Triads and Inversions Second Year Piano Students

Chord studies serve two purposes, technical and theoretical.  Chord drills aid in developing a good hand position to learn the keyboard, shaping the fingers, and developing a general facility for playing in more than one key at a time. 

In the first year students should have learned major and minor triads in root position, dominant seventh chords and subdominant chords.  Sometimes near the end of the second year of lessons students can be taught triads and inversions of majors and minors.  Correct fingering is important for inversions:  students usually want to play the same fingering for inversions as was learned for the root position.  Circle the fingering in each hand for the new inversions.  Teach the chords in both block and broken style.

Triads and inversions should be studied both ascending and descending.  Often students can play ascending but have trouble with descending.  The chords should not be discovered by trial and error using the hunt and peck method.  A strong mental picture of the correct fingering should be established to form an anticipated feeling for successive chords for the pattern.

Sufficient drilling should be assigned so that over time the correct fingering will become automatic.  Students can recite the fingering for the middle note of the chords, as this is the finger that changes in the inversions. 

Students should learn all twelve major and minor triads and inversions. Remind students that the word practice means repetition and spell out how many times you want each item repeated.

Scales for Beginning Pianists

In the first year of lessons scale playing is minimal for most, but not all, students.  Certainly there are those who are capable of grasping the feel and location of the keys very quickly.  Others may need to wait to play scales until the hand/eye coordination is more mature.  However, few, if any, scale passages are used in first year literature.  Most teachers would probably agree that learning some scale patterns will benefit first year students.  One or two octave scales can be taught.  Overall the problem of scales as a technique is more easily learned in the second year.  This is especially true of parallel scale playing that requires control and coordination.  Having said this, again there are students who naturally acclimate to the piano keyboard.

By second or third year students need to understand how to form major and minor scale patterns with whole and half-steps.

While scale study is great for evenness of fingers and finger control, it is only one aspect of technic.  Technical training should include practice for pianissimo, fortissimo, crescendo and diminuendo, variety of tone quality, and phrasing lifts.

The two problems to solve in scale playing are turning the thumb under or crossing over the thumb, and memorizing the fingering patterns used in parallel motion.  The correct scale fingering for reach scale should be learned from the beginning.  While some teaching methods introduce only partial scales up to five fingers at first, there is no reason not to teach the full one-octave scales immediately.

Scale fingering should be memorized.  A complete book of scales at the beginner level of one or two octaves should be provided to the student for reference.  Many teachers write scale fingering in the weekly assignment book.  However, it is good practice to compel the student to learn to refer to fingering in their book.  If the student is very young, then showing their parent how to help them to use the book is important until they are old enough to work independently.


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

Harmonizing Melodies

As soon as students have learned two chords, I and V7, and have begun to practice pieces for two hands, melody and accompaniment, they can try to adapt harmonies to familiar melodies. Keep the melodies within the compass of the five-finger position.

Students can be led to listen to the agreement of melody and chord, and to change the harmony at the proper place in the melody according to the musical effect rather than because of the teacher's directions. This elementary study in the feeling for the proper relation of harmony and melody is important and is actually a fundamental lesson in harmonic ear training.

After harmonizing a simple melody, the student can write the chords in blank staves.

A little study will also show students that by changing the third tone of a five-finger group they can alter the effect from major to minor and vice versa.

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Rhythm & Singing

Singing will serve to keep the piano playing rhythmic and up to tempo. The student at the piano should be trained, if a mistake is made, to find the place at which the teacher is singing and join in with the song rather than to stop the song to agree with the error of the pianist. This training in keeping the music going is extremely important. The student should only be sent to the piano when the piano teacher is reasonably sure that he is able to play the music correctly, and then he must be required to keep the performance going at the correct tempo from beginning to end. If a mistake occurs, let it be corrected later and the difficult spot drilled upon until mastered, but avoid stopping in the middle of a piece to make correction. This is also a vital exercise in sight reading sheet music.

So-Fa Syllables. The use of so-fa syllables is recommended. The syllables are valuable in expressing the tone relationships within the scale, and offer the simplest means for tonal ear training. A difference of opinion exists between the advocates of the movable do and the fixed do systems. Once a system is selected, however, it is best to follow through with the methodology.

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