book a series of
lectures for a college or university.
CONTEMPORARY
TEACHING SKILLS AND METHODOLOGY
- CLASSICAL AND MODERN
Working
from both written and aural perspectives, this course presents
new and exciting ways of teaching including the discovery of
many of the common threads linking the classical, popular and
jazz repertoire. There will be time for hands-on experience
for both individual and group situations and this course has
an option to continue.
Areas
included in the course are:
* Piano and keyboard skills; speed learning techniques for beginners
to advanced students
* New and easy ways to achieve two-handed fluency for early
beginners.
* Learning theories including pattern learning, left-right brain
function , Gestalt etc
* The connection between music, mathematics and music for healing
* Fast ways to learn keyboard scale topography
* Practical ways to approach transposition and improvisation
* Modern chord terminology; extension chords up to 13ths and
how to apply this to all styles of music
* Advanced ear-training skills
* Applied harmonic analysis for music speed-reading and memorisation
* Application of the skills learnt to both classical and modern
works
* Syllabus requirements and chosen works for perusal and analysis
suggested by participants.
ABOUT THE LECTURER
Margaret
Brandman has pioneered an holistic approach to music education
in Australia and overseas.Her high school text book Accent on
Music is widely used in Australia, whilst the Brandman Contemporary
series method books and Playing Made Easy for Recorder series
are in demand in the USA, England, Europe and Australia. Her
studio teaching materials for individual students are extremely
practical and innovative and she is well known for her arrangements
of popular pieces including the recent Hot Hits for Easy Piano
series.
The
Professional Development classes she presents Australia -wide
are both educational and entertaining, achieving enthusiastic
response from participants. Margaret has worked professionally
in the jazz and popular music fields and as a result, was invited
to serve as a member of the advisory board for the AMEB's Contemporary
Popular Music Syllabus and Anzca Syllabus. Margaret has in depth
knowledge of the requirements of new courses, as well as extensive
knowledge in the teaching of the classics. She brings a fresh
approach to teaching and learning for teachers of all student
levels. Detailed information on all her teaching methodology
and publications is available on this web site.
PIANO AND KEYBOARD SKILLS FOR BOTH CLASSICAL AND MODERN
SYLLABI STANDARD COURSE
Covering
skills required to teach the modern syllabi of both AMEB and
ANZCA :
1)
Transposition
2)
Applied Keyboard harmony using both Figuring and Modern Chord
symbols
3)
Efficient sight reading and learning of pieces
4)
Aural development
5)
Efficient methods to teach Scales, Modes and the Cycle of Fifths
6)
Knowledge of keyboard topography for both improvisation and
easy learning of classical repertoire.
7)
Piano styles and/or how to accompany many genres including Popular,
Latin American, and Jazz
Margaret is
a versatile and experienced teacher of:
