Improvisation is one of the best ways to teach students about keys, scales and chord patterns. In fact, I believe in teaching scales through improvisation first – before fingering, before metronomes, before checklists. Let me show you how I do it. It was years into practising scales when I finally understood what they were for….
creative piano teaching
8 No Practice Piano Lesson Ideas for Busy Piano Students
There are certain times of the year when practice is likely to be lagging. This is especially common just after a recital – and/or just before a teaching break. So, what can you do in these no practice piano lessons? Are you just going to tell your student that they should practice, and review all…
Never Nag About Rests Again…Rest Savers to the Rescue!
Teaching rests is easy. Sure, students might confuse minim and semibreve (half and whole) rests, but that’s not difficult to fix. What can be difficult is to actually get them to follow through on the rests. When teaching rests, we often need an extra step so they’re not completely ignored by beginning pianists. That’s where…
Improvise Your Way to Melodic Minor Scales Success
I think the clue to why I think improvisation is the route to success is in the name…melodic minor scales. Am I right? What are scales for if not for creating melodies? If your answer was for teaching discipline, then you should probably hop off here. Nothing wrong with discipline but that’s not the primary…
The Big Secret of Teaching Improvisation in Your Piano Lessons
You’ll hear a lot of chatter online about teaching improvisation to your piano students. Questions about how to fit it in, what to do, the best resources and the value of improv come up often. But there’s one big secret that I don’t hear mentioned. Ready for the secret? Teaching improvisation can be one of…
4 Awesome Added Benefits of Teaching Composing to Piano Students
Does teaching composing to piano students make you nervous? Are you not sure where to start? Or perhaps you struggle to find the time to fit it in? I hear you. But if you think about composing the way I now do – you’ll have the drive to include it in your piano teaching. Because teaching…
Two Practice Strategies for Fixing the Floppy Finger Predicament
How many times have you seen students with the floppy finger predicament? Do you struggle to get your students to form firm fingertips? Well, I’ve got two cures for just that. Read on to find out how you can fix your students collapsing fingertip joints for GOOD. This post is an excerpt from my new book:…
Why learn scales? 6 Scale Rebuttals to Have on Hand
If you teach your students to play scales you may have come up against this question. Perhaps every so often, perhaps even every week. Or every day! “Why do I have to practice scales? They’re so boring!” There are two ways to tackle questions like this in my opinion. Either you try to make scales…
Spring Themes Composing Project – Fostering Creativity
Composing is a fabulous way to engage piano students, and get them to think about music in a different way. For the past few weeks, almost all of my students have been working on the Spring Themes Composing Project. I designed this project as a very loose template so I could use it with all levels…
Effective Piano Practice Part 3 – Preparing away from the piano
As experienced players, I think we all automatically see patterns in our pieces. Arpeggios, chord progressions, scales and repeats just jump out at us and our mind subconsciously reads them as one item. Piano students however, won’t always see these patterns. They may just be seeing an endless sea of individual notes to concur when…