Alright… here it is!  This has been the most exciting game and teaching tool I think I’ve ever used.  For the past year, I’ve been using CLAY to help my students read notes.  It works unbelievably well.

I’m not going to say too much about it here, just yet, I think the initial video speaks for its self.  Maybe some of you have tried other ways of incorporating 3D objects into your piano teaching?  If so, I’d love to hear about them.  As always, please let me know what you think of this idea!

These are just a few quick ideas – there will be lots more to come!!

ClayTime Piano – Introduction

I’d like to take a quick minute to answer one of TAMI’S questions about hand position more directly. In my post where I asked you to ask me questions on how to teach piano, Tami asks;

“When do you personally focus on making sure the student’s hand shape/ posture/ etc. is ALWAYS correct? I assume that this is usually goes case to case according to age, learning style/ type, and level?”

You’re very right – teaching piano is SUCH a personal, case-by-case field. But this is how I’ve approached things in general.

Find the CAUSE of Poor Technique

I view technique as a SYMPTOM which comes from a deeper CAUSE. Search for what is causing poor technique. In my last post, where I help a student play with better technique, we found that moving his arms outward to the outer octaves of the piano instantly improved his “flying fingers”. In the future we will work towards capturing that same feeling while bring his arms more in front of him.

Some possible causes of poor hand position / technique;

- Lack of interest in music, song
- Stress about getting all the notes and rhythms right
- Slight mis-alignments in sitting position, including distance from piano, bench-height
- You can’t “see” the sound. Try opening up the piano so they can see the hammers and how they work, and how what they’re doing on the keys relates to how the sound is produced.
- Trying to play too loud
- They feel judged
- Lack of “free-play” time at the piano, especially in younger students

I Don’t Address Technique Until I’ve Tried Everything Else

Believing that technique is a SYMPTOM, I actually rarely address technique directly. If I do, my plan of attack is like this;

Ages 5-14
- The first time I address technique directly, it’s for no longer than 10 minutes during a lesson.
- I make sure they are at least aware of what we’re doing, even if no improvement is achieved.
- In subsequent lessons, I only address it with subtle reminders, not in depth explanations.
- Maybe 4-6 months later we do a more in depth review.
- I find that inability to help a student with technique, comes from a mis-diagnosis on my part. REALLY watch closely to their every movement – macro and micro. I’ll even do a quick video of them to review after the lessons, when I can really try and observe how they are moving wrong.

Ages 15-Adult
- In this case because of age and maturity, I tend to address technical issues more right away.
- We’ll spend sometimes a good 20 minutes on technique. Most of this time is a “play” back and forth between myself and the student where we are both working together towards improvement. It’s all about discovery!
- I address technique much more often and in depth with teenagers and adults. Every other lesson at times.

Prevention Is the Best Cure

I know this is beginning to sound like a “personal health” post, but it is all very similar. Technique is a RESULT of a variety of other factors. If you try to solve it like its the cause, it will never work over the long term.

Good preventions?

- With the youngest students, play “copying” games with them right away. Games where you play a short series of notes and they have to imitate it back. Ask them to not only copy the notes, but the sound, fingers and hand position.
- Address good POSTURE and SITTING POSITION from day one. (There’s some fun games I’m going to share on this later!)
- Feed your students with a balance of music they LOVE with material they learn from.
- Have a non-judgmental approach. The little things MATTER – the way in which you tell them a note is incorrect, eye contact, energy.
- For the little ones, allow them to “play” on the keys during the lesson (as so many of them do). Its very important to the way in which they get physically acquainted with the instrument.
- When you play something for them as a demonstration EXEMPLIFY the good technique you hope for your students to have.

So THANKS again to Tami for the questions – I will be answering more of them specifically soon! Don’t forget to sign up for EMAIL LIST over there to the right ——–>

A few weeks ago, I asked you to submit questions about teaching piano to the blog.

Two people submitted questions on the blog, and one via email – and to my surprise, they ALL had something to do with correcting bad hand position on the piano. (Thanks Tami, Lynn and Renee for the questions!)

So I am going to do a series of posts all about helping to correct student’s hand position on the piano.

While doing these posts, I’m also just going to be playing around with different ways of sharing these tips. For this clip;

• The footage of the student happened spontaneously during his lesson (recorded on my iPhone).
• The next day (today) I quickly scatched out a simple script/commentary to describe what was happening during the lesson. (You may want to catch the ending)
• I had fun reading the script from a few different angles directly into my MacBook
• I quickly edited it with iMovie, and uploaded it to YouTube

So here it is, hope you enjoy it and I hope it helps! Stayed tuned for more ideas on helping with hand position!! And thanks for those questions!!!

Please feel free to leave a comment, let me know if this is helpful or if this is something you’ve also tried before.

Thanks!!

Transcription of the script:

HI FOLKS

Hi!  Anyone out there want to ask me a question about teaching piano?  Anything at all!  Honestly, I want to be as helpful as possible for anyone starting out or wanting to improve their teaching skills.  Leave a comment, email me or send me a tweet.

