[…continued from previous post]
Third lessonThis time we start straight away with the Big staff naming the lines on the G-clef EGBDF and the lines on the F clef GBDFA. If she can do it, I will do them out of order (instead of form bottom to top I will point to random lines). I expect them – and encourage them – to name the lines from bottom to top until they reach the line I pointed. Later they will be able to name a line or a space without bating an eyelid. But for the moment, naming all the lines reinforces the names.
If they succeed, I introduce the space names on the G clef – FACE and on the F clef – ACEG. Now they know all the lines and spaces within the staff. We are going to stick to that for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Ledger lines are introduced only when the staff lines and spaces are completely mastered.
Now to the piano for some fun. At this point I show them another duet that requires them to play only on the black notes. (It is too large to post here). This one sounds much more like a tune than the Chinese clock, and it is very very easy (at least their part is), so she will learn it almost instantly.
Back to hard work. Can she still jump on all the Cs, Fs and Gs? Then I will introduce the Es and Bs (to the right of the groups of two and three black notes respectively). We are almost there. Tomorrow she will be able to name any key on the whole keyboard!
We now have a look on the first 8 bars of Marshmallow sundae and if they are ok, we learn another 4 bars. She does not know this yet, but tomorrow she will be able to play the whole 24 bars of this piece, since the next twelve bars are an exact repeat of the first 12 bars played one octave lower. But I keep this a secret for the moment.
Now I will ask her to play (hands together) the groups of 2 and 3 black notes with fingers 23 and 234 over the whole keyboard (preparation for the B major scale).
Finally we finish by improvising on the black notes (I may join in).
Fourth lessonAgain we start with the stuff they find most difficult: identifying the lines and spaces. Yesterday we managed to learn all the lines and spaces within each staff. If things are looking good, today I will introduce actual notes. She will be asked to name, not the notes, but the lines/spaces where the notes are placed always from bottom to top. She will be encouraged to follow this routine:
1. Is the note on a line or on a space?
2. Name all the lines (or spaces if the note in on a space) of that particular staff until you get to the note.
3. That is the name of the line (or space) and therefore the name of the note.
In the beginning I expect this to be done aloud. Later she will do it silently. In the future she will use intervals – which is the most efficient way to read/sight-read music.
Naming the notes on a score is very tiring, so we never do more than one or two bars per lesson (later this will increase). We are not playing anything yet, just verbalising what we see in the score. (By the way, this is not real music)
Now it is time for some fun. So we play duets: The Chinese clock and the black note duet she learned yesterday (if she forgot I will teach it again).
Today she learns the last two keys: D and A. As before she will learn those by reference to the black keys. In fact, if I have done my job properly she will not even have realised that the white keys follow the order of the alphabet. By now the reference to the black keys is so ingrained that she will always locate the position of the white keys by reference to the black keys – which is just as it should be. This means that in order to find a white key, she will never need to look at the keyboard,
since the black keys – and only the black keys – can be identified by touch. Today she gets a sticker, a chocolate and her name goes into the golden book of piano students accomplishments: she can name all the keys in the keyboard.
Back to Marshmallow sundae. I now tell her that she can already play the whole piece and we proceed to do just that. Again her name goes on the golden book and she gets another sticker.
We close the lesson by playing duets.
Fifth lessonWe start with the sight-reading exercise: she names all the notes (by naming the lines-spaces bottom to top) on two bars of the special sheet music I gave her yesterday. Now I produce another prop: a card with the grand staff that when turned sideways fits on the keyboard so that you can see how each line and space corresponds to a white key on the piano. Now she can not only name the notes on the score, she can associate the position on the score with a key on the piano. This is of course just the first introduction. For this information to become useful will take at least two or three months of consistent work and repetition of drills. But the seed has been planted.
Then we play Marshmallow sundae. But today I add a surprise: the metronome! She must listen carefully and make sure that her notes sound exactly together with the metronome (Marshmallow sundae is ideal: each note sounded at the piano corresponds to one beat of the metronome). The goal here is to differentiate between
pulse and
rhythm. Children rarely have a problem with rhythm. Often they have no sense of pulse (I mean here conscious sense). (By the way I am no great lover of the metronome. As soon as its target is reached I discontinue it). Now that she has learned this piece we are going to be perfecting it over the next few weeks, and I expect her to be able to play it forever. This is
repertory. In my view of things there is no such a thing as learning a piece and then dropping it. If so, why learn it in the first place. Choose a piece you will not want to drop! Such attitudes must be instilled form the very first lesson.
At this point they have listened to the CD and have chosen a few favourite pieces, so we usually will start two of them at the same time next week.
Now I come up with cards. The card has a letter on one side, and on the other its location in relation to the black keys. Her job is to play all the keys corresponding to the letter in the card. If she cannot remember the location I will turn the card over and there is her reminder. There are 21 cards that have been shuffled, so each note is repeated three times. If she can do this very well, I will put the metronome on and we will see how fast she can play, say, all the Cs in the piano (in time with the beats). She is given a set of such cards to take home and practise.
We now play the groups of two and three black notes with fingers 23 and 234, but now we are going to add the thumbs playing B and E. This is the B major scale in chords. Next week we will break the chords, and she will be playing the B major scale at speed, thumb over.
We finish the lesson (last lesson of the week) with the duets we have learned.
Everything we did has been written down in detail in her assignment book, so that she can repeat it over the weekend and mum or dad can supervise that she is doing the right thing.
What have we accomplished at the end of five 15 – 20 minute lessons over the course of a week?
1. She has learned her first solo piece and two duets.
2. She has learned to locate and name all the white keys of the piano.
3. She has used the whole keyboard – both black and white notes.
4. She has laid the foundation for her first scale: B major.
5. She has learned how to read notes within the staff in both treble and bass clef, and their location on the keyboard.
I said this before, but I will repeat here. This only works because it is being done on a daily basis. Follow all the same steps with weekly lessons and you will get nowhere. I know, I tried!
Finally, the progress above is fictional (but based on true stories). Some students may need more than a week to get to the same level. Some may get there in a couple of days. Most often, their progress is not "even" across the different areas. They may learn several pieces and make little progress with the sight-reading or vice-versa.
So it is very difficult to say what comes next because it will depend completely on the student. As I said, the basic principle is that we never move forward in a subject until it has been thoroughly mastered. This means that at the end of three or four months, each student will have a different progress profile.
And by the way, the adult students follow the same process (yes, they get stickers too!
) except that with children the emphasis is on doing, while with adults you can afford to explain a lot more, and trust them to do it when you are not around.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Bernhard.
THE END
(for the moment
)
Topic: Dear Bernhard