Curriculum
“Will My Daughter Learn Theory”
I just recently acquired a student who has had 3 years of traditional piano lessons. I will be this young lady’s 5th teacher. She had one month of Suzuki lessons, but her mother said she hated the method and pulled her out immediately. My new…
Time Signature
When do we talk about the bottom number in the time signature? For example, 3/4 in Amazing Grace? When you start talking about time signature in TFMM. You would say that 3/4 means “count to 3 using quarter notes.” I bring it in when the…
Learning Scale and Key Signature
Is there a simple way to learn key signatures? Time for Music and Accompaniment Level 2 detail our approach to addressing a playing-based relationship to scale, scale formula, key signature, scale-tone chords and their scale-based transposition. Naturally you need to have done the Reading Program…
What About Technique?
Had 40 people at an FIS last night and the wife of a local traditional teacher was in the group (not a nice woman, but that’s another story) and asked at the end of the Q & A section —“What about technique?” I did not…
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…
A Dialogue on Being “Rhythmically Challenged”
Recently, a general question was asked, and in the email the words “rhythmically challenged” were used as a metaphor. It prompted an email exchange that is worth reading. I have provided a digest below. Kind regards, “… I would like to hear from the experienced…
Finger Positions
When describing finger positions, is the octave below middle c described as low c, low d, etc? Is the next octave bass c, bass d, etc? Or do I have that backwards? I believe the octave below middle C is bass C, and then further…
Depth vs. Breadth Analogies
I have a question on how to explain depth vs. breadth to my students. I want to encourage them to practice all of the streams every week, even if I don’t necessarily have time to cover it in class, but I want to explain why…
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…
Playing with Expression
I have a student who is playing all of the right notes for her songs, but is lacking in musical expression of those songs. For example, she plays a “lullaby” type song the same way she plays the blues. And it sounds really good on…