Don’t be shy!  I’ve drafted about 5 posts in the past month (but haven’t posted a single one). I really just want to know what would be helpful to you.

Does anyone have any students they have a question about?  Maybe you’re having a hard time teaching them notes, or rhythm? Do they need reminding to practice? Hand position? Maybe you need to know how to get more students? How to bill parents? Write a contract? How to correct poor technique? Maybe you’re searching for an answer you can’t find, or need a good recommendation for a book? Maybe you want to record your students but don’t know the best way how?

Here, I’ll ask you by VIDEO

A Quick History on Dan

A little background on me, and this blog. My wife and I married and moved to Holden, MA about 4 years ago. I left behind about 35 students in New Hampshire, as well as most of my performing. We were starting a life together, and because of this location change, I was starting over in terms of teaching and earning a living.

Fast forward a few years… now there’s almost 40 students coming to our (small) house a week. Parallel to this, I’ve spent the last 4 years working for my father (he owns two sculpture businesses) and learning all sorts of things; web-design and programming, search engine optimization, photography, marketing. It’s been quite the journey!

Point is, I want to put together all these skills to create something really helpful for piano teachers, and aspiring piano teachers!

The Future Purpose of this Blog

I started this blog for fun in 2010 as an outlet to share my teaching tips with you.

But in this time, the blog has been a little “fly by the seat of your pants” and haphazard in the 10 months since starting it – but I can sense its higher purpose.  And that is to serve as a documentation of the process by which I develop some really valuable and helpful teaching resources.  You can be a part of it, as in order for me to help teachers, it demands your questions, interaction and feedback.

The Evolving Music Blog will serve as your backstage pass to the inner workings of me putting together these resources. You can participate, and follow me step by step as I create resources to help piano teachers.

You’ll also see an entirely new design soon…

Checklist – Next Steps

1. I’m going to answer your questions.

2. I’m going to finally nail down a template/design I’m happy with for this blog.

3. Together, we’re going to start creating these teaching resources. I can’t be too specific about them now.  But these resources will be in various mediums – video, audio and new websites. Think big and think innovative and think exciting and fun. Your questions will help give me direction.

In most of the past 10 years I have taught on average 30-40 students a week. Every day my students and I are coming up with new note reading games, teaching methods, tricks and tips.

So in the coming months and years, I will be producing some really valuable teaching resources and documenting that process here on this blog. But it has to start with your interaction!!

I know together we can create some useful and valuable teaching information, that brings you great results.

Leave a Question!!

I want to seriously hear from you, and what you would like to know about teaching piano. So leave a comment, email me or send me a tweet. I will answer EVERY SINGLE question in a blog post. I will not mention your name if you would like to be anonymous!

EDIT: I am currently hand-moderating all posts, so there may be a delay in seeing your comment. I hope when I switch templates the spam filters will be better, thanks!!

Video of a fun note reading game. Great for students whose fingers won’t slow down to let their brain catch up!

The steps for each note are;

• The student holds the ball in hand that will play the note (this is so they are not tempted to hit the note first)
• They name the note
• If correct, they toss the ball to the teacher
• Then they find and play the correct one on the piano (another hidden benefit, is for every single note, they have to re-orient themselves to middle C)
• The teacher tosses the ball back to them

The idea of this game is to get students to be sure they are consciously thinking of the note before they play it on the piano. Its perfect for students that are relative beginners to piano, maybe they’ve been taking lessons for 1-3 years. I find this game works great with a select few students, while others it would be a little pointless. Its also ideal for boys, because they’ll tend to like getting to throw a ball back and forth.

I also find it useful for kids that tend to have a lot of energy. It’s a nice break for them to get to stand up and move around a little (and a nice break for me too!)

The following video is a very simple exercise for piano with a powerful effect. All you do is play all the C’s up and down the piano. You could even hit wrong notes – it’s more about the movement then the notes. But you have to do it with an awareness of any unessential body movement. This exercise should be played with the upper body remaining still, and only arm movement to get to the extreme ends of the piano. I use this for students that seem to feel uncomfortable physically at the piano to literally help center them. There’s a lot more you could do to add to this exercise, but hope this helps as a starting point.

Here’s a little game that came up spontaneously.  In this lesson, my student was having trouble orienting the grand staff to the real piano.  We used two pennies to provide strong visual references.  I’m sure there’s a lot more that can be done with this simple idea. 

Once again, using my favorite note chart, from Piano Adventures Primer Lesson Book.

Hope it helps!

Short answer?  Don’t worry about it!

I’ll be completely honest.  It bothers me a little bit when teachers focus so much on if their student “has practiced” or not.  When it comes to delivering a quality lesson, I don’t think it really matters!  And in fact, having that mindset of checking up on your student, being encouraged or discouraged if they’ve practiced or not, can actually HURT the lesson.

Instead my mindset is to ignore it.  Why?  Because worrying about if the student practiced does not put you in the emotional and creative position to teach a quality lesson.  As teachers, we can not build our emotions around weather or not a student “did what we told them to do”.  This harms the student, and puts us in a weak position.  WE should be the stronger ones emotionally in the relationship.

