I recently made a fun find – I found a set of music flashcards that my younger sister and I made when I was probably about 10 or 11 years old! We made them for our little sister to help teach her how to read music.
We made up a little story for each letter name and made the notes look like different animals and things to help her remember the note names. Some of them are pretty funny! We typed up the little stories and glued them to the backs of the flashcards and hooked them all together with a piece of braided yarn.
It was just a fun little find, and kind of neat to realize that even back them I was creating piano teaching resources!
…but have your students ever seen the inside of a piano? Do they actually know how it works? Do they know that the sound is made by hammers hitting strings? Have they seen the dampers at work? Do they know how the damper pedal works? Do they really have an understanding of how cool and intricate the inside of a piano is, and what an amazing instrument this really is?
If the answer is no, then waste no more time – open up that baby and let them climb up on a chair and see it in “action” (pun intended)! Then let them play some notes or a piece or some arpeggios with the damper pedal (if they haven’t tried it already) and not only will they have lots of fun, but will also understand why it sounds the way it does.
Looking inside the piano is a great group class activity, where you can let your students take turns playing while everyone else looks inside to watch the action move! I like to play something fast for them to watch as well, something like Fantasie-Impromptu that will really get those hammers moving.
If you have preschoolers or young students, here is a cute fingerplay you can teach them! I wish I knew who wrote this, I found it in a library book years ago:
“Here is the hammer,” (Right hand in fist like hammer)
“Here are the strings!” (Left palm flat with fingers outstretched)
“Put them together,” (Tap left fingers with right fist)
“The piano sings!” (Continue to tap left fingers with right fist)
What fun activities have you done to teach your students about the piano?
This post was originally published on February 28, 2012 but has been expanded here.
One of our most important jobs as piano teachers is to help our students love and appreciate great music. If we can turn them into music-lovers and ignite a spark of excitement about music, great composers and the piano, the rest of our job will be so much easier!
Today I want to share four simple ways to encourage your students to listen to classical music. As piano students do these things and keep track of what they’ve done it will help them to discover great music on their own and be motivated to learn about new composers and pianists.
Listen to Great Music & Keep Track of Favorites
Our students need to listen to great music to be familiar with great composers and beautiful music. We can’t expect them to become great pianists if they don’t regularly LISTEN to great piano music. We also can’t expect them to love a lot of the music they are learning in piano lessons if we don’t teach them about composers, styles and genres and guide them in their music appreciation journey.
Listening should be a REGULAR part of piano lessons and piano practice. Parents can help a LOT in this area but it is up to us to guide and teach and encourage.
As your students listen to classical music they will start to come across composers and pieces that they love! They will find some recordings that they want to listen to over and over. Have them keep track of their favorite recordings and composers. Keeping a list of favorites will help them discover their particular music tastes and preferences. It will help them to really listen to music, and to recognize what it is about certain recordings and pieces that speaks to them.
Keep Track of Pieces You Want to Learn Someday
Studies have shown that piano students have a lower rate of dropping out of lessons when they are given more autonomous choice in the repertoire that they learn. One study showed a music student practicing twelve times longer per note on a piece of their own choice compared to a piece assigned by their teacher! The student’s practicing was also more strategic on the piece that they had chosen on their own. Having some autonomous choice is VERY important in helping our students be more self-motivated in piano.
As they are listening, have them keep a “Repertoire Wish List” – a list of pieces they have heard that they would LOVE to learn someday! When they are at an appropriate level, be sure they get the opportunity to learn pieces of their choice.
Look for Role Models
Are your piano students familiar with great pianists – both living and from the past? Can they list ten or more living pianists by name? Not knowing of any great pianists by name is like aspiring to be an athlete but not knowing of any professional athletes. Our students need role models to look up to. We have the amazing capability of being able to watch and listen to performances of great pianists simply by typing their name in a search on YouTube! The great pianists are literally at our fingertips and it is so important that our students have opportunities to watch them perform. Much can be learned from their skills and techniques, their interpretation of music and simply from being inspired by an amazing performance. Have your students keep a running list of pianists they admire.
