Upside-Down Compositions

April 26, 2012 Jennifer Boster

Sometimes my best (and most successful) teaching ideas are the spur-of-the-moment ones that I just sort of think up at the last second. Today I had a student arrive without her books (and she had not practiced much this week), so I grabbed my staff flannel board and some black felt notes.

I first had her review the notes in a C Major five-finger scale (a great note-reading review as well as a review of her scales!) by building the scale on the flannel board. I then had her build a C Major chord as well (my students surprisingly mix up chords and arpeggios all the time – I tell them to sing “ar – pe – ggio!” while playing the three notes of the arpeggio, and to sing “chord” when playing a chord – it seems to help a bit!).

I then allowed her to make up her own short song with any notes in the bass clef. She LOVED this (I have found that most young children LOVE making up their own music….let’s take that and run with it, shall we??) and came up with this song:

I then had her play it on the piano (an EXCELLENT note-reading exercise – and she did very well considering she is in level 2 of Faber’s My First Piano Adventures…barely into note reading!). I told her afterwards that we were going to do something super cool with her song. I added an upside-down treble clef at the end of her song…

…and then flipped the whole thing over!

She was excited to see that this had created an entirely new song in the treble clef! We had fun playing it and seeing what it sounded like (naming all the notes as we went…great review!).

I decided to send her home with some blank staff paper and I assigned her to write a short song (using the notes of a predetermined five-finger scale, to keep it simple and easy to play in one hand position), and then to flip it over and play the upside-down version!

Here is one we did in the C Major five-finger position:

You flip it over and you’re in a nice F position – easy for small hands.

Voila – a fun and simple note-reading/five-finger scale/composition exercise! Goodnight all!

New Printable: Beginning Muscle Builders Booklet

March 6, 2012 Jennifer Boster

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I am super excited about this new printable! Today I want to share with you my technique program for my young beginners.

One of the downfalls of many beginning method books is that students are often confined to learning only a few hand positions. They get really good at playing in C or G position, and then when trickier keys like E or B Major are introduced (finally), students are usually not as confident.

I like to get my beginning students playing in many different keys all over the keyboard as soon as possible. I want them to be familiar with how these different positions (which include sharps and flats) feel, and I want them to learn that just because there are flats or sharps, it doesn’t mean it is hard.

I also want my students to learn chords as soon as possible and be confident spelling and playing many different chords – this is an awesome help in learning practically all of their pieces, and also lends to opportunities to teach harmonization and other creative keyboard skills.

This little booklet guides young students through learning all of the white-key major five-finger positions, including scales, arpeggios and chords.

Each key consists of the following:

a colorful “picture scale” to show which keys to play and the names of the notes
reminders on good piano technique
various hands-alone practice directions for five-finger scales
instructions on how to play arpeggios and chords, including technique tips & a fun way to remember the difference between arpeggios and chords (you wouldn’t believe how many of my students mix the two up!)
a chord-spelling review to help students remember the notes in each chord

Each item has a little circle next to it that can either be filled in or checked off (or better yet, use a fun little sticker!) when the student has completed the assignment. I usually draw a circle around the printed circle of each assigned item for the week, and we pass it off with a sticker the following week.

The colorful circles on the picture scales are just the right size for a standard round sticker (these ones fit great and are super cute – a fun incentive for youngsters!) – and after the student has learned the scale, I love to put stickers on the three notes used in an arpeggio and chord. It is a great visual reminder!

I often add other assignments to the ones in the booklet, such as playing any of the scales or arpeggios in a technique you’d like to work on (staccato or legato, for example). I have also taught students about the damper pedal (by opening up the piano and showing them how it all works), and then we have fun playing our 4-octave arpeggios with the damper pedal for a fun and “fancy” sound. Some of my students tend to scoot on the bench a lot, so I also used this as a way to practice leaning to reach the high or low notes.

Another wonderful thing you can do once the student has learned a few of the keys is to have them practice some simple transposition. Take a song that can be played in a five-finger pattern from their method book (for instance, one that is written in C position) and have them transpose to any other key that they have learned! A great song for this is “Ode to Joy,” by the way!

I have been so pleased with the progress of my young students as they have worked their way through this booklet and learned so many different scales and chords. I hope you can get some good use out of it in your studio as well!

I like to print this in booklet format, which you will have to choose in the “Print” settings. Be sure to select the double-sided booklet option – then all you need to do is fold it all in half for a fun little technique booklet. You may download the booklet here, and you can also find it on my “Printables & Downloads” page. Enjoy!

Find Muscle Builder Book Level 2 here, and Muscle Builder Book Level 3 here!