After you received your undergrad music degree, performed a stellar recital of the classics, turned in that
lofty thesis, passed a professional accreditation exam or somehow earned shiny, new initials behind your name, you probably felt a great sense of achievement. Perhaps you felt like I did? After I received my Master of Arts in Piano Performance and Pedagogy, I felt my career was professionally wrapped up and ready to launch. Although my intent is not to discount the importance of the academic achievements listed above, I’m wondering if you–like me–had your bubble burst, your box tipped upside down and your bow unraveled when you entered the real world of piano teaching? Yes, I could play and teach Beethoven and Ravel, I could design a sequential curriculum for early learners but when asked to read from a lead sheet, my skills fell embarrassingly short. Read more…
Each year I’ve observed that students are increasingly unfamiliar with the carols of Christmas. It’s important to me to introduce them to as many as possible, and to enable them to entertain or accompany their families and friends with songs of the season.
Many of them start practicing Christmas songs as early as October. I decided to make Carols of Christmas the subject of our December group master classes.
I chose a Christmas instrumental CD to play as they arrived, and we gathered around my kitchen table for snacks. Food makes everything friendlier! I decided to treat them to sparkling grape juice, which most had never tasted. There was also lemonade and apple cider, grapes, cookies, candies, chocolate-covered pretzels…
While they snacked, I read them stories of several carols’ origins.
I found a number of activities about the carols of Christmas at brownielocks–scroll to the bottom for more.
My biggest challenge was to find those that could apply to a wide range of ages.
I tapped the beginning rhythm of a number of carols. Even the youngest students were able to participate and guess song titles. Of course, I knew what they’d been practicing, so made sure to use those pieces to give them a good chance.
I also sang the first few notes of a carol, without the rhythm, just to see if they could guess—they did pretty well. For more mature students, I had a Carols of Christmas fill-in-the-notes game. I’d give them a few measures of a carol, leaving out a few notes or a measure or two. They could fill in the missing parts.
There were activity pages concerning lyrics of Christmas carols. “Where would you go to hear silver bells?” “Who danced with a silk hat on his head?” Some questions read more like jokes, but all of it got them thinking more deeply about songs they may hear while shopping, but haven’t focused on. Talking about lyrics brought up the meaning and history of words or phrases usually heard only once a year: deck the hall/don we now/noel/gloria/yuletide…
For a final touch, I had bent some sparkly pipe cleaners into treble clef shapes, and set out a variety of beads that they could thread onto the pipe cleaners, and either keep or give away as tree ornaments.
I’ve had reports from various parents how fun it is to hear their children sharing the carols of Christmas with their families.
How do you introduce Christmas songs to your students?
The UK composer Elena Cobb has been busy recently!
Hot off the press is her latest book for complete beginner pianists entitled “My Piano Trip to London.”
Printed in full colour landscape, the first thing you notice is a sticker page that children will love using when they complete each song.
Each of the 17 songs represents a different London landmark or icon, giving a nice opportunity to engage the pupil in conversation outside music and then to relate it back to the lesson at hand. It’s quite an adventure to embark on with the pupil as you work your way through the book, from the Royal Albert Hall, to the London Eye, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben to mention but a few.
Over the years I’ve seen piano methods that contain lots of detailed instructions and exhaustive advice that quite frankly nobody bothers to read. Elena Cobb has really struck the balance I think in keeping each page clean and simple so that the teacher can do their job but also providing concise facts and tips that will be useful and enjoyable. I laughed to myself when reading Read more…
Playing a musical alphabet game is a great way to reinforce the concept of reading music. Younger piano students also love to do any activities ‘off the piano bench’, don’t they?
Alphabet Game for Piano
Teaching the Musical Alphabet
One of my favourite piano games helps my beginner students to learn the musical alphabet using a set of foam letter blocks.
I encourage them to trace over the letters, put the letter blocks in the correct order, place them one at a time on the piano keys (having picked them randomly from my bag) octave by octave – students see how the letters can be read backwards through the alphabet. These are only a few of the ideas that could be used.
