Second Year Piano Sight Reading Instruction

A sight reading program should be designed for students based on a level of reading that is slightly below the current repertoire level.  Second year students shouldn't be assigned music at the second grade level because these pieces are too difficult for that purpose; they aren't meant for casual study.

Most piano courses are designed around a progressive reading program, but often the rate of progression accelerates too fast for good reading. So, it helps to add books or assignments on sight reading that give supplementary easier works to read.  Additionally, sight-reading flash cards are great in individual lessons.

As the card is held, the student should quickly acknowledge the cleff signs, key signature, time signature, and ascertain the correct position on the keyboard for both hands.  The note values can be tapped before beginning to play to get the correct rhythm.  Any changes in the hand position that might happen should be noticed.  While playing the student can recite the counts out loud and look far enough ahead to keep going in tempo.  He needs to play straight through without stopping.

For more information about piano lessons in Basking Ridge, please contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.

Keyboard Triads and Inversions

Chords are a vital part of all students' technical programs.  This is because chord playing helps in developing a good hand position, shapes the fingers, and promotes facility for playing in more than one key at a time.  In the first year, piano students learn major and minor triads in root position, dominant seventh chords and subdominant chords.  Sometime near he end of the second year of lessons students can be taught triads and inversions.  These will be major and minor triads.  The correct fingering is very important when teaching chord inversions on the keyboard.  A common problem is that students play the same fingers for the root position and the inversions.  To make students aware of changing fingers, it can be helpful to circle the written fingering in each hand that is different.  Students should also be taught the chords in both block and broken style.

Triads and inversions should be studied both ascending and descending.  While many students are able to play the chords ascending, many have lost the picture of the chord they are inverting and are not able to return back down.

The chords should not be "discovered" by trial and error using the trial by ear method.  A mental picture of correct fingering should be established to form an anticipated feeling for successive chords in the pattern.

Since fingering is important when learning triads and inversions, enough drill should be assigned so that in time the correct fingering will become automatic.  Sometimes it helps to have students say out loud the fingering for the middle note of the chords.

Students should learn all twelve major and minor triads and inversions.  Remind students that the word practice means repetition.  Advise students how many times you want each one repeated on a daily basis.

For more information about Basking Ridge piano instruction, contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.

Down-Up Wrist Motion for Phrasing

Slurs and phrases produced on the piano are dependent on the correct motions of the hand, wrist and arm. The mechanics of producing slurred groups can be taught to first year students when they have sufficient control to produce the proper motions. Constant practice in correct phrasing technique will dramatically impact their ability later to perform classical works from such great composers as Mozart.

Piano instruction can demonstrate the motions used in playing a two-note slur to the student. Show him what it looks like to drop on the key with a slightly lower wrist motion and release the key with a higher wrist motion. Several terms may be used to describe this process:

1. down-up wrist
2. drop-release
3. drop-roll (rolling inwards toward the piano and lifting at the same time)

The lifting of the wrist is the same at the end of a two-note slur or any phrase. When a longer phrase mark is used, it is helpful to relate the group of notes under the phrase sign to a vocal line. If sung, a breath would be taken on the last note of the phrase. At the piano, the hand lifts, the legato line is broken, and the "breath" is accomplished.

Numerous exercises for slurring can be created by the teacher. The first note of the slur should be slightly louder and the last note should be slightly softer. The student may be told to "float off" on the last sound from the slur ending to the first note of the next slur.

Many first year solos have multiple touches--staccato, legato, and slurred groups. Have the student say aloud the hand motions used. Say "up" for staccato, "down" for long notes or phrases, and "off" for phrase endings.

Great photos of phrasing motion can be found in John Thompson's Modern Course for the Piano First Grade book and John Thompson's Junior Hannon book.

For more information about piano lessons in the Basking Ridge area, please contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.

Piano Teaching Tips

1. Singing the Song. Young piano students should try singing the song before trying to play it on the piano. The piano should consistently be a medium of expression. The student first knows the tones that he wants to play, and then makes the piano express what is in his imagination.
2. Playing by Imitation. The piano teacher should play a phrase on a keyboard so that the student can observe every detail, and then they imitate what they see the teacher do. The early stages of every form of endeavor begins with the process of imitation. Students, however, are expected to begin the graduation development of independence in their work with recurring ideas and technique. The teacher should gradually withdraw assistance reserving the imitative processes for unfamiliar ideas only.
3. Sight Reading. A firm foundation for sight reading can be laid in the first year of piano playing -- not through laborious note-by-note reading, but by teaching the student to learn to think and feel tones and notes in groups, melodic and chordal. Note-to-note playing seldom develops into skillful sight reading. The student can learn to sight read from recall of phrases or parts of phrases of familiar songs.
4. Form. All music, and all other forms of art, is based on principles of form. The two essential principles are repetition and contrast. A song, for example, might consist of four phrases, each phrase on a separate line. Three of the phrases are alike (repetition) and one is different (contrast). The letter A is used to designate the first phrase and all similar phrases in the piece. The letter B designates the contrasting phrase. A study of the form of a song will have immediate application in the process of learning the song, because the student will perceive that when he can play the first phrase, he is also able without further study to play the next. The rhythm of one phrase covers the rhythmic problems of the complete song, at the simplest level. a) The teacher shows the student how to play the first appearance only of a phrase which is repeated. b) The student must be led to realize that the repetition of a phrase should be played with the same fingering as its first appearance. c) The phrase divisions of the song must be carefully indicated by raising the hands at the point of the song where the singer would breathe. Sometimes this motion of the hands can be slightly exaggerated until the principle of phrasing becomes firmly established.
5. Technical Development. Insistent development to position of body, arm and hand should be emphasized from the beginning. The relative height of the keyboard and bench should be correct for the student. The distance of body from keyboard is also important. Constant attention should be given to the position and action of the arm, hand and fingers. There should be no rigidity, only ease and relaxation. Some five-finger and chord studies are designed as technic drills.
6. Major Scales. The practice of all the major scales should be continuous. Pieces can be transposed as a helpful practice to play the scale of the key into which the composition has been transposed. Scale work eventually should include the major scale, natural minor scale, harmonic minor scale, and melodic minor scale.
7. Further Technical Development. Development of freedom in the feeling of relationship between the student and keyboard and ease of attack and release, through constant changing of the location of the hands up and down the keyboard should be promoted. The development of accuracy, smoothness and singing tone by keeping each hand in position directly above the five keys of the phrase or group of tones to be played is encouraged. Over time, a gradual extension of range over the keyboard can be encouraged, but the student should not be advanced so rapidly that he loses the feeling of the presence of the keys directly beneath his fingers. This feeling may be maintained through relaxation, from the shoulders, of the arm and wrist. Varieties of fingerings introduced should include replacement, expansion, contraction, substitution, broken chords, perhaps organ point, finger crossings, and hand crossings.
8. Pedaling. Too early use of the pedal can likely lead to many bad playing habits. The student should be trained to listen to his own playing, and to secure a smooth legato and musical phrasing without the pedal. Gradually introduced, the pedal will enable the student to sustain a chord while adding other tones too distant to be played at the same time. A richer closing effect is then established. Practice may be given to developing a graceful sweet of the hand from the first position to the other distant key. An effort should be made to play the effects without looking at the keys, thereby developing the important feeling for the keyboard so essential to pianistic freedom. This development of playing with less visual attention to the keyboard should be gradual.
9. Creative Work. The student should be encourage in original thinking by experimenting at the piano until he achieves a desired sound, and then to write the notes accordingly. The student can learn a melody until he can think about the tones when he is away from the keyboard. Then he experiments at the piano with the I and V7 chords until an acceptable accompaniment has evolved. The student decides for himself how the chords should be used. Then, in class, the student plays his arrangement for the teacher, and they come to an agreement as to the most effective accompaniment.
10. Call and Response. The teacher can sing or play the first phrase of a two-phrase song, and have the student reply by singing or playing the second phrase. His attention should be called to the balance and proportion of the two phrases. He should observe the feeling of "question" in the first phrase and of "answer" in the second. He could himself invent a question and answer.

For more information about piano lessons NJ, contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.

Inventing Variations on a Melody

After learning a piece, have beginner to intermediate students find the same hand position higher and lower on the keyboard and play the melody in various octaves. Let them discover in how many places on the keyboard the same phrases may be played. What different effects result from playing in different octaves? Imagine a particular effect and find the octave most appropriate to produce it. The piano teacher may play keyboard phrasing and the student try to find the octaves he has heard. The phrases may be divided between the two hands and played in different octaves; occasional hand crossings may be used.

Have the student transpose the composition into different keys. Change a major key to a minor key and see what the effects are.

The variations are almost limitless in their possibilities, and the imaginative and inventive teacher will find this a fertile ground for stimulating creative practice.

This activity is great for

1. Encouraging creativity and playfulness by inventing new combinations and effects
2. Stimulating the imagination to find new effects
3. Clarifying spatial relationship of the keyboard, and developing the muscular consciousness of the extensive proportions of the keyboard
4. Promoting freedom of arm movement and to learn keyboard facility

For more information about piano instruction NJ, contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.