FERN is your friend. Or, teaching new pieces to intermediate & advanced students.

July 19, 2010 Jennifer Boster

The ways you can teach new repertoire to students are as varied as the vast amount of piano repertoire available. But, I would like to share some general ideas and suggestions, as well as some ways of teaching FERN, using four different pieces to illustrate. Ready go…

Pick pieces that your students love. If they don’t like their pieces, they won’t practice. Period.
Divide the piece into smaller sections (have your student help you – a great way to teach form!).
Teach good practice habits – practicing a short section many times is so much better than playing through the entire piece once. You may want to have them practice until they get certain assignments done, instead of for a set amount of time – they may learn repertoire faster (and better) that way.
Hands alone practice! Helpful in learning notes, rhythm, and fingering really well – one hand at a time.
Slow practice = your friend. I like to pick a good metronome speed for my students – just make sure it is not too fast, that it is a speed at which they can play the section comfortably. You can always speed it up later.
Help your student find patterns in the piece. Help them analyze what is going on. They will learn it so much better and more easily when they recognize melodic patterns, chords, etc.
FERN – make sure they learn the four important elements of the piece. Give them specific practicing instructions to help them learn these elements. For example:

F (Fingering)

In Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 72 No. 1, help your student find a good fingering for the left hand right from the beginning. Have them write it in and use the same fingering each and every time. Encourage lots of hands alone practice in small sections (for example, one line at a time) in order to learn the notes and make the correct fingering a habit.

E (Expression)

In the Minuet from Bach’s Anna Magdalena Notebook, teach your student to produce a lovely, graceful sound as they are learning the notes of this piece. Help them decide where the phrases should be (if not already written in the score) and make sure they learn to play them legato with a relaxed lift of the wrist at the end of each phrase. If you wait to add in these important details after the notes, rhythm and fingering are learned, the student will have already formed habits of playing it with the wrong expression.

R (Rhythm)

In Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu, the four-against-three rhythm usually poses a problem. Once the student has the right hand and left hand learned separately and is ready to put them together, spend some time on the tricky rhythm. I find it helpful to have them beat out a four-against-three rhythm on their lap, with their left hand beating three and their right beating four. It should go like this (try it!): together, right, left, right, left, right, together, right, left, right, left, right, together, etc.

Or, you can use this amazingly helpful sentence, taught to me by one of my dear teachers, which somehow magically solves the rhythm problem and helps you to play it perfectly: “My mother had a duck.” Seriously, try it. On “My” you will be playing the right and left hand together. On “mother had a duck” you will play the right and left hands alternating, beginning with the right hand. It will seem a little rigid as you learn it, but once you get it down (with lots of slow practice, my friend!) you can easily smooth it out and even out both hands. To this day, I cannot play Fantasie Impromptu without saying (in my head….usually…) “My mother had a duck, my mother had a duck, my mother had a duck, my mother had a duck……”

And, last but not least:

N (Notes)

Hopefully your intermediate and above students will all know the notes on the staff very well, and won’t need to say them aloud (as is very helpful for beginners). However, there are still some things you can do to help your student learn the notes quickly and efficiently. One such way is to have them look for patterns – in the melody, in the chords, whatever. When there is some kind of pattern to latch onto, note-learning is much easier.

When teaching Bach’s Prelude No. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, I always point out that each measure is basically made up of one chord. One chord, that’s it! And usually only a note or two changes from measure to measure. I actually like to have my students learn the notes of this piece by playing each measure as a block chord – so instead of playing the broken chord pattern all you are doing is playing a C chord, holding it for four counts. I have my students look ahead to the next measure to see which notes change, and then play the next chord. I find that this can be so helpful in learning the notes and getting your hand to be in the right position to play the entire measure. It eliminates any pauses and searching around for notes. And it is super easy to add in the real rhythm once all of the notes are learned.

The End. I hope some of these suggestions were helpful, or got you thinking about ways to teach other pieces!

p.s. Please share any great insights into teaching FERN – I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

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Teaching New Pieces: Beginners

July 15, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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There are so many things we could discuss in the topic of teaching new pieces! I think this is an important topic and I hope to get lots of input from you! I think today I will focus on how to teach new pieces to beginners. Since beginning pieces are rather short and very simple, I think it is a good place to start 🙂

Four Elements of a Piece

Basically, there are four elements which need to be learned in any piece. Each element is important and should be learned right from the beginning. A good way to remember these elements is by the acronym FERN:

F – fingering

E – expression

R – rhythm

N – notes

(I actually sometimes like to use the acronym NERF instead – especially for students who may be familiar with or into Nerf toys!)