One of the biggest challenges students face when playing guitar is learning how to strum correctly. They usually have a favorite song they’d love to learn how to play but when they sit down to try and figure it out it just doesn’t sound right. Every time they try it, the strum sounds all herky-jerky instead of smooth and flowing. Sound familiar?
Before we get started, be sure to open this PDF: Keys To Strumming, which I’ll be referring to throughout this post. If you’re wondering what chords to play during this lesson, click here to use any to use any of the common-tone chord shapes I wrote about.
THE QUARTER NOTE BOUNCE
It’s fairly easy to teach a student how to play the quarter-note strumming pattern in Fig. 1 (Keys To Strumming PDF). All you have to do is play a down-strum on every count (or beat). Every time you strum down, you count 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. But there’s really more going on here. Once the down-strum is played, you have to lift your hand back up to prepare for the next down-strum, right? This down-up movement of the strumming hand is more accurately represented by eighth notes. Look at Fig. 1 again. The arrows above the staff, hovering over each down beat and up beat, represent those eighth notes. In other words, you should be counting “one and two and three and four and” as you strum down, up, down, up, etc. This steady down-up strumming movement is what I call The Quarter Note Bounce. Read more…
Group classes are a great way to reach more students, multiply your time and promote your studio. I taught a group vocal class over the summer (Group Classes) and a group guitar class. Find the first two guitar class posts here (Group Guitar part 1 ) and here (Group Guitar part 2).
What I cover in weeks 5-8:
-how to tell the key of a song
-transposing, review how to make your own chord charts, and the 3/4 strum
-the “Happy Birthday” song. You’d be surprised how many accompanists I’ve met who can’t play it!
-another parody I wrote for this class, with only 2 chords, to the tune of “Clementine”. This one I personalized with their names and some positive traits:
1. In a church one sultry summer, round a table sat The Six: sore fingers, sore brains, but they strummed their acoustics.
2. Guitars ready, keep it steady, press your fingers till they bleed. Making music is so fun! What more in life could you need?
3. Play the 2/4, play it over and over again. “Almost got it,” says the teacher, “Take a little rest.” But then…
4. …comes another even harder, will we ever get it right? Now the strings are out of tune, but do I loosen or turn it tight?
5. There is Jerry, always ready, and Malea’s cheerful grin, Leslie’s great dry sense of humor; Robin says, “Play it again.”
6. Asia strums and Doris hums and Gavin, fearless, forward goes. By the end of this guitar class, every one of them will be pros!
What I choose to review and for how long depends on how they did at the last lesson, and what I think they need:
-the 4/4 strum and appropriate songs
-a demonstration that 2/4 and 4/4 strums can be interchangeable
Note: whenever I introduce new chords or strum, I choose songs with as few chord changes as possible. I aim for a good mix of musical styles and tempos.
I sing the melodies until they can. Sometimes I say the strum aloud: DOWN, downup downup downup—and we pause at the chord changes until they have their fingers in place. Once most have the hang of it, I make sure to do parts of the songs slowly and parts quickly to accommodate all class members. It’s equally frustrating whether you can’t keep up, or you’re being kept from going as fast as you are able, so I do some for both.
Last month in Part 1, I explained how learning just 4 chord shapes that shared common tones, and using a capo could get your students up and running and able to play lots of songs in multiple keys. I promised to expand the concept to include a few more chords. So let’s get started!
In Part 1, I used the basic open position chords for G, C, D, and Em – the 1, 4, 5, and 6m chords. Let’s expand that now to include all the degrees of the major scale. The root note of each chord below, in the “basic chords” diagram, represents each degree of the major scale. The result is a “chord scale.” Just like you can assign a number to the degree in the scale, you can assign a number to the degrees in the chord scale. If you play through the chords in order from 1 through 8, you’ll hear the major scale – the root notes ARE the scale! A quick aside here, I highly recommend teaching the chord shape I use for the 5/7 chord, D/F#. There’s a huge pay-off in terms of future learning a super-valuable, movable chord shape. More on that in a future post.
