Tag Archives: piano lessons

Scales – Why they’re so important (Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW)

When we learn to read, we don’t begin with War and Peace, or the works of Shakespeare. We begin with learning letters and sounds, then blending those letters, then short words, then rules. It is a process. Learning music is no different. Simply learning what key on the piano is what note name doesn’t mean you can immediately play a Bach fugue. It is a process.

Scales are part of this process; they are the backbone of most music we play. They are the foundation of chords. They help to build muscle memory and dexterity. They are so important! Yet they are the hardest thing to convince students to practise.

Practising scales is crucial for piano students for several reasons, each contributing to both technical development and musical understanding. Here are the main reasons:

  1. Develops Finger Strength and Dexterity: Scales help build strength and agility in the fingers, which is essential for playing more complex pieces. Regular practise ensures smooth, controlled movements and coordination between hands.
  2. Improves Hand Coordination: Scales allow students to practise both hands together in various patterns, improving hand coordination and independence. This is important for playing pieces that require different actions from each hand.
  3. Enhances Technique and Control: Practising scales with proper fingering and hand positioning teaches good technical habits, which translate to better control over dynamics, articulation, and phrasing in more challenging music.
  4. Develops Knowledge of Key Signatures: Scales help familiarise students with all major and minor key signatures, improving their ability to recognise and understand the structure of different keys. This knowledge is essential for reading music and playing in various tonalities.
  5. Aids Sight-Reading: By regularly practising scales, students become more comfortable with the patterns found in music, which helps improve sight-reading skills. They will be able to recognise intervals, patterns, and harmonic structures faster.
  6. Improves Musical Ear: Playing scales helps develop a better sense of pitch and tonal relationships, improving the student’s ability to recognise intervals, chords, and melodies by ear.
  7. Builds Speed and Accuracy: Practising scales at various tempos allows students to gradually increase their speed and play more accurately, which is essential for performing more advanced repertoire.
  8. Develops Mental Focus and Discipline: Scales require focused and repetitive practice, fostering discipline and a deep connection to the music. Regular scale practise also trains the mind to maintain attention to detail and to practice with intention.
  9. Establishes a Foundation for Technique in Complex Pieces: Scales are the building blocks for more complex piano techniques like arpeggios, chords, and runs. Mastery of scales gives students a solid foundation for tackling more advanced technical challenges.
  10. Teaches Musical Phrasing and Dynamics: When practising scales, students can experiment with different dynamics, articulations, and phrasing, which will help them incorporate expressive elements into their playing in a more sophisticated way.
Piano teacher Wallsend NSW

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

Can you play the piano with long fingernails? Of course you can.

But should you?

That question has an entirely different answer.

Long fingernails cause a multitude of problems for a pianist in the areas of:

  • Hand position
  • Control
  • Fluency and Speed
  • Tone and Expression
  • Risk of injury and pain

The fingertips are a crucial connection between you and the piano.

These points are relevant to hand position in general and important for all pianists, but long fingernails will immediately compromise good hand position.

Hand Position

From the very first lessons at the instrument, correct hand position is stressed and supported. This position is natural and requires no extra effort. If the nails are too long, the fingers are extended, the position is no longer natural and everything becomes more difficult. Having the fingers stretched out exerts unnecessary strain on the hands, as well as making movement much more awkward. 

One very important aspect of hand position is developing strong, supportive first knuckles (the ones nearest the nail). If the fingernails are too long, it is impossible to support this knuckle and typically the knuckle will collapse inwards. At this point the knuckle and finger ‘lock’ into place, severely impeding movement as the finger sinks into the key. If the knuckle doesn’t collapse, there is a tendency for the finger to slip on the keys, or a ‘wiping’ motion is introduced, because the knuckle isn’t supporting the finger.

Control

With the correct hand position you can feel the keyboard and have more control over how your hands and the keys connect. Piano keys don’t simply go up and down; there is so much nuance available. Where the finger is on the key, the depth of pressure, the speed of the attack and how the finger approaches the key are all elements of control that are lost if the fingers are flat.

