Curriculum
Teaching dotted note rhythms
I am working with another class on Reading Rhythm. We’re at dotted notes and up to now, I have not mentioned anything about counting “1 & 2 &” etc. For a dotted quarter note, do you guide them to feel “left, right, left…” for the…
Teaching Fur Elise to a group
Are there any guidelines for teaching Fur Elise to a group? Neil Moore teaches it on the training videos right at the piano. I’m not sure how to transfer this for a group. This is for the very first portion from Foundation 1. I usually…
Teaching Canon in D
Does anyone else struggle teaching Canon in D? I feel like we’ve done “all the right things”, and yet it still seems SO hard for some of my students. Neil talks about several possible playing-based strategies throughout the TTMs for Canon. I use them all,…
Halloween song idea
I started teaching the Dm variation of Dreams Come True and it ended up perfectly timed for Halloween. Many students renamed it “Spooky Dreams” or “Nightmares”. The end result was that I added the very beginning of Bach’s Toccata in Dm as an “intro”. Very…
Simple Christmas music
People are asking for Christmas music already. What do you have for around a Level 3 group? They are in the middle of the Accompaniment program right now and then heading into Level 3. I have simple Christmas songs from last year. Is there something…
Retiring songs from playlist
I’m preparing to allow students to retire some pieces from their playlists. I’ve purchased TTMs through Level 9 so I’m familiar with the repertoire to that point. In the Development levels, are there any pieces that build on Foundation pieces? The Gaz and Fur Elise.…
Church Song – Foundation 7
Do you require your students to keep Church Song (level 7) alive? This seems to be a hard one to keep alive even for myself. I have had to relearn it many times because of its ‘details’. I have to admit that I have used…
Fluff Pie variation
I was going over Fluff Pie (Foundation 3) and then tried to find the rest of it because not all of it was taught in F3. Where is the rest of it? Also, is there an easy way to search for a particular song’s name…
Reading Rhythm – dotted notes and ties
My first student is at the end of Reading Rhythm! Question: for the student, dotted notes and ties aren’t as confident as I wish they’d be. What would you do in this case (he has no trouble with rests)? Would you move on anyway to…
Student sings off-key
I have an adult student who loves to sign but who sings very off-key. She knows it, and she asked me if I teach how to sing. I don’t. I’ve taken some singing lessons, but that’s about it. And while I’m not the best singer,…