One of my favorite new tools to use with students are these fabulous keyboard labels that Susan Paradis, of the Piano Teacher Resources blog, created. I’ve started sticking one or more of these labels in the student’s assignment book and having them say the whole-step half-step pattern and place X’s on the corresponding keys. In […]
Teaching
Scale Fingerings
Continuing our discussion of scales, in last week’s Monday Mailbag post Lauren mentioned how difficult it was for her to grasp scale fingerings until a teacher actually wrote it out for her. She queried, “I’m curious to know how those of you who teach scales without a book ensure that the students practice the correct […]
Monday Mailbag – More About Scales
There was such an interesting and helpful discussion about scales last week in response to the Monday Mailbag post and the Prescription for Scale Sickness that I thought it would be good to share a couple of the questions that were raised and some additional thoughts on them. LaDona wrote, “My thinking is, if students […]
Learning by Observing
One of my favorite things to do is watch other teachers teach. Anytime I get a chance to attend a masterclass, I jump on it because I’m sure that I’ll pick up some little gems that I can incorporate into my teaching. Our local music teachers association had a masterclass event several weeks ago from […]
Prescription for Scale Sickness
I could totally relate to this comment that Mindy left on Monday’s Teaching Scales post and I’m sure that many others can as well! But truth be told, I am sick to death of teaching scales. It’s not that I don’t think it is important, I do. I am just lacking incentive to go at […]
Monday Mailbag – Teaching Scales and Such
After looking through your blog, it seems to appear that you write out your scales, chords, and arpeggios for your students. Why do you do this versus using a book? And, if I would prefer to have a book that already has scales, chords, and arpeggios written out for me, do you know of any […]
