Summer piano classes for returning students

Our summer piano classes were great! For returning beginner students, we did something a little different than the normal semester's work. We chose one Mayron Cole ensemble peice to spend the summer working on. By our last class, some had it memorized and were doing a great job playing together!

We also spent time working on improvization. We played a few jazzy peices where the students were given bounderies in which they could improv at the keyboard. We learned 3 five finger positions and used these in improvization as well.

Another thing we worked on was composition. We do not get to spend a lot of time working on this during the semester but the kids enjoy it and it is a creative way to help them review their notes on the staff and to motivate them to practice. I used the key of C composition template from my book for them each to compose a right hand melody. Then we learned the root position triads for the key of C cadence chords. We learned to read them as a chord chart to go a long with our right hand melodies. The students used the giant keyboard to skip on the keyboard and find the notes of the chords. Then they moved these notes to the smaller keyboard, worked on a worksheet to read chords on the staff and learned to play the chords using correct fingering.

For rhythm practice we did some ear training where the students had to tell me what rhythms I was playing. We also did rhythm math worksheets and rhythm alegebra. We used a template from my book to compose a new song that focused on rhythm. The template had different note values which were cut apart. The students were able to choose which note on the staff and which rhythm they wanted for their peice in 4/4 time as long as they have exactly 4 beats per measure. This was also a visual and tangible way for them to comprehend the note values. The quarter notes were half as small as the half notes. The half notes were half as small as the whole notes. The dotted half notes were 3/4s the size of a whole note. Even though to the kids, this seemed like an easy activity, this worked on proportional math skills and algebra.

Some of the classes reviewed the staff note names by reading the staff stories from my book. We also drew giant staves on the blackboard and labeled all the notes by drawing the pictures of the backyard keyboard characters from my book and labelling the letter names of the notes.

For the fall semester, each beginner and intermediate piano student will have a copy of my "Hands on Piano" series. I find that many students excell by having tangible activities to help them comprehend the abstract theory concepts. My rhythm templates were a hands on way to develop spacial reasoning skills that are essential to understanding rhythmic values. The five finger position templates with the stickers allowed students to learn new notes and review old ones by placing a large sticker on a large staff. It is much easier to see lines and spaces on the staff when the staff is large and when you are physically making the notes move on the staff.

Some of the beginner classes worked on rhythm by passing a ball back and forth to quarter and half notes. This is also a very tangible and visual way to learn to keep a steady beat. The beginner classes also used the giant piano to place alphabet cards on after listening to the "Backyard Keyboard" story. This is another great way to review this concept.