Articles, Tips and Reviews from Teachers

Solutions for a Better Independent Studio
by Meg Gray

It is the goal of many teachers to guide their students to become independent learners; however, gaining musical independence should be a gradual process. Pupils who are given too much new information without proper guidance or musical models may spend their practice time learning their pieces incorrectly. This creates a negative atmosphere at the next piano lesson, where the teacher spends a majority of the time fixing mistakes. If teachers can predict areas where students will have problems and if they are organized about the manner in which they introduce new ideas, the piano lesson will be a positive experience. When music is taught in this way, the teacher can act rather than react, and the lesson becomes a lot more fun. As Frances Clark states in her book, Questions and Answers, good teaching is similar to good medical care. Rather than fixing problems that have already occurred, the best physicians and teachers educate their patients and students in a way that prevents problems.

There are several ways that a piano teacher can become a preventative teacher. These include preparation and planning and teaching students to look at the big picture as well as the little picture. The rewards in becoming a preventative teacher are well worth the efforts involved.

Preparation and Planning. Being familiar with teaching materials, careful lesson planning and setting long-term goals are qualities of any good teacher. It also is important to consider students' personalities and learning styles and to be flexible. These characteristics particularly are important when teachers are trying to prevent problems in their students' playing. Part of prevention is knowing what concept will be learned next; presenting ideas in a way that prepares the student for future new ideas will make their learning smooth and painless. An example of this might be teaching a beginning student to have a good hand shape. If the student is accustomed to playing with a curved rather than a flat hand, the new concept of staccato will be easier to perform.

Planning lessons ahead of time is essential for the prevention of problems. When a lesson is planned ahead, the teacher has the opportunity to consider the overall process of what the student is learning. Concepts can be applied not just to a specific piece, but throughout the entire lesson. For example, if a student is learning about mezzo piano in the method book, part of what he/she is learning is to make subtle differences between dynamic levels. If the teacher realizes this ahead of time, he/she can then make a point of calling the student's attention to dynamic gradations throughout the entire lesson.

Teachers also need to know how their students learn. Part of prevention is predicting where the student may have difficulties, and knowing how to teach an idea in a way that prevents or overcomes these potential difficulties. Sometimes this may involve breaking a new physical motion into multiple smaller steps so that a less naturally-coordinated student is successful. Sometimes an eye or ear-catching presentation is necessary so that academic or theoretical topics such as key signatures hold the interest of a student with a short attention span. All students have times when they learn quickly and other times when they seem to be on physical or mental plateaus. To keep students from bogging down during the semester or year, it is helpful for the teacher to have long-term goals. A time of preparation is obviously needed to determine these goals; sometimes it is useful with older students to discuss and plan long term goals as a partnership.

In planning ahead so that problems can be prevented, the teacher should keep in mind that over-planning can be as limiting as under-planning. Part of the excitement in making music lies in the spontaneity and creativity that is involved. Students may have a different learning style than teachers, and it can be refreshing to look at concepts and ideas from students' viewpoints. A well-planned lesson allows for the integration of student discoveries and ideas. Sometimes in the process, the lesson may go on an unexpected tangent; however, having set long-term goals, a short deviation can allow for exciting musical discoveries.

The Big Picture. The ability to recognize patterns is a vital part of learning in many different fields. Teachers can prevent students' frustrations and insecurities by teaching them to look at large-scale forms found in their music. A three-page piece can seem daunting to young beginners; however, when they recognize that the piece is in ABA form, and that the third page is a repetition of the first, the piece does not seem so overwhelming.

In the lesson, instead of drawing attention to the same concepts over several different pieces; teach students to notice that the same basic concepts can be found in many of their pieces. The font or note size may be slightly different, the pictures may not look the same, but the relationship between eighth notes and quarter notes will remain constant between two very different pieces in common time. Teaching students what they need to attend to - types of notes rather than types of fonts or pictures - produces independent thinkers who can recognize and perform musical concepts in many varied settings.

The Little Picture. Focusing on the smaller picture is another place where prediction comes into play. When planning, the teacher needs to locate potential problems. Where are the tricky rhythms? Is there a pattern to a series of chords that looks frightening on the page that really makes the passage easy to play? Are there unusual fingerings or articulations? These are the places that should be emphasized in the lesson. It is a good idea to hear the student work through these spots in the lesson, rather than just discussing them and relying on the student to work them out at home. If students have demonstrated that they understand and can play or clap a tricky rhythm pattern in the lesson, they are less likely to skip over it or fake it when practicing. Instead, they will be more willing to tackle it and continue to work it out on their own.

When introducing a new piece, it is often a good idea to start with the problem areas. Isolating problem areas provides a model for students of how to develop good practice skills. If students continuously sight read as an introduction to new pieces at lessons, they may think that this is how to practice efficiently at home. While the concept of sight reading is vital to developing well-educated musicians, it should be a separate part of the lesson rather than an accidental by-product of learning a new piece.

Although preventative teaching may at first seem to be time-consuming, teachers often find that it saves energy in the long run. If teachers groom students to be logical and independent thinkers, they will not have to work all the way through every new piece in each lesson. Rather, they just need to ensure that the student has a solid understanding of new concepts, and a good mental, physical, or aural model upon which to build. Teaching in this manner is positive rather than negative and active rather than reactive. It fosters student independence and raises the quality of performance.

