Teaching Fur Elise A Section
Found in: Adult Students, Curriculum, Foundation Songs
Mark M., New York
I’m generally very rigorous about following Neil’s instructions, since time and again I’ve come to understand why he does things the way he does. I’ve recently had a situation where I felt I had a good reason to do something a little differently from what he’d laid down, and it’s been successful, so I thought I’d share it.
One of my groups of older adult students is heading into FL7. They move slower than typical students, and they can be iffy on playlist maintenance. I thought to check if they’d kept alive FL5 Fur Elise since we’ll soon be building on it, and they’d both lost it. We’d decided to retrieve it — which, of course, cannot simply be done with them reviewing SHMs as with other Foundation pieces because this piece, uniquely, lacks video.
In re-teaching it, I wondered how I could make it as easy as possible to retrieve for them.
First step in that: having them review FL1/FL2 Fur Elise on their own, since FL5 so directly builds from there. That’s not controversial.
But then I thought, let’s do just the FL5 LH first, integrating it with the simpler FL1/FL2 RH. That worked really well for both Sections 1 & 2.
Then, moving into the RH, I thought: let’s do Section 2 first since it’s so much easier than Section 1. That also worked really well.
I wouldn’t necessarily start presenting the piece in this way to students when they first go through FL5, but I admit I’m considering it. The content fully honors Neil’s instructions except for modifying the order in which the components/chapters are presented and integrated. It feels like it very much allows us to capitalize on Single Thought Processes and Controlling the Events in a much easier way for this piece compared to the standard FL5 presentation which fully leaves behind FL1/FL2 content and which works Section 1 before Section 2. At the very least it’s food for thought and for possible discussion.
Ian B., California
This sounds great, Mark! I think especially in helping students focus on how the patterns are similar, taking this “out of order” approach can help them focus more on comparison of existing pattern with new one.
My only thought was (and this is just a caution, not an objection) that SOME students have a really hard time learning pieces out of order when their EAR is already very familiar with the tune. Adults in particular have likely listened to Fur Elise hundreds of times in their lives. I’ve noticed Yay Ode to Joy can also be problematic for the same reason. However difficult it can be for some, it is a fantastic and very effective practice strategy to take sections “out of context.” And I encourage my students to do this whenever possible until they have learned the entire piece. Thanks for sharing!
Mark M., New York
Ian B. While I see that potential concern, we’ve got Curriculum examples like Minuet in G which inherently present things out of order, so we know it can work. And I think this FL5 Fur Elise is a unique case because it’s all so directly built on something familiar. At each step of the way through what I’ve described, the students can (and my students did) play the full Section 1 + Section 2 consecutively in order. So while the new learning happens “out of order,” the piece can always be played in order with BH, precisely because it’s being integrated with the older FL1/FL2 material, so that it always feels “complete.” That wouldn’t be possible if this new order were followed but we insisted on students only practicing the brand new material — there would be strong loss of context with that. Here, full context is always present.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
I like the extra step of processing the new LH with the “old” RH – micro dosing.
Neil Moore
My response to Mark’s post:
Mark M., New York
Neil Moore Thanks for all you said here, Neil. Really appreciate it. I’d also pose that another way to look at my suggestions is that it is still all up-leveling as opposed to down-leveling, just incrementally rather than all at once, which is exactly what creates the hybrid situation you mentioned.
Kerry V., Australia
hehehe great idea. I actually did do that when an adult student was having difficulty with learning all the new steps. It worked a treat. She had the L5 down pat in only a few lessons. But basically, you break things down that will work for the student still using the basis of Neil’s teaching. Can’t go wrong really.
Original discussion started July 28, 2022