Experience Live Music
Although the opportunity to access great performances online is wonderful, we must not also forget the importance of LIVE music. Do your students attend live professional performances? Have they been to the symphony? What concerts and recitals are available in your area that you could recommend to your students? Live performances are inspiring and motivating. Attending a live music event allows you to experience music WITH OTHER PEOPLE. Piano lessons can feel like a really solitary thing, so it is important to experience music with others. Invite your students to keep a list of concerts and recitals they have attended. You could even have them write down their favorite pieces they heard live – they may want to add some to their Repertoire Wish List!
All of these tracking sheets pictured in this article are included in my Piano Practice Journal, available for digital download as well as in paperback.
The idea for the Shades of Sound curriculum first came to me as I was listening to a gorgeous reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Frustrated with the problem of piano students quitting lessons because “they don’t like classical music,” I heard this music and realized that there has got to be a way that we can help our piano students listen to and appreciate great music.
The Shades of Sound Listening & Coloring Books are my solution to this problem, and I have been so excited about the enthusiasm shown for this engaging music appreciation curriculum.
Why Music Appreciation?
“Building desirable attitudes toward music is the first aim of all music education.” -Mabelle Glenn
Music appreciation is an important part of any young musician’s training. Learning to play the piano without knowing the great composers and listening to their music is like trying to become a writer without reading any good books. Understanding and appreciating great music is essential!
Listening to classical music will help increase our students’ understanding of music. It will inspire and motivate them to practice. It will give them composer and musician role models and introduce them to great performers. Regular listening to many different styles and composers helps our students become more well-rounded musicians.
According to Self-Determination Theory, we humans have three psychological needs which need to all be met in order to be motivated and engaged. One of these important needs is relatedness. In the context of piano study, relatedness has to do with how the things our students are learning in piano related to their life.
Take for example a student who comes from a home where there is no classical or piano music. The parents do not play any instruments and there is not much music in the home. It will probably be harder for this student to progress and engage in the learning process than a student who comes from a musical family and a home where classical music is listened to and appreciated.
Why does this curriculum work so well?
The Shades of Sound curriculum combines listening with coloring to create an engaging experience for students of all ages. Why does this curriculum work so well?
The reason why this curriculum is so engaging and works so well is that it uses all four learning modes:
Reading/Writing – Students learn about music history by reading about each composer in the book, and reading about the background of the piece and what to listen for. They have a chance to write down what they like about each piece and give the piece a rating.
Auditory – Students listen along using the accompanying YouTube playlist.
Visual – Each piece includes a beautiful coloring page.
Kinesthetic – Coloring while listening uses kinesthetic or tactile learning.
Combining all four learning styles makes this curriculum super engaging and helps you to reach all of your students in different ways.
But how can I find time to fit this into a piano lesson?
That is what is so great about this curriculum. All of the work is done for you, it is easy to implement and can be used in different ways. You can assign an entire book to a student and have them listen a little bit each day at home, or assign a piece or two per week. You can take a minute or two to discuss but most of the work can be done at home. (This is GREAT because there will be classical music in their home for their whole family to enjoy!) Or, you can use these in a group setting for some fun listening and coloring activities!
Listen!
Let’s get our piano students listening to great music! As they appreciate and understand classical music, they will become better musicians. Truly the most important part of our job is helping our students to LOVE music. In order to love it they must listen to it!
This piano memory trick will protect you against memory slips!
I will never forget a piano recital I attended as a teenager. It was my teacher’s semi-annual studio recital. I don’t remember which piece I performed. But I will never forget the performance of a teenage boy in my studio.
He played a very impressive late-Romantic piano solo. It was fast and fun and bombastic. It was almost flawless…until the very last chord. He had a complete memory blank and could NOT play the final chord. He kind of searched around for a minute, trying a few different chords, but to no avail. Finally, he kind of shrugged his shoulders and slunk off the stage and said, “Sorry.”
Sadly, the only thing most people probably remembered after that performance was that he forgot the last chord. Performing from memory can be scary, and I’m sure we all have our share of memory slip stories to share.
Today I want to share an important memory trick that will help to protect you and your students against these types of devastating memory slips. This memory trick is Starting Places.
Using Starting Places will help give your students a plan of actionfor when a memory slip happens (it happens to all of us!). It is a great way TO memorize, as well as a great way to CHECK your memory.
As you prepare to memorize your piece, mark your piece into small sections.You want to create a “Starting Place” at the beginning of each section. This can be as simple as drawing an X above the staff at each spot. Be SURE to include the VERY LAST chord or note as a Starting Place (so your fate will not be the same as the teenage boy at my recital). Now you are ready to memorize!
