Arrangements & Variations
Skipping/Omitting Pieces in the Simply Music Program
A friend from church has talked with me a couple of times about her 15-year-old daughter who has been taking traditional piano lessons for 6 years. She doesn’t want to take from her teacher anymore because the teacher wants her to play only classical. She…
Assessing Experience; Lesson Content Ideas
I have a student who will be starting with 8 years experience, not a great reader, usually reads just enough to figure out a piece and then just plays it from memory. I need to know how to excel an advanced student. Does one still…
Advanced Student in Groups
I have just had a call from an adult student with 10 years traditional background as a child, who, since seeing more advanced students playing at the my first recent piano concert, she is eager to get ahead and move faster with the program, feeling…
My 9 year-old ‘Advanced’ Student
I have an advanced student who is 9 years old and has been playing for about 4-5 years in a traditional method. Reading is fair, but he has been playing by ear for years, and his overall ability and absorption rate is staggering. I’m starting…
How to Remedy a Sloppy Playlist
I have a group of adults where one is much faster than the others. I finally moved the faster one out of that group… should have done it sooner. Meanwhile, I moved too fast for the slower two people, partly because I wanted to make…
Variations & Arrangements – Taking Notes
I have a questions about writing notes for Variations/Arrangements. I understand clearly from all my training materials that there are no support materials for this, and I am not to let them write down notes or clues for how the songs went. So, I am…
Unfolding Comp/Improv, Arrangements, Accompaniment
I’m wondering about how to bring in Composition/Improvisation, Accompaniments, and Arrangements 1 for my students? I’m a pretty new teacher and my most advanced students are starting Amazing Grace in Foundation 1. When do I start to introduce these other programs? How much of each…
Working with Various Levels in Class
Has anyone had students in the same class, in the same foundation level, but doing different variations, arrangements, etc? I am just thinking that no matter how equally you relate the information, some students (in the same class) will want something extra. Does anyone do…
A Case of the Blues in Level 4
I have two students, both in Level 4, who have a bad case of the blues….a definite valley syndrome. Neither of them want to mark their playlist, let alone keep all their earlier songs alive. Both moms are very supportive Simply Music moms but they’re struggling…
Advanced Players in Groups
Anyone ever run into this problem of an experienced player who doesn’t fit into a group because of how much more quickly he’s going through curriculum. He’s had 5 lessons, he’s at the middle of level 3, through the accomp. book, processed most of accompaniment…
