I finally was able to purchase my first Yamaha Clavinova! I can’t tell you how excited I am. I have literally been saving my pennies for years and years in hopes of one day owning one in my studio! The day has finally arrived!
Doesn’t it look great in my lab room? Yay! If you have a Clavinova in your studio, please share with me how you use it with your students. I can’t wait until this summer when I can dive into all the possibilities!
GoMusicMedia.com
If you haven’t checked out Susan Ogilvy’s website – it’s a must for Clavinova owners. Take some of her Ecourses and you will be an expert clavinova user!
Thanks Virginia, I actually get her emails and am always envious everything she offers and does. So now I get to take advantage! Yay!
Congratulations! I have had Clavinovas in my studio for a long time and I use them regularly. One is in my office, hooked up to my computer for recording into Garageband. The other is in my studio as a second piano. Since it is about 10 years old it has a disk drive in it and I have all kinds of floppy disks with midi accompaniments (mostly Hal Leonard). Even though it’s old tech, I still use them every day and my students are in awe of the mysterious floppy disk technology (ha ha). Hope you enjoy it!
Thanks Anne! I have a disclavier and use my floppies in that but excited that now I can use a USB in the Clavinova. Though I do also have a floppy to USB disk drive. LOL! I love the background accompaniments and will definitely be using those. 🙂
Ha ha, I have one of those too. It sounds like a lawn mower 🙂
Welcome to a whole new world of excitement. I have owned a Clavinova for about 4 years. How it benefits my studio: quick access to music history, double recording (record accompaniment- save-play with primo or melody), so many sound choices to enhance solos. All students love to experiment with the instrument for fascinating sounds. Sometimes the music takes on a new dimension! If you have a chance to hear Susan Olgilvy (Yamaha Corp.), she has wonderful ideas for groups, etc. I could go on and on, but know you’ll be delightfully challenged at the many ways you can teach new technologies easily.
Thanks so much Joan! Great ideas! 🙂
I have enjoyed mine now for 2 years. The students are allowed to play it after they master a piece on the acoustic. (At least that is how I started 2 years ago! Now, they get by with an entire lesson on the clavinova some weeks!) I began teaching how to use it as I was also learning — I thought the students would teach me, but they were surprisingly not familiar with all the styles and voices. The use of flash drive has been difficult, but beneficial. I was able to use their pieces to download from their flashdrive to my computer to burn CDs for parents at Christmas. This idea has been used successfully other ways too, but I was happy to use my clavinova for it. I love to download a part of their piece by recording onto their flashdrive. Then they can take it home and remember how I wanted that phrase or other concept played. The students call it our clavinova and treat it like a grand piano. Have fun!
I’m super excited especially for the recording features and possibilities! I was telling my husband that this will make life soooo much easier to do CD’s for students. I’m glad to hear that they treat it well. That is one thing I am a little concerned about but I’ll make sure they know how special it is and it needs to be treated not like a toy. Thanks for sharing!
Several people have already mentioned Susan Ogilvy’s site — I would order a copy of her “User Friendly Manual”. I don’t know if she has one for the 600-series yet, but you would still benefit from all the information and projects that she has in that book.
I have had a Clavinova in my studio for over 18 years! Still have an old CVP-83 that works great, as well as a CVP-305. I use them with digital ensembles, and as additional work stations for lab time. Try assigning a “30-minute piece” — something that’s just a bit easier than the level a student is currently working on. Give them step-by-step instructions on HOW to learn it, utilizing the metronome and MIDI accompaniments if you have them — then ask them to RECORD it at the end of their lab time. Of course, you can also use apps like Note Works, utilizing the camera connection kit for your iPad.
Enjoy!
Anna
Thanks Anna, I actually found a copy of her user friendly manual from the 400 series the other day when I was cleaning out my room. I’ll have to look through it. Thanks for some lab time ideas! 🙂 I did order a connection kit for my iPad. Hopefully that will come real soon.
I love the Yamaha Clavinova CVP digital pianos. I have one at the teacher station in one of our piano labs at Stephen F. Austin State University. The variety of auto-accompaniment styles is one of my favorite features as the beats and rhythm section can make any piece or technical exercise more lively to students.
Oh yes, must do this! 🙂