Finding I, IV and V
Found in: Accompaniment
Mark M., New York
What do you find is a good pace for the typical student age 9+ to go through finding all keys of Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne and Danny Boy in the Accompaniment 1 program before proceeding to anything beyond that point?
Diane C., California
I find changing the key to D and to E pretty straight forward but have found I lose them at this point if I go beyond what is in the book. But I tell them there are many more to explore at a later time, which I have found ( with age group) to be around a TFMM and scale ( finding 3 and 4s).
However, if we find a piece that they want to do that is outside and happens to be in a different key then their normal it is a great time to CP this subject again before TFMM.
I do know others have had success early, this is just what I have found!
Sheri R., California
I don’t have students go through all the keys before going on to rest of book. I may have them do a few over the course of a month or so and then keep that muscle alive as they are progressing through the book with other projects.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
I introduce it where it appears in the Acc. 1 book – after Danny Boy. I believe one of the reasons for introducing it at this point is to give students tons of practice getting ALL the major chords down really solidly before moving on to other types of chords. It is really straightforward when all you have are I, IV, and V chords using the “trick” of moving finger 3 up a half step. You just need to go through the steps very slowly or they will get confused.
I usually have my students make a chart in the back of their Acc. books or Notes books as they figure out the I, IV, V in every key. It looks like this –
Key I IV V
C C F G
D D G A
…
until they have them all.
Shari G., Colorado
I might give a 9 year old two keys a week to play the songs in. I might even give them 3 keys if it really comes easily to them. I do this with all my students after learning Danny Boy in Eb. With younger kids, I give them 1 key a week.
Brianna S.
Hi everyone,
I was wondering, will having them make a chart for the I, IV, and V hinder them in learning it by heart, or does it actually help for them to see it written out? Isn’t that kind of like taking extra notes?
What I have done so far with my students (I only have 3 that have started the Acc. book) is to show them that moving the middle note up a half step gives you the IV, and finger 5 is playing 5 chord. Also, like with Amazing Grace, every time you move up a key, the V chord becomes the IV, and the V is now up one note (i,e, G (V) becomes IV and A becomes (V) in the key of D.)
But do you also believe that a chart would be beneficial? If so, I’ll try it as one of my students is still not quite understanding what a key is.
(Does anyone have any good ideas on explaining exactly what a key IS?)
Dixie C., Washington
Here’s an idea that was shared with me by a traditional teacher. (Yes, I still hob-nob with my old cronies of bygone traditional piano days.) She buys sandwich cookies (think Oreos) in four varieties: chocolate cookies w/ chocolate icing inside, vanilla cookies w/ white icing inside, chocolate cookies w/ white icing inside, vanilla cookies w/ chocolate icing inside. She “edits” the ones for B & Bb to make them vanilla & chocolate cookies w/ chocolate icing inside, and then the same w/ white icing inside. So you have one cookie for each chord or key.
When her students can play the I, IV & V chords in all 12 keys, they get a package of 12 cookies, one for each key. My sister, Dodie, came up with the idea of putting them in a quart size ziplock bag. If you don’t use the double-stuffed ones, all 12 fit side by side perfectly, and the students can see the order of chords going up the scale by half-steps. Even my teen students get excited over earning their cookies.