I think it is a big mistake for our students to learn the notes and the rhythm, and then only after they are learned to add in dynamics and expression. We need to teach our students to play musically right from the beginning, to make it a habit to play slurs, staccatos, and dynamics as they are learning new pieces.

Teaching New Pieces to Beginners

Here are some techniques to teaching new pieces that I have used in my studio. I’d love to hear what you do in yours!

Look the Piece Over

Before a student begins a new piece, it is important to look it over with them (just like the first step of sight reading) and help point out all of the important elements of the piece, including key signature, time signature, accidentals, dynamics, etc.

Hands Alone Practice

Practicing hands alone is an important way of practicing a new piece, no matter what level the student is! Students should become comfortable with playing hands alone before putting hands together. For beginners, many pieces are not hands together anyway, so you won’t have to worry about this. When students first learn how to put two hands together, it can take some coordination and getting used to! Hands alone practice will make this a lot easier.

SLOW Practice

Pianist Rudolf Firkusny says this about slow practice: “I do advise practicing in a slower tempo. I think it’s a good idea because…you can overcome bad habits which can creep into your playing.” (The Well-Tempered Keyboard Teacher, p. 356) This is true at any level! Let’s help our students develop good habits in their practicing and playing.

Show Them How to Practice: FERN

In order to help our students learn the four elements of their new piece, it is helpful to give them specific practicing instructions. Here are some ideas:

Notes

Have them name the notes before playing
Play and say letter names (When learning new pieces, I find it so helpful to have the student say things out loud as they play, such as note names or counting – it helps keep their minds active in the learning process and, in my experience, helps to learn a piece more accurately!)
Play and say “intervals” – step, skip, or repeat (helpful in learning relationships of notes on the staff)

Rhythm

Clap and count rhythm (is helpful in learning the rhythm without needing to worry about playing the right notes)
Play and count rhythm (depending on the student, you may want to have them count “1,2,3,4” “1, 1, 1-2” or “quarter, quarter, half-note”)

Expression

Dynamics: have the student practice the piece, focusing mostly on dynamic contrast. I always tell my students to exaggerate the dynamics – make forte really loud, and piano really soft. Make a big deal out of how musical it was and how fun it was to listen to with such great dynamics! We should teach our students to listen to the sound and dynamics they produce from a young age.
Slurs: If the piece has simple, two-note slurs, you could have your student say, “down, up!” as they learn the correct wrist movement used in a slur.

Fingering

Although fingering is important at all levels, I like to be careful about not stressing finger numbers too much to beginners. Yes, it is important to teach them the finger numbers and help them play in the correct position with the correct fingers. But, I have had too many young students who rely way too much on the finger numbers and not enough on the actual notes. As a result, some students do not learn the notes well enough. This illustrates the great disadvantages of playing pieces only in C major position for too long. I think we need to get our students out of C position as soon as possible, get them playing notes all over the keyboard, and get them to realize that, although fingering is important, you can actually play any note on the piano with any finger (what a concept!! hehe). I like to have my students find the correct note first, and THEN look at the finger number.

Polishing Up a Piece

Whether or not a piece is going to be a future recital piece, the end goal should be for the student to be able to play it with correct notes, rhythm and fingering, with good expression and musicality, with no stopping and at a comfortable tempo…right? What are some ways you help your students achieve this?

If the student has learned the piece well, focusing on each of the four elements, and has practiced it efficiently, there should be no problem polishing it up!

If the piece needs some polishing, try breaking it into shorter sections (one line at a time) and challenge the student to play that line three times in a row, perfectly.

Teach the student to evaluate their own playing and to identify spots where they have problems. When my students play a piece for me, I like to ask them to evaluate their own playing. If they learn to be aware of when they mess up in a piece, they will be able to better fix it in their practicing.

Using the metronome is something that needs to be learned by young students, and can be very helpful in keeping a steady tempo. I try to pick a good tempo for them that is not too fast, one that they will be able to play the entire piece at comfortably. Once they are able to do that, we may raise the tempo a bit, depending on the piece.

I hope these ideas were helpful. I would love to hear ideas of how you teach beginning pieces in your studio!

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the influence of a teacher

July 14, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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As I have the great opportunity of starting my piano studio over from scratch in a new city, I have been thinking a lot about things I want to change, things I want to improve and and things I want to do differently. I have thought a lot about my goals as a teacher, my teaching philosophy and what I am trying to accomplish as a teacher. I have thought about my own teachers and how they have not only taught me piano lessons but have helped me to become a better person.

Yesterday as I was going through a box of papers and books, I came upon this great quote, which I think is so applicable to us as teachers, and I wanted to share it!

I have come to the frightening conclusion

that I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach

that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make

a life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture

or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides

whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated,

and a person humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are,

we make them worse.

