Arrangements & Variations

Showing 61 - 70 of 89 results in Arrangements & Variations

Billy At The Footy Improvisation Idea

I love to use Billy at the Footy as an improvisation accompaniment. I do as Neil suggests, throwing in the V chord at the end when we intend to repeat the 12-bar cycle. I do it a little differently to Neil, so I hope it’s…

Variations – Fluff Pie and The Pipes

Here are a couple of variations that are technically a bit challenging but might be fun for students who are really up to it. Variation on The Pipes from Level 3 Play a grace note (1/2 step below the main tone) before every RH note…

Dog Variation

I came up with a lovely soulful variation or arrangement, perhaps, on ‘Dog’ by using a zigzag LH. I’ll try to describe it. With sentence one of dog, the LH would play C (one octave below middle C) with the first note of the sentence,…

New Variation to Night Storm

I call mistakes that work out well “happy accidents”. And this was a big one created by a brand new 8-year-old student of mine while rehearsing her recital piece, Night Storm, during class. She calls the piece I.N.C. (Introduction, Night Storm, Conclusion) and gave me…

Chester’s Samba Rhythm

I have an adult student who is having a difficult time internalizing the beat and feel of Chester’s Samba. I teach her via Skype (actually ooVoo), so I’m not able to help her by physically tapping on her shoulder or anything like that. Also, since…

Chester Chills Out – Grace Notes

I’ve been having some of my students add grace notes to the “top bottom” part of Chester Chills Out. In other words, in C position, instead of just playing G-C, I have them play grace note F# before the G. In the other positions, the…

Visual Descriptions of Chords

I just had to share this nice moment from one of my lessons. I recently showed the CAGE chord to one of my students, a young boy. I had him hold his hand on the chord (the one chord) and encouraged him to find a…

Teaching Foundation Levels and Streams

I recently received materials on Accompaniment, Accompaniment variations and Reading Rhythm, and found all of them very good. Actually, my adult (recent retiree) was so excited when with CFG set she could play several familiar Christmas songs almost at once, “Can you believe it, the…

Reply To: Getting the most out of reverse engineering

I am just covering my bases/honesty here – I just had a student inform me via email that she only enjoys learning the video-supported material and wonders if I can teach her only this or if I know a teacher who teaches only the SHM…

SHM and a Partial Lesson

This is my first official post as a “teaching” licensed teacher!! Yeah! It’s nice to be able to jump in and ask pertinent questions. I’ve learned so much from all of you. I know it is a judgement call on how much information to unfold…