React pedagogically, not emotionally.

That’s the difference we’re talking about here folks!  Ask yourself WHY you want a back up plan for students not practicing.  If this is an emotional reaction, like you’ve been offended or let down, it’s not a good place to start from and go looking for these answers.  I’m suggesting that we be PRO-active as teachers – not RE-active to our students.

What To Do When Your Student Is, Ahem, A “Little Rusty”

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way.  Here’s some nice pedagogical reactions to try;

1. Repertoire List - Huge.  Lately I’ve been keeping a repertoire list going with some students.  It’s lots of fun for both of us to go back and brush up on them, check tempos, play them together, etc.

2. Record Them – Also great!  You can record a student playing a polished repertoire piece or even practicing.  It’s unbelievably helpful to record a student a few weeks in a row playing the same piece.  They love hearing their improvements and it helps build self awareness.

3. Improvise – This is not limited to jazz or older students.  You can show even a 7 year old to only play C-D-E-G while you play a simple blues.  It’s fun!

4. Switch Student/Teacher Rolls – This opens up LOTS of possibilities.  Let them teach you something.  Or let them watch you play four measures and correct mistakes.

5. YouTube Dive for Pianists – OK, not always the haven of quality pianists, but start with a search like Chopin Waltz or Keith Jarrett Solo or Ben Folds Solo Piano or ask them for a suggestion.  At most maybe you’ll find a new piece they want to learn, or at least maybe inspire them with music they’ve never heard before.

6. Drums – If you have the benefit of having some drums nearby, everyone LOVES drums.  Have them play the right hand rhythm on one drum and left hand rhythm on another.  Teach them a paradiddle.  Show them a rock beat.

7. The No-Brainers -  theory, ear-training, history, appreciation, games etc etc.  Try this note reading game.

How Will I Know To Use These Ideas, If I Don’t Figure Out If They’ve Practiced Or Not?

Just focus on what will be helpful and fun for your student, in that moment. That’s the goal!  If you ask them to play their assigned piece from last week, and it’s not going well, ask yourself “what can I do right now to enrich this student’s musical experience?”  “How can I turn this problem on its head and use it to our advantage?”  This is an opportunity, not a failure.  It is an opportunity to explore and learn something new that perhaps will inspire and surprise the both of us!

En conclusión

Be emotionally PRO-active, not RE-active!  Always remember, it’s about THEM and not YOU.

This is a game to help students read music.  It breaks it into three separate parts to be sure they are doing each step correctly.  I really want to make sure they are NOT reading notes by any of these common incorrect methods – finger numbers, writing in note names, intervals(this should come after), guessing, imitating or by ear.

By the way, I am using the note chart from the middle of Piano Adventures, Primer Lesson Book.

I hope it helps!

There is a curious paradox in teaching.  Occasionally, through some magical collaboration between myself and student – perhaps we’re tackling a technical problem, or I’m trying to discover why perhaps note reading is difficult for them – I discover a new trick or technique to the learning process.  (Last week I began experimenting with having a student set up in C position, close their eye and I play notes and they have to name the note I’m playing by feeling which finger is moving, as one example of a “trick”).  These discoveries are always born from a special need or set of circumstances that are so unique only to that day, that student and that lesson – to that moment.

The paradox is this.  What do we then try to do?  The next lesson, we try to apply that new teaching trick generically to a different student, as if it was that trick its self that was magical.  It wasn’t.  It is the process of discovery on the part of the teacher in working with that one student, on that one day, in that moment. In being open to a specific student’s unique needs.  It’s teaching in the moment.

Sounds kind of Zen but I do find my best lessons are those when I begin at zero.  What does this mean?   To me, it means several things…

- I do not premeditate any lesson plans, and on the rare occasion I do, I’m willing to ditch them in a heartbeat if I sense something better may happen, or if the student arrives with a better plan.

- I do not prescribe before I diagnose.  A thorough process of diagnosis ALWAYS brings the solution at the same time, all in one process.

- I try to put trust in my past cumulative experiences, and that if a particular skill-set is needed, it will be there for me.  I have to put trust in my own knowledge and LET it come out if and when needed.

- I try to use my intuitive “right-brained” intelligence to feel what a student needs the second they walk in the door.  A student needs to be emotionally ready to handle the material, not just mentally.

- As we progress through the lesson, I try to disconnect from any of my own emotional attachments to the outcome.  It is about carefully following the needs of the student and what’s best for them in the long run. I can force them through a difficult example but is this really learning?

- I try to detach from the idea of a “good” lesson or “bad” lesson.

- I constantly put myself in my student’s shoes.  “Would I understand this if I was in their position?”  “Am I connecting with them in a way that is engaging and meaningful?”  “Am I involving them in the learning and teaching process?”

It’s like I’m always pushing “reset” – rebooting the system, re-centering and bringing things back to nothing – to ZERO.