If we treat people as they ought to be,

…we help them become what they are capable of

becoming.

-Goethe

New topic: Teaching New Repertoire

July 13, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!

For this week’s topic I thought we’d talk about how we teach our students new repertoire. When your students begin a brand new piece, how do you introduce it to them? What strategies do you use to teach it, and what practice techniques do you encourage? If it is to be a recital piece, when do you have them start memorizing it? What are the important elements of the piece that you stress right from the beginning? Do you have them initially only work on it in smaller sections, or do you encourage them to sightread the entire piece right away? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

Pedagogy Books: The Well-Tempered Keyboard Teacher

July 13, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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The Well-Tempered Keyboard Teacher by Marienne Uszler, Stewart Gordon and Scott McBride Smith is a great book about piano pedagogy. This was one text used in my college pedagogy class. There are so many great ideas and suggestions in this book, that I really need to read it again! 🙂

Teaching Advanced Students

One chapter that I really enjoyed is the one about Teaching Advanced Students. Teaching advanced students is really an entirely different world than teaching beginners, isn’t it? I would guess that the majority of students that many of us have are beginners or intermediate students (at least that has been my experience!). Many students drop out of lessons before reaching the advanced level. This chapter, written by Scott McBride Smith, is a great one to read if you are a teacher of advanced students.

Practicing What We Teach

Smith says, “It is not possible to teach something that you have not mastered thoroughly through your own training and investigation.”

As piano teachers, and particularly as piano teachers of advanced students learning advanced repertoire, it is imperative that we are able to play the repertoire as well. How can we teach the techniques and musical expression needed to play an advanced piece of repertoire if we have not mastered it ourselves?

This topic came up on our Facebook Page recently, and one of our readers had a great suggestion. Here is what she said:

“One thing you mentioned is to ‘learn advanced music’ to be more aware of what’s needed in students’ pieces and to teach more effectively. I agree with your statement completely but take it to the maximum and usually don’t teach a piece that I haven’t pre-tested for my student first. I actually do written analysis of complex pieces and prepare written lesson plans. This was a new habit when I began 39 years ago and it has really helped me be secure in my teaching. Going the extra mile on all pieces just exercises your brain so much that you could eventually teach a new piece in your sleep just from observation…”

Skills of Advanced Piano Study

Scott McBride Smith talks about the different skills needed for intermediate study vs. advanced study. I thought this was a great list to get us thinking about what we need to teach our advanced students.

Intermediate Skills:

accurate note learning and rhythm
wide-ranging dynamics
good tone
appropriate balance between the hands and between voices
basic projection of form and harmony

Advanced Skills: (“…a higher level of artistry is needed for these challenging works.”)

phrasing
rubato
accent
tone color
pedal
sophisticated practice techniques (lots of slow, super-accurate repetitions, work at different tempos, practice in rhythms and shifting accents, etc.)
public performances

So many great books out there, so much to learn! What are some of your favorite pedagogy or music books?

Pedagogy Books: Practical Piano Pedagogy

July 9, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Practical Piano Pedagogy by Dr. Martha Baker-Jordan is a wonderful resource for any piano teacher looking for some great ideas and printable resources for their studio. Yes, this book includes TONS of free printables (you can photocopy them from the book, or load them on your computer from the included CD!) – including all sorts of studio forms and other resources. (I mentioned this book before in a post about personality types and piano methods.)

The author has written a great chapter called “The Business of Piano Teaching,” which discusses good business procedures which help to make you more professional. This chapter includes many forms such as a Telephone Interview form, a Beginner Interview form, a Readiness Evaluation for Beginner form, a Studio Policy, Billing Form, Yearly Tuition Schedule, Letterhead Stationary, etc.

Other great chapters include: “Tuition: Being Paid What You Are Worth,” “Strategies for Acquiring Students,” “Now You Have Them – What Do You Do?,” and “The ‘Black Hole’ of Piano Teaching: Why Does it Exist?” (Can you guess what the “black hole” refers to? – Improvisation, Harmonization, Composition and Transposition!)

I have not yet finished reading this book, but so far have enjoyed it very much. I definitely will use it as a resource in the future!

Pedagogy Books: How to Teach Piano Successfully

July 7, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Book: How to Teach Piano Successfully by James W. Bastien, Neil A. Kjos Music Company

I really like this book. Although possibly a bit out of date (first published in 1973, and the Third Edition published in 1995), particularly when discussing things like technology and piano methods (mainly because there are newer methods out there now that are not listed in this book), it really has a wonderful variety of topics and is a great overall piano pedagogy text.

