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improvising

3 Simple Improv Ideas for Beginner Piano Students facebook 1

3 Simple Improv Ideas for Beginner Piano Students

Are you in need of some tried-and-tested improv ideas which work for brand new piano students? I’ve got three great go-tos to share with you in this article. Improvisation is one of the best things you can do with a new student to give them confidence in their own musicality and the freedom to explore…

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

Improvisation and Cats: How to Start Scared!

Are you scared to start using improvisation in your piano teaching? I’ve totally been there. 7 or 8 years ago I had basically never sat down at the piano without a piece of paper in front of my face. It would not have even occurred to me. But then I discovered improvisation.  I found out…

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

Circle of Fifths 2

Exploring Scales and the Circle of Fifths with Improvisation

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….

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

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…

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

Piano warmups that spark curiosity

Piano Warmups that Spark Student Curiosity and Wonder

What’s the first thing you do when your student walks in the door? How do you get each lesson started? It’s a good idea to do some sort of piano warmups at the start of each lesson, it’s an even better idea for those warmups to knock your students’ socks off. I want my students…

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

Pentatonic improvisation

Pentatonic Scale Improvisation

The pentatonic scale is a great place to start improvising on the piano. My students first introduction to improvisation is the pentatonic scale in F# major, which consists of only black keys. So you can play any black key at all, in any way you wish! I think improvisation is very liberating and also can…

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Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: improvising

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About Nicola

Nicola Cantan is a piano teacher, author, blogger and creator of imaginative and engaging teaching resources. She loves getting piano students learning through laughter, and helping teachers to teach through games and off-bench activities, so that their students giggle their way through music theory and make faster progress.

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