This is a question I hear frequently at the end of lessons these days and I love it! Ever since I attended the workshop by Forrest and Akiko Kinney a couple of years ago and started using the Pattern Play series, my studio has been transformed. We focus so much more on making music together, […]
Improvising
Monday Mailbag – How to Equip Students to Improvise at the Piano with Pattern Play
“How have you found the Pattern Play books to be successful? I’ve had some great improvisations while I play a pattern and some where the students play the pattern and I’ll improvise, but getting them to that solo level just has seemed to be intimidating for them.” One of the “complications” my students can choose as […]
A Wonderful Piano Improvisation Project
Anyone who’s been reading here very long knows that I’m practically in love with the Pattern Play series by Forest and Akiko Kinney. So I was thrilled to recently come across this fabulous improvisation project that Anne Crosby Gaudet used with her students! Read the post for a complete description of how she set the […]
A Student Success with Scales Patterns and Improv Book!
How do you know if a particular book or approach is helping a student? Well, when the student tells you that they think the book has really helped them, that’s a pretty good indication. 🙂 If only all students would just come right out and say so! One of my older beginners has been using […]
Monday Mailbag – Teaching Hymn Improvisation
I’d like to know how you teach students about hymn improvisation! Do you have any teaching ideas? Thanks a lot! This is one of those things that I heard other pianists do growing up and always wanted to learn, but never could figure out how to do it. Gradually, through the years as I asked […]
The Any Song Assignment
Do you have students who love to doodle around on the piano (or, as one student once declared to me, he liked to “type around on the keys sometimes” :-)) and do all sorts of things at the keyboard besides practice their assignments? Or perhaps you’ve encountered the student who can play up and down […]
