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Welcome to Pianoweb.net, official website of the Zinn Piano Program (ZPP), a cross-disciplinary program for children ages 6 through 16*. ZPP is unique in that it effectively combines cognitive neuroscience and psychology with comprehensive piano instruction. We are dedicated to promoting optimal piano playing through personalized interventions. Our program is personalized to achieve optimal functioning in psychological, emotional, and cognitive health on the individual level. Operating under the Attainment Center for Neuroeducation, ZPP combines the latest computer technology, research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology Social Learning Theory and Rehabilitation Psychology (health psychology) to improve brain functions for optimal performance in the piano lesson, school and other endeavors for every child.
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Written by Mark Zinn
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Learning by doing is integral to education here in our Piano Program. Experiential learning takes place through activities that include multisensory projects, collaborative efforts, and just plain fun! Giving back to the community is an essential part of our program. From producing CDs to sell for charity to personal achievement through larger organization, students here stay involved.
PianoKids 2011 Christmas CD
For a few Saturdays per year, regular classes are set aside and students undertake a variety of music-educational adventures. This year, our students produced an audio CD of their favorite Christmas pieces. Proceeds from the CD are given for charity to benefit other children who are not as fortunate. Currently we are supporting the Danville children's Guild, an organization whose commitment makes children's lives better through raising funds for charity. The Guild assists various children's charities in our area.
Brain Awareness Week
Every March, we participate in the Dana Foundation’s Brain Awareness Week, to learn about brain function in piano study. Cognitive neuroscience is fascinating, and our students benefit from knowing how to use theirs to best fit their goals in piano! Parents often learn much about their child's capabilities and the children impress parents with their knowledge of Cognitive Neuroscience..
MTNA-sponsored Music Achievement Award Program is a year-round program in which students develop an aspect of their own learning, then receive a special award at the end of the year. It is an excellent program since it is writtten to be utilized differently by every student. Each students sets his or her own goal, and the mentor works with the participant to make sure he or she reaches the goal. Awards produced by MTNA are given at the end of the year in an awareds ceremony. Every student participates!
Service Learning – how music affects others.
Sharing their time and talents helps students develop awareness of needs outside themselves and the value of community involvement and service. Participation in their own yearly recitals provides such a vehicle. The recitals are largely student-driven. They decide what to wear, what to play (with our help here) and how they want to present their pieces. Everyone gets a chance to share their art with one another, AND, they love their performance to be included on their own website as well as on the main website. Sharing their gift of music is exciting and fun, and helps society. They want other children to enjoy their playing as much as they do!
Extracurricular
In keeping with our support of a well-rounded education, we avidly support students' choices to play in school and church talent shows, family events, and for their friends. Participants in our program then report to us such performances, and the list can be seen on every student’s own webpage (see www.pianokidsite.com).
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Our Educational System--Foundation Program |
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Written by Mark Zinn
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In early beginner piano instruction, new students build a solid foundation of basic skills, while those who transfer to us build upon what they learned earlier. Score interpretation takes on more detail and depth; students learn to transpose both aurally and visually, and expand their knowledge to 24 major and minor keys, modes, synthetic scales, blues scales, etc. They learn more elite technique skills while becoming much more adept in creating an individual mental model of every piece they learn. Our program explicitly teaches students to become better in group participation and to build more efficient conceptual memory networks so as to learn longer pieces efficiently. Students practice content using Lindsley's Precision Teaching methods to help participants gain accuracy.
Beginner students also employ Wimbley's Think-Aloud-Problem-Solving TAPS (think aloud problem solving) to gain more elite reading skills, score scanning skills and technique training. Teachers help participants to learn to think out loud through talking, writing and demonstrating knowledge of each step.
All of our students have to undergo a core curriculum we refer to as our foundation curriculum. This path takes the student from early beginner to an early intermediate level Classically trained musician. These are just SOME of the things participants along this path will learn:
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Optimal Performance Training |
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Written by Mark Zinn
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Development of optimal performance skills seems easy--just make sure the child practices a lot and starts training very young. This long-held viewpoint is patently false. One must learn to perform in the same way one learns other things--repetition in an environment that supports all phases of the learning process. Most teachers themselves have trouble performing (have performance anxiety); others do perform well but do not have relevant knowledge about how their own performance skills came to be. We know how to perform ourselves, and we know how to train others to do the same.
Basically, when one performs easily and well, it is due to having something called high Self Efficacy. Self-efficacy is concerned with how one believes one will do in a situation that contains several ambiguous and unpredictable events. In music education, performance opportunities are typically few. We increase the number of performance opportunities through group lessons, but most importantly, we teach students how to foster their own self-direction between those opportunities. Students are taught to provide their own motivation and action. This is where psychology comes in--helping students learn self-directedness through cognitive structures that mediate perception, self-evaluation, motivation and regulation of behavior. Here's a very brief outline of what we do:
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