Meg Gray is instructor of piano pedagogy and class piano at Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, where she also coordinates the Piano Preparatory Program. She recently completed the PhD program in music education (piano pedagogy emphasis) at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

Expanding Your Teaching Horizons
by George Tingley

It happened again yesterday while giving a piano lesson to one of my seven year-old students. We had just completed a performance (solo with teacher accompaniment) of my Level 1B arrangement of My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic) when I realized that both parents had slipped into the room and were now enthusiastically applauding our performance. Jenna was beaming with pride, and all of us were reminded once again how joyful piano lessons can be.

A week earlier, Jason, one of my teenage beginners performed the same arrangement (with his mom accompanying) at a family gathering. The performance not only created a wonderful instant memory, it provoked a whole conversation about piano study and how lessons can be so motivating, rewarding and fun. It also inspired one of the otherwise shy cousins to sit down and share another musical performance. A truly remarkable chain of events!

When I was asked several months ago to arrange music for the new Top Hits! (Levels 1B, 2, 3 and 4) and Greatest Hits (Adult Levels 1 and 2) series, I, of course, was ecstatic. It gave me (and five other well-respected Alfred authors) an opportunity to arrange some of the best-loved pieces of popular music from the last 50 yearsÑhit songs, Broadway tunes, as well as famous TV and movie themes. The teacher in me became immediately energized by the prospect of teaching as well as having students learn and perform these pieces over the next several years.

As one of the arrangers of these two series, I thought a great deal about the teaching of popular music and how it has become for many piano teachers an indispensable part of their curriculum. Let me share with you a few things I have learned:

1. The joyous performance of My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic) described above illustrates how powerfully effective teaching a well-known popular piece can be. Students are especially motivated to practice music they already know and love. Furthermore, the enthusiasm of parents, siblings, relatives and friends to hear these pieces provides students with an added incentive to perform.

2. Well-known popular pieces are often associated with movies and television, and thus are connected to a rich array of stories, visual images and emotional meanings. Stella, one of my teenage students whose interpretations of sonatinas have tended to be rather flat, has profited greatly from playing my Level 3 arrangement of The Unbirthday Song as it brings to life one of her favorite scenes from the Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland. Stella plays the arrangement with a spirit and imagination that we have now been able to translate to her sonatina performances. This development has not only made her a better pianist, it has illuminated a whole teaching process that I believe should be tapped into more often.

3. Almost all of the pieces arranged in Alfred's new series contain lyrics. In addition to instilling the music with meaning, lyrics can augment our understanding of rhythm, phrasing and articulation. It is one thing to have adult students count aloud and quite another thing to have them verbalize (and sing) "Somewhere Out There beneath the pale moonlight." The exercise described here, while demonstrating the necessity for music notation, also exposes how woefully inadequate it is in conveying complete musical sense. In the case of Somewhere Out There, many will already know exactly how to proceed having heard the popular Linda Rondstadt-James Ingram recording.

4. Adults in particular enjoy learning music that is familiar and with which they feel a deep personal connection. At her last lesson, Debbie mentioned how her Italian-American husband loves strolling through the house while she practices That's Amore (That's Love), an arrangement found in Greatest Hits, Level 1. Another arrangement from the same book, the Beatles' classic She Loves You, recreates the excitement of being alive in the early 1960s. Many adult students dream about playing the piano at a party. These are the pieces that will fulfill that dream.

5. Thinking more generally, it is well-established that early exposure to a wide range of music is not only desirable but healthy. Students, for example, benefit greatly in their discovery that musical quality may exist in any form, be it classical, folk, ethnic or popular. It should be emphasized also that much great classical music was influenced and inspired by popular music (e.g. the dance suites of J. S. Bach). In Mozart's case, many of his operatic arias became "crossover hits" sung both on the stage as well as on the street. Today, it seems that the music of Puccini has become almost as popular as that of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Each piece in the Top Hits and Greatest Hits series is correlated with a specific page in the corresponding lesson book. This ensures for a "problem-free" transition from method book to popular music. First-year students who have learned Happy Birthday in Alfred's Basic Piano Library Lesson Book, Level 1B (introducing eighth notes and using middle C position) will flow easily and successfully into the arrangement of My Heart Will Go On in Top Hits, Level 1B. In addition, all of the pieces in Level 1B and three of the pieces in Level 2 contain duet parts that provide beneficial pedagogical and musical reinforcement.

Looking through the table of contents of the six books (four for children and two for adults), I am struck by the quantity, quality and variety of well-known titles such as Tomorrow (arranged by Sharon Aaronson), It's a Small World (arranged by Martha Mier), Beauty and the Beast (arranged by Dennis Alexander), Yesterday (arranged by Tom Gerou) and My Favorite Things (arranged by Christine H. Barden). In addition to the association with such good music, I am proud to be a part of such an outstanding group of arrangers whose work is so highly valued by piano teachers.

Teachers who may have hesitated in the past to teach popular music because it did not "fit" the student's level now have the convenience of using arrangements that are directly correlated to Alfred's Basic Piano Library. With such great popular pieces now available in attractive and easy arrangements, teachers and students have much to look forward to in the coming months and years!

George Peter Tingley is a composer, teacher and pianist currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area in Point Richmond, California . An active member of the Music Teacher's Association in California, George has taught hundreds of students at a variety of institutions throughout Northern California during his teaching career. His first solo with Alfred Publishing Company was Reverie, published in 1991. Since that time, he has published a variety of solos and collections, his most recent being Rhythm 'n' Style, Books 1 and 2.