I thought I’d share something I call The Capo Common-Tone Chord Concept with you in this month’s article. This is something I use with great success to get new guitar students ready to play music quickly. In my role as worship director at my church it’s been an indispensable tool in getting new guitar students up and running on the worship team. The first chords most guitarists learn are G, C, D, and Em. In the key of G, these chords cover the 1 – 4 – 5 – 6m chords that are found in most folk, pop, and rock songs.
After I teach these basic chords, I usually teach my students a special voicing concept for G, C, D, and Em that is used more widely in the music they really want to play. After that, I show them how to use the capo and suddenly they’re able to play a lot of music in a lot of different keys! One of the things that used to frustrate me as a guitarist is when I would buy a piece of sheet music only to discover later that the guitar chord diagrams don’t show that actual chord voicings that are being played on the original recording of the song! That frustration worsened if the song was in a non-friendly guitar key like Ab, Bb, or B. Even if I learned how to play a Bb barre chord, it never sounded like the guitar in the original recording. I knew something else was going on that the sheet music wasn’t telling me. It was only when I discovered this common-tone chord concept that I learned what was actually happening! Here’s how the Capo Common-Tone Chord Concept works:
Place your 3rd and 4th fingers (fretting hand) on the 1st and 2nd strings at the 3rd fret as shown in the diagram below (circled in red). These two notes (D and G) are the “common tones” that will remain the same for all 4 chords.
Since the 3 & 4 fingers stay in the same place for all 4 chord shapes, the 1 & 2 fingers are the only fingers to that move. Look at the 1 & 2 fingers in the G chord. Notice how they move one string over to create the Cadd9 chord. Very simple movement!
To make the Dsus4 chord, the 1 & 2 fingers split on either side of the 2nd string (like they do in a regular D chord).
Finally, the 1 & 2 fingers land on the 5th & 4th strings to make the Em7 chord.
How to apply this concept: Let’s say your chord progression is Em – C – G – D. Try playing the common tone voicings instead of the basic chord forms. For instance, if you see a C chord in your chart, play the Cadd9 voicing instead. When you see D, play the Dsus4 instead. If you come across a C2 (Csus2), the Cadd9 is going to sound great. This approach might drive a music theory purist crazy – but to most ears all these voicing are going to sound great. Try it! In the diagram below, I show you how to easily change the G chord into a G5,a.k.a. G(no3), by removing the 1 finger. (The 5th string gets muted by the 2nd finger.) Now, move the 2nd finger over one string and your Cadd9 becomes a legitimate Csus2 because the 3rd of the chord (that was previously played at the 2nd fret of the 4th string) is now muted. I love the jangly sound of those treble strings! But wait! There’s more!Arming yourself with a capo, the guitarist’s top accessory (behind a tuner of course), enables you to use these common-tone shapes to play in at lease 5 more common keys! No more going into cardiac arrest when you’re called upon to play a song in Bb (or Ab, B, etc.)! Just slap your capo on at the 3rd fret and play your common-tone shapes! Try this experiment: Play the following chord progression using the basic open Key of G shapes - C – G – Em – D. Try playing the same progression substituting the common-tone shapes. Now put your capo at the 3rd fret and play those same shapes. You’re playing C – G – Em – D shapes, but sounding Eb – Bb – Gm – F. I’m betting both you and your students will love the sound of the common-tone chords and find the concept very, very useful, especially when transposing. When first learning this concept, it may help to write your transposed chord shapes over the existing chord names in your chart. After a while, you’ll begin to recognize them and you’ll no longer need to write them in…you’ll be able to transpose in your head! In my next post, I’ll expand this concept to include some inversions. Read more…
They’re not all the same but every now and again you meet a teenager determined to fit the stereotype. With so much hair over their face you’re not actually sure what they look like, their shoulders are dropped so low their hands are practically touching the floor and all questions are met with an obligatory “dunno” response (if you’re lucky)!
Were we ever like that? I’m sure many of today’s finest musicians had their moments as teenagers and I would like to just say that many of the teenagers I’ve taught have been highly “switched on” and motivated. But how can we inspire even the most apathetic student?
Enter something I’ve been trying out I call “Music Lesson Circuit Training!”
Now I need at this point to warn you that Read more…