For years now in my lessons I have used a Rhythm Sheet handout I designed based on some ideas presented by Neil Swapp at the 2015 New Mexico Music Ed Conference. The method starts students off with sixteenth notes, forcing them to subdivide…
Read MoreA terrible thing has happened; you have to teach viola. Perhaps you are a private violin teacher and a student showed up with what they thought was a violin. Maybe you’re a cellist who moved recently and needs to take a viola or two to fill out your schedule. Maybe you’re a band or choir director who has been
Read MoreThe thing you dreaded has happened. Through some circumstance you find yourself teaching choir. You took methods classes sure, but that was a while ago, and you never expected to have to use it. You’ve got the books to study but wouldn’t it be nice to have a quick list to triage things? Something to help you get
Read MorePerformance is a type of communication. As musicians we communicate the notes, rhythms, and words that are written on a page. But if that is all we’re doing, if we only communicate the written music, our performance won’t be very good. It might not be bad, but it won’t be good. In order to communicate the
Read MoreWhen I was directing my small church choir in Colorado I had a student from the local college come to observe my rehearsal. I am a big believer in making practicum hours actually practical, so toward the end of my warmup time I told him to come up and do one. He stammered that I had done all the ones that he’d
Read MoreYou dreaded the possibility. You’ve been given an orchestra class. Sure you may have taken a string methods class in college, but you’ve slept since then, and the first day of school is rapidly approaching. Fear not, I’m here to give you ten things to pay attention to immediately, that will help set both you and your
Read MoreNote reading is one of the trickiest things to teach beginning string players. Many people are intimidated by music notation in general before they even pick up an instrument because it looks like a strange and complicated set of hieroglyphs. Add this to the fact that the beginning string player has to learn how to
Read MoreBeginning string players almost inevitably have a difficult time making the cross between strings. First there is the matter of getting the proper angles and the confidence to play with the bow on the open strings. Then there is the task of coordinating the placement of the left hand fingers on the strings. This is
Read MoreI give a disclaimer every time I have a new student come to me. I start by telling them that I don’t like first lessons, because I like to have a plan and there can be no plan for a first lesson other than figuring out where to start. This usually involves a lot of questions like “tell me about your goals,” that make me feel like…
Read MoreOnce the student can comfortably play all three forms of the primary minor scales I will begin work on the secondary minors. The process is very similar to the one described for the secondary majors; I work my way up the fingerboard, transposing the primary scales up or down as necessary. I introduce all three…
Read MoreI give a disclaimer every time I have a new student come to me. I start by telling them that I don’t like first lessons, because I like to have a plan and there can be no plan for a first lesson other than figuring out where to start. This usually involves a lot of questions like “tell me about your goals,” that make me feel like…
Read MoreOnce the student is comfortable with the primary melodic minor scales and the secondary red majors I will start the primary harmonic minor scales. The introduction order changes slightly for these scales. Most of the harmonic minors use the extension patterns from Barbara Barber’s Fingerboard Geography; the third
Read MoreAs you gain more skill there will be opportunity to do more with the piano which will therefore make it easier for to work on your literature. Moving into full octave scales is one of the first things that should be done. The fingerings for the various scales require more than the standard 1-2-3-4-5 of the five finger…
Read MoreOnce the student has mastered both the primary natural minors and the secondary blue major scales I will begin to introduce the melodic minor scales. From a theory standpoint it would make more sense to introduce the harmonic minors first because there is only one modification from the natural minor, but it…
Read MoreThe previous post dealt with melodies, which I always call the horizontal aspect of pitch because melody is concerned with getting from one note to the next. This post will focus on harmony, which I describe as the vertical aspect of pitch, most often presenting as chords. We did spend some time talking about harmony…
Read MoreThe first minor scales I teach are the natural minors. I begin these after I have taught the student the secondary yellow major scales. Just like the primary majors I begin with the scales that start on the open strings, starting with D-natural Minor (Figure 1). As described in the previous post I initially cover the
Read MoreThe main point of a learning the piano as a vocalist is to be able to use it to help learn the melodic lines that you are required to sing. As such it is important to be able to comfortably play melodies as soon as possible. While the five finger scales are being used to instill technique and familiarity with the keyboard…
Read MoreOnce all of the primary major scales are comfortable I begin teaching the minor scales concurrently with the secondary major scales. This post will present an overview of the minor scales, with the details of each…
Read MoreThe five finger patterns described in piano technique are important for vocalists to learn because they are the basis for so many vocal warmups. They are also the first step to building some technical skill and prowess in playing piano…
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