Your goal is to memorize each Starting Place SUPER well. You want to be able to sit down at the piano and start your piece, from memory, at ANY of the Starting Places. Many students will only always start at the beginning, which means they will know the beginning REEEALLY well, but the other sections – not so much. Start at a different section each day. Work on each section beginning a lot so you know each of them really well.
As soon as you have the Starting Places learned, you can start to quiz yourself.See if you can play through the entire piece skipping from Starting Place to Starting Place. So first you will start at the beginning of the piece and play a few bars – and then skip right to the next Starting Place. Continue to do so until you have reached the end of your piece. What this is doing is teaching you what to do in case of a memory slip – simply skip to the closest Starting Place. The audience will hardly know anything has gone awry.
You can also practice your Starting Places backwards. See if you can start by playing the very last chord, or the last Starting Place of your piece. After you play that, play the second-to-last Starting Place to the end. Then the third-to-last. Continue in this manner until you reach the beginning of the piece, after which you may play the entire piece through.
This is such an important Memory Trick that will help to safeguard you and your students against random memory slips at a performance. What is YOUR favorite memory trick to teach your students?
Want to learn 39 other Memory Tricks to teach your students (or use yourself??) Check out the Memory Tricks Pack today! This resource will help you teach your students why we should use multiple types of memory in our memorizing, and will give them specific memorization strategies using four different memory types.
This week we celebrate the 200th birthday of Clara Wieck Schumann. Keep reading to learn about her life and career, and be sure to check out the free download below!
Born September 13, 1819, Clara Schumann is one of the most well-known female composers. Hers is the most famous love story in all of classical music with her husband and great composer Robert Schumann. She lived an interesting life, full of much sadness, and had very complex relationships with the men in her life. She lived a lot of her musical life in the spotlight as a great concert pianist who toured all over Europe. She saw herself first as a performer, second as a mother (she and Robert had eight children), and third as a composer.
Clara was a melancholy child who didn’t speak for the first four years of her life. Before she turned five her mother divorced her father, and because of the law she was put in the custody of her father. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a well-known music teacher who used his daughter as an example of his great teaching methods. He taught her piano, theory, harmony, counterpoint, composition, singing and violin. He was very demanding and controlling. He worked hard to get her performance opportunities and a lot of publicity. He was her first and only teacher, beginning at the age of four. She had her first official concert at age nine and started composing around the same time. She had her first extended concert tour when she was twelve or thirteen years old.
As a pianist she was a powerhouse. She had a large reach (she could reach a tenth) and played with great force and clarity. She was a child prodigy and a virtuoso. She was very popular as a performer – at one concert the police had to be there to control the crowd. She often had up to thirteen curtain calls and several encores. Her father trained her for this kind of life. He wanted his daughter in the limelight, perhaps because it was proof of his great teaching expertise. He trained her to perform despite anything that might be happening in life – chaos, illness, tragedy – Clara was able to play on. It was customary for performers of her day to play their own compositions, so Clara composed.
Young Robert Schumann became a piano student of Friedrich Wieck and moved in to their home when Clara was a child. They became friends, and then when she was a teenager they fell in love. He kissed her after her sixteenth birthday party. They wanted to marry but her father vehemently opposed the marriage. Finally, after a long legal battle, they married in 1840.
Clara was a great inspiration to Robert, and really was influential to his musical success. He, however, was not very encouraging to her in her composition. He believed that “men stand higher than women,” and frequently made her feel very insecure about her compositions. His comments about her music must have really gotten to her, as she once tragically wrote, “I once believed I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not wish to compose.”
While Clara lived for the spotlight of performing, Robert believed that the greatest artistry was achieved away from the public eye. He did not want his wife to perform publicly, but she loved it too much. He monopolized their piano for his composing, leaving little time for her to compose or even to practice. In the summer of 1853, when they finally lived somewhere with room for all of their children and both of their pianos, Clara said, “When I can work regularly I feel once more really in my element. A quite different feeling comes over me, lighter and freer and everything seems to become brighter and cheerful. Music is a large part of my life, and when I must do without it, it is as if I were deprived of bodily and mental vigour.”