Fluency and Speed

You can possibly get away with playing with flat fingers if you are playing some types of music such as chords and slow passages, but for anything requiring speed and precision, flat fingers are definitely out. The photo below shows how the hands would be positioned and you can see it would be impossible to move quickly around the keys (particularly around the black keys). The length of the nail means the pad of the finger would struggle to connect with the key and the nail itself cannot depress the key.

Long nails simply get in the way of fluent movement. Playing may end up sounding muddy or clumpy as the hands struggle to move smoothly to their next position.

Tone and Expression

All the other points lead to this. You play an instrument because you want to produce beautiful music. You want to play expressively. We don’t always keep the fingers curved, but you need to have the choice. Different articulations require different techniques and hand shapes. For example, finger staccato requires great control of the first knuckle to produce crispness, whereas flattening slightly and using more of the pad may produce a warmer, singing tone.

You feel the keys, know the weight of the keys and learn how you can produce different sounds with just a tiny change of your hands and fingers.

A good hand position that can control tone and expression

Long nails mean flat fingers that cannot grip the keys, which results in only one level of tone quality; everything sounds the same.

Additionally, long nails usually result in a constant “click click” sound as the nails hit the keys… most distracting for the listener!

Injury and Pain

Nails can get caught in between the keys, especially when you are navigating around the black keys, or when moving quickly through larger intervals. The result? Nails being torn off. Additionally, continual pressure on the end of the nail from contact with the keys can cause pain in the nail bed, particularly with false nails.

The incorrect hand position that results from long fingernails creates unnecessary tension that moves through the hand, wrist and forearm resulting in painful strain to connective tissues.

If students don’t like the sound they are producing, they won’t continue to play (and they certainly won’t want to practise). The most common means of sabotage are a poor instrument – either non-weighted keyboards, or out of tune pianos – and poor sound as a result of poor hand position. We want students to have control over what and how they are playing and to love the sounds they produce.

Happy students controlling their touch with short nails and good hand position 😊

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

Singing? But Isn’t This a Piano Lesson? – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

Music is a language. It contains phrases, just the same as the spoken – or sung – word. How we deliver these phrases, how we emphasise particular musical words and sentences, delivers a certain meaning to our audience. When we are trying to learn a piece, it can be difficult to look beyond the notes on the page. Singing the music allows us to feel it moving forward, with all its twists and turns and emotion, and to develop an understanding of what we are aiming to ultimately achieve when playing a piece.

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSWThere are various benefits for singing during piano lessons:

  • When singing along with what we are playing, we learn to match the pitch of our voices with the piano, which is a great ear-training tool for ascertaining both pitch and intervals.
  • Being aware of where we need to breathe when singing helps to understand where our hands also need to take a little breath. Slurs are written into music to tell us when to take this tiny break (an upward lift), but it can feel mechanical without understanding the feeling behind the phrasing.
  • Perhaps most importantly, singing is great for allowing us to feel the emotion of a piece (particularly if it has lyrics). We are able to tell the story with more musicality and expression, moving it forward with purpose.

“By exploring the voice, we teach important musical ideas and encourage piano students to achieve a higher level of musicianship”.

Jennifer Merry, Keyboard Companion, Spring 2005

Piano teacher in Wallsend NSWIt is certainly more difficult to encourage students to sing than it is to get them to play, as singing seems to involve displaying a little more of ourselves, but it is this inner emotion we are trying to release. This is what we need in our playing. Once the students open up and let go, understanding how the music feels, they can really put some energy and feeling into what they’re playing.

Sight singing is more formal. Used as a forerunner to playing the piece, it helps students to not only develop aural skills and sight reading skills, but learn to get a feel for a piece from sight. Being able to pitch the piece and develop a good idea of how it will sound before starting to play is a great benefit.

So if your child arrives home from a lesson and says, “Today we sang,” then you’ll know they were learning to develop their musical expression.

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

Your Teacher Can’t Help You Progress If You Do These Three Things – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

There is an automatic assumption if you start piano lessons, you want to learn how to play the piano nicely, so you can produce (and control) a beautiful sound and progress to become a better pianist. There are three common issues that can stop this happening:

You practise on a non-weighted keyboard at home

On the surface, a keyboard without weighted action keys will allow you to learn what keys are what notes, but nothing more. There is no capacity for dynamics, articulation or any level of nuance. That is, every single note sