Sunday, March 29, 2015
Emily Playing Forest Drums
Emily did such a great job playing Forest Drums from Faber Level 1 that I decided to videotape her. She really worked on the hand position changes and the counting.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
The Trials of Triads
As students progress from a single 5-finger position at the piano to extended hand positions, shifts, and jumps, they can grow confused by the number of elements they need to juggle in their minds. This is especially true around the time that triad shapes outside of the root position are introduced. Triads in root position and inversions involve both an expansion of the hand and hand position shifts and these can result in a fair bit of frustration for the young player.
I often teach an abbreviated triad pattern like the one in the Prep B of the RCM syllabus, but there can still be challenges when the full series of inversions up and down are added. I have found some helpful tools for these over the years. For the white key triads I use pom-poms to mark the keys - using a different colour pom-pom for the key played by finger 2. These guides allow students to focus solely on the fingering before they tackle the notes
When there are black keys involved I use sticky flags on the keys instead of pom-poms since those don't roll off onto the floor..
For home practice I have a template. It is not the most elegant, but quite practical:
The student plays the first box, then the first an second, then the first, second and third etc. I have them put check marks above the boxes that they play successfully. This helps isolate the problems so that they are more easily addressed.
I often teach an abbreviated triad pattern like the one in the Prep B of the RCM syllabus, but there can still be challenges when the full series of inversions up and down are added. I have found some helpful tools for these over the years. For the white key triads I use pom-poms to mark the keys - using a different colour pom-pom for the key played by finger 2. These guides allow students to focus solely on the fingering before they tackle the notes
When there are black keys involved I use sticky flags on the keys instead of pom-poms since those don't roll off onto the floor..
For home practice I have a template. It is not the most elegant, but quite practical:
The student plays the first box, then the first an second, then the first, second and third etc. I have them put check marks above the boxes that they play successfully. This helps isolate the problems so that they are more easily addressed.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Juliana playing Polovtsian Dance
Juliana performing the beautiful Polovtsian Dance by Alexander Borodin from Prince Igor.
Congratulations to Juliana for completing the Piano Adventures for the Older Beginner level 1.
Congratulations to Juliana for completing the Piano Adventures for the Older Beginner level 1.
Congratulations to Snehan
I want to congratulate Snehan on his Third place finish at Kiwanis last week. He played Feelin' Good by Brian Bonsor as his Grade 7, List C piece. In addition to this accomplishment he also practiced all of his other material and earned the Student of the Week Certificate!
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