Teaching First Year Piano Students

To begin thinking directionally, have the student play skips and steps on the keyboard. Explain to the student that a skip skips a finger and skips a letter in the musical alphabet. A step plays the next finger and is the next letter in the musical alphabet.

Directional Reading

Reading by shapes and contours is a helpful mechanic in reading notes. Relationships such as up, down, same, repetition, equal distribution in the tonic chord, or unequal distribution in the dominate seventh chord should be seen. Explain to the student the three movements possible on the staff: up, down or the same. Also, there are three types of distances possible on the staff: steps (seconds), skips (thirds or larger intervals), or repeats.

Use interval terminology from the beginning. The goal is to teach the student to think and reason directionally from a given note.

Drills can be taught easily without keyboard sheet music. The student can close his eyes while hearing the directions. Experiences such as playing 5-finger positions and chords prepares students for reading notation. It is helpful to create written drills which work with the concept of direction only, writing pairs of notes in any given direction, up, down or repeat.

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

Teaching Plans and Outlines

Here are some suggested first steps for beginner piano students:

1. Playing by imitation
2. Melodic analysis of song for form (AABA, for example)
3. Five finger hand positions of right and left hands
4. Tonic and dominant-seventh chords
5. Rhythm exercises
6. Sight reading
7. Transposition
8. Theory
9. Technique
10. Home Practice
11. Creative work
12. Block and broken chords
    
13. Analysis, melodic and harmonic
14. Playing the song and observation of cadences
15. Melodies for the left hand
16. Technical development through varieties of fingering
17. Increasing finger independence
18. Piano pieces without words

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

Phrasing

Phrasing is to music what punctuation is to language. Just as punctuation indicates the divisions of sentences and parts of sentences within paragraphs, so does phrasing show the groupings of tones of the composition into such divisions as will make the tonal flow most comprehensible. And as in speech there are longer or shorter periods of silence separating the word groups, so in music the phrasing is effected by brief periods of silence between the tone groups. In singing a breath is usually taken between the phrases; and in playing the hands should likewise seem to breathe between the phrases. The phrases usually end softly, with a gentle release of the tone. Phrasing gives clarity to the expressive interpretation of the music. Definite phrasing is as essential to the interpretation of music as are the rhetorical pauses in expressive speech. The best and most natural way to teach phrasing is to sing the phrase.

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