Clara continued to perform, going on several extended tours in-between the births of their eight children. Her husband Robert suffered from mental illness, and eventually ended up in an asylum until his death in 1856. Once he died, Clara stopped composing. She continued to perform to support her family, and in her sixties she was the principal piano instructor at a conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany.
A large portion of Clara’s compositions are works for solo piano, however she also was a major contributor to German lieder, writing several songs based on poetry. Maurice Hinson said that “her piano works display a variety of emotions including enthusiasm, melancholy, passion, and sometimes sparkle.”
I am working on a presentation about teaching beginning piano students and would love to hear your experiences! This survey should only take a few minutes. I so appreciate hearing your thoughts about teaching beginners. Thank you SO much for taking a few minutes of your time to complete this survey. After you complete the survey I will be emailing you a free music-themed coloring page as a thank-you!
As you’re starting out your piano studio, there are some important things to do to help things run as smoothly as possible. Of course you’ll want a studio policy and you’ll need to figure out all of the business logistics (like your tuition rate, how you want to be paid, how you will keep track of things, etc.).
I believe there are also some really important things you can do to set your new students up for success!
4 Ways to Set Your New Students Up For Success:
Get to Know Them + Make Goals
Whenever I start a new student I give them a get-to-know-you form to fill out. This is important for helping me to learn things about my new students, including their musical background, other hobbies and things they like to do, contact information for the parents, and most importantly – WHY they are taking piano lessons and what they hope to accomplish. When we are not only upfront about OUR goals for our studio, but about what the student’s goals are, then we can get on the same page and everyone can know what to expect.
This fun handout helps you get to know your students!
2. Communicate Responsibilities of Student, Teacher AND Parents
Piano lessons are a commitment, and particularly when the student is a child, it is a three-way relationship including student, teacher and parents. Students do not succeed without positive parental support at home. It is so important to communicate this to the parents right from the beginning to help set your student up for success. Follow up with regular and frequent communication with parents.
This contract lays out the responsibilities of teachers, parents and piano students.
3. Get Students Excited About Music
Music is about joy and expression! We should always strive to get our students excited about music. I love to encourage my students to LISTEN to music, especially classical music, because music appreciation is SO important in the development of a musician. As students discover piano pieces that they simply LOVE and would like to learn someday, encourage them to start a “Repertoire Wish List.”
Students add pieces that they would LOVE to learn to this list!
4. Teach the Importance of Practicing
Of course, one of your main jobs as a piano teacher is to teach your students HOW to practice. There are many things you can do to encourage great practicing at home, but sometimes a simple practice chart is what a student needs to be motivated. They can mark off how many days they practice in a row, they can put stickers on the days that they practice, or they can write how many minutes they practice. (But just remember – quality is much more important than quantity!) My teacher had a sign hanging on her door that said, “You only need to practice on the days that you eat!” She thought it was hilarious and I came to appreciate it as well. Now I have a similar sign hanging in my studio!
Would you like me to email you 8 FREE Resources (including the ones shown above) to help you get your studio all organized and all set-up for student success? The Studio-Starter Pack includes the following:
Get-to-Know-You Questionnaire for New Students
Parent/Teacher/Student Contract
“Piano Notes” Page for Newsletters or Weekly Assignments
Blank Stationery for Notes to Parents
Repertoire Wish List
Monthly Practice Chart
Tuition Reminder Sign (3 Choices)
Practice Reminder Sign
There are TWO different styles of every form, so in total you will get 16 freebies! Click the button below and let me know where you want me to send your Studio Starter Pack.
Today I want to share with you 8 Ways to Make the Most of a Piano Lesson. Each weekly lesson adds up to a LOT of time, and a BIG part of your students’ lives – let’s plan ahead to make the most of our opportunity to influence these blossoming musicians!
1. See the Potential
When a new student walks into your studio, look for their potential. Maybe they’re not very good. Maybe they’re unsure and awkward. Maybe they don’t even like piano that much. Music has such a power to change a person for the better – and you can be that great music teacher who can look ahead at what your student can become and then nurture and guide them to reach that!
Goethe said, “If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
2. Have a Plan
Teaching without a plan results in wasted lessons. As teachers we need to have a plan for what techniques our students need to learn and master, what repertoire would best suit their abilities, their personalities, and their musical goals. What method books will you be using? Will you use other supplementary repertoire? And also very important – what are your student’s goals? Ask them when they first start lessons and revisit often. What areas do they need to be working on consistently to reach their goals and your goals?
It’s also important to have a plan in place for the parents – what is their role in piano lessons? Will they be required to help with practice time at home? How will you stay on the same page and communicate with one another to best help the student reach their goals?
3. Teach with Enthusiasm!
Approach each lesson with energy and enthusiasm! This 30 or 45 minutes is the ONLY time you will spend with your student during that week – make it count! Be an influence for good. Show them by example a LOVE of music. Make the most of each lesson. Happiness is contagious. Be an “instrument of inspiration!”
4. Teach HOW to Practice
You can’t just say “go home and practice.”
Teaching our students HOW to practice is one of the most important and beneficial things we will do as a piano teacher. You shouldn’t just leave it up to chance – be sure that they have the tools necessary to succeed!
You can make the most out of the lesson time if the student knows how to make good progress during the week. Lessons with no practice in-between are wasted.
Show them SPECIFIC, actionable practice tricks and techniques and work through a section or two of their music with them during each lesson to show them HOW to learn their music effectively and efficiently.
5. Love Them & Listen To Them
Learn about your student, their likes, hobbies, strengths. Lend a listening ear. You are with them one-on-one a lot and can be an important person in their life.
My piano teacher from my teenage years is an excellent example of this. She taught me piano, but more importantly she loved me! She was always interested in my life. When I left her to study in college I remember her saying, “You can walk out of my door, but you can’t walk out of my heart!”She always told me to “be happy!” no matter the outcome of a performance. Her studio was a happy place, somewhere I wanted to be.
6. Show Them a Love For Music
When you really love music, it is contagious! So many students start out lessons with a spark of excitement – keep that spark alive by showing by example how wonderful music is!
Give your students opportunities to HEAR beautiful piano literature. Have them make a “repertoire wish list” of pieces they’d like to learn. Give them listening assignments, teach them music appreciation and history. Tell them about your favorite composer’s life. Pull up recordings during their lessons of a composer they are learning. Perform for them!
7. Build & Show Confidence In Them
Praise your students’ accomplishments – there is always something good you can praise during the lesson. Make them feel good about their efforts, and THEN you can build and help correct mistakes in a positive way.
My teacher always exclaimed, “Wonderful!!” with a flair and it made me feel SO good.
I have a secret high five I do with one of my students – he does a giant glissando down the keys and lands in a high five with me!
One way we can both show our confidence in our students and build their confidence is by helping them to have performance opportunities. Performing requires careful preparation and hard work, and a successful performance helps our students feel more confident in their playing.
8. Challenge & Stretch Them
When you praise the good things along with setting high expectations, students will progress! One of the most important things to be learned from piano lessons is GRIT, PERSEVERANCE and DETERMINATION. Set high standards for your students, then encourage them with love. Tell them, “you can do this! You have the tools you need to learn this at home during your practicing. Let’s try it together now and you’ll see how well you can do it!”
I like to give students a specific “challenge” each week to focus on during their practicing – usually something they are struggling with. By making a specific challenge and getting them all pumped up to complete it I am showing confidence in their ability to do hard things.
In high school, my teacher always challenge/expected me to practice for three hours per day each summer! It seemed so hard at first, but through her encouragement I rose to the challenge and it made a HUGE difference in my piano progress!
Don’t be afraid to assign a “challenge piece” – a piece that is a little bit above the student’s current abilities but that will be fun and motivating and will bring them up to the next level.
Be an Inspiration!
I love this quote by Goethe – I think that it sums up our potential for inspiration as piano teachers really well!
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Inspire your students with the amazing composers that history forgot – women composers!
Throughout music history women have had the odds stacked against them and have been overshadowed by their famous male counterparts. Despite these difficulties, there are many extraordinary musical works written by women, if only you do a little digging.
Introducing an amazing new resource all about women composers throughout history – Shades of Sound: Women Composers – a new listening and coloring book for pianists!
Containing over 150 pages, this book tells the stories of nineteen women composers from the Middle Ages to the present day. Read about their lives, learn about their works for solo piano, orchestra and more, and listen to over fifty pieces by these remarkable women while coloring the beautiful accompanying coloring pages.
This amazing resource would make a fabulous semester- or year-long music appreciation curriculum for piano students, a wonderful group listening activity for group piano lessons and classes, or a beautiful gift for any piano teacher or music-lover in your life.