Some sections I really like:

A Guide to Piano Fingering

Written by pianist Robert Roux, this twenty-page section on fingering talks about topographical fingering (using the most natural position possible), special uses of the fingers, physical versus mental convenience, and the relationship of fingering to musical content. Roux states that “the student should learn and apply general principles of piano fingering, and not blindly follow published fingerings.”

Editions of Keyboard Music

This is a great section written by Maurice Hinson. It is an awesome reference because he goes through each musical period and each major composer and lists the best music editions of each one.

Basic Theory Outline

This is a brief overview of basic music theory, found in the appendix – a great review for any piano teacher!

Music Reference Books

Also found in the appendix, this is a HUGE list of books about piano pedagogy and other music-related topics.

Ideal Precollege Training – Repertoire List

One of my favorite sections of this book includes an ideal repertoire list that a student should be familiar with after studying for about ten years and before entering a college music department. I’d like to share that list because I think it can be so helpful to us as teachers in choosing repertoire for our students. This list includes representative works from each musical period. I should also note that my pedagogy teacher in college emphasized that this list is only a minimum of what students should know at that point.

Baroque Period

Bach: Two- or Three-Part Inventions, preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, French Suites

Scarlatti: any of the Sonatas

Handel: Aylesford Pieces, any of the Suites or Sonatas

Classical Period

Haydn: easier Sonatas

Mozart: Sonatas, Variations, or easier Concertos

Beethoven: easier Sonatas, Variations, or Concertos

Romantic Period

Representative works by Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms, etc.

Contemporary Period

Bartok: Rumanian Folk Dances, Three Rondos, later books of the Mikrokosmos

Barber: Excursions

Bloch: Poems of the Sea

Copland: The Cat and the Mouse

Debussy: Children’s Corner Suite, easier Preludes, or either of the Arabesques

Dello Joio: Suite for Piano

Hindemith: Sonata No. 2

Kabalevsky: Twenty-four Preludes

Muczynski: Six Preludes, Op. 6

Poulenc: Mouvements perpetuels

Tcherepnin: Bagatelles, Op. 5

There are so many more great sections in this book – check it out! I have learned a lot from it.

what are your favorite books about piano teaching?

July 6, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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I hope you all had a wonderful week! I just drove for six hours home from visiting my in-laws in eastern Oregon (gearing up for a loooong drive from Utah to Texas in August!). Why is it that my two-year-old stays awake for the entire drive, until about 20 minutes from home when he finally decides to fall asleep? Good times. Well, here are our poll results from this weeks polls about sight reading!

How important would you say sight reading is in a piano education?

How often do you teach/require sight reading in your studio?

Thanks to all who participated in our polls!

This week I’d like to talk about books about piano pedagogy (or just about piano and music in general!), and some helpful things I’ve learned from them. I hope you will also share some of your favorite piano/pedagogy books, or books that have been most helpful to you in your own teaching. I am always up for a new read that will give me some fresh ideas about teaching! In place of our weekly poll, this week I’d love it if you could leave a brief comment on this post, telling us one of your favorite books about piano teaching/piano!

Putting Sight Reading to the Test!

July 5, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Once your students have achieved a certain level of playing and sight reading, why not help put their sight reading to the test? Encourage them to accompany!

I love accompanying and feel that it is a really important skill for a pianist to have. We will definitely talk more in-depth about accompanying one of these weeks. As a young pianist, opportunities to accompany began to present themselves to me. As I used my piano abilities to accompany others, that was when my sight reading really started to improve a lot.

Encourage your students to:

accompany vocalists and other instrumentalists
accompany choirs
accompany for vocal master classes
accompany religious congregations
play in ensembles at school

Sure, as an accompanist you often get the music ahead of time and have time to prepare. But as you accompany more and more, there will definitely be times when the music gets placed in front of you right before you need to play it. This is why encouraging your students to accompany will definitely help them to become better sight readers and better overall musicians.

Studio Idea: have a sight reading competition!

July 3, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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I hope everyone is having a great weekend, and for those in the U.S., I hope you do lots of fun fireworks or something to celebrate the 4th! I myself am having a grand time visiting my in-laws in Eastern Oregon – I sneakily (or not so sneakily) wrote this post a few days ago and post-dated it. I love technology 🙂

Here’s a little idea I have (but have not tried yet) – why not have a sight reading competition in your studio?

You could challenge each student to keep track of their sight reading – either by how much time they have spent or how many lines or pieces they have sight read each week. Keep track on a big, colorful chart in your studio and at the end of the month (or however long you decide the competition will run), the winner gets a prize. If you teach a lot of advanced students, you could challenge them to sight read pieces from the piano literature of the great composers (and maybe get in on the fun yourself!)

I think this would be a wonderful way to motivate your students to sight read, and to get them to make sight reading a habit.