Placing Intervals on the Keyboard
Found in: Reading
Vanessa M., Western Australia
In the reading notes teachers’ guide for projects 7, 9, & 12 there is a step of unfolding interval streams onto the keyboard. On the video, it’s not mentioned until project 12. On the video, Jane asks the question “do we need to make sure the student is in the right place on the keyboard?”, and Neil says yes, then moves straight on to fingering.
How can the student know where to start when practicing this at home? Or maybe the student is playing the intervals anywhere on the piano, but I feel uncomfortable about that, because it’s not specifically addressed. What are you all doing at this point?
Gordon Harvey, Australia
You would definitely have students unfolding the streams on the keyboard at projects 7, 9 and 12 as outlined in the Teacher Training Materials. As far as the starting place is concerned, the actual starting note is not so important, but choosing the best starting finger definitely is. In fact, for extra practice, you could have students play each stream with either hand, or even both at the same time. It may even be better not to start on the correct note, but instead to use a different starting note each time, in case the student remembers the stream by its sound!