teacher needs help, anyone please

[anda]

in a nutshell: my methods are completely based on my playing - i know exactly what i'm doing, how it feels when done right/wrong, how to practice, etc., and i teach my students accordingly (good or bad, i can't teach what i don't know).

problem: i never practiced (and i was never taught) trills and pedalling - it all came natural, i did trills at 7 same way i do now. but what used to be an advantage (i thanked God for) turned into a problem: i can't teach my students this! i don't know how to tell them to practice trills and pedalling! i tried some methods i found in some books, but with less than satisfactory results (understatement of the year  )

so, any methods, anyone?

thanks in advance

[lostinidlewonder]

Personally this is what i have found helped students of mine who found trills troublesome.

With trills it might be good to take just two notes and do stuff like this

eg:  play:  CDC - what does this feel like. One turn
                 CDCDC - how does 2 turns feel? Try not to count the number of times you hit a note, instead listen to the sound produced and effect on the hand.
                  keep increasing.

To play one turn is easy, everyone can do that without thinking. To play 2? Some can still do that without thinking. But whatever 3,4,5? You can easily train yourself to play them without thinking as well, it just takes effort and listening. It is a very handy tool to have.

An important part is to not consider single notes of a trill, or even parts of, but to undertsand it as an entire body of sound, like a chord. I think that develops if you have some sense of playing different lengths of short trills as above.

It would be helpful to explore all the Ornamentations. Start with the simple ones then tie them together. The important part is that you are not counting or watching the notes, instead you close the eyes and feel the movement in the hand, listen to the sound duration. IF the fingers physically fail, then you need to use standard finger excersise, like Hanon etc.

As for the Pedal, this is hard to teach because there is no single all incorporating idea which you can use. When I teach beginners how to use pedal i just get them to use one figner and play it all over the keyboard and use the sustain pedal to keep all the notes legato, have no break in sound or overlapping. That is what i say to them is how you use the pedal most of the times in piano, to make sure there is no break in sound (maintain a smooth legato effect), but at the same time, no unnecessary overlapping of sound.

With some studenst who have even more troubles usually i'll play a piece and just hold the sustain pedal down all the time. Then I wait for them to say it is starting to sound bad. I have been shocked that some dont even respond when they hear sustained notes mutating a peice, but it makes me realise that not everyone can listen to music in a musical way. But definatly they can be taught. I usually have to play lots of music for these people and tell them when the pedal has been held too long or not enough. Demonstate the effect of not pedalling correct.

A few points that need to be considered regarding teaching the pedal are these;

-How the Damper or Sustaining Pedal of the piano acts
-General ill effects of the Wrong use of the Pedal
-General Valuable Effects of the Pedal
-General Qualifications effential for the right use of pedal
-Necessity for Careful listening
-How to depress the pedal
-Importance of the pedal in piano playing
-Neglect of the pedal by musicians, reasons for this negelct
-How to use the pedal for conencting tones
-Excersises for connecting tones by the use of the syncopated pedal What to observe and guard against.
-Excersises on sustaining bass ntoes with intermediat chords
-Value of the pedal for freeing the hands so as to produce the approprate tone
-How to use the pedal in melody playing, Important rules for melody playing
-How to use the pedal for adding Brilliancy to Brilliant passages.
-When to use the pedal, unreliability of the usual printed pedal indications

There might be more, but these predominatly i find most important. If you want any more depth on  any of theose points just ask. I dont want to have to write 2000 pages lol. A great deal of these must be SHOWN to be learnt. The student must listen, they cant be told. It is just impossible to learn pedal without  playing. Hope this helps out.

[anda]

Personally this is what i have found helped students of mine who found trills troublesome.

With trills it might be good to take just two notes and do stuff like this

eg:  play:  CDC - what does this feel like. One turn
                 CDCDC - how does 2 turns feel? Try not to count the number of times you hit a note, instead listen to the sound produced and effect on the hand.
                  keep increasing.

i was even more sadistic i started with 2 notes (c played as appogiatura for d, and same way back). it's a little better, but not much.

It would be helpful to explore all the Ornamentations. Start with the simple ones then tie them together. The important part is that you are not counting or watching the notes, instead you close the eyes and feel the movement in the hand, listen to the sound duration. IF the fingers physically fail, then you need to use standard finger excersise, like Hanon etc.

you are very right about ornaments, it did help.

as for hanon, i don't let my students do this anymore. i found it takes a very experimented hand (the kind that doesn't need hanon anymore ) to do this correctly - as for kids, they can't do it and not get a cramp.


thanks for the tips on using the pedal - some i have already used (empirically ), i'll try the others as well.

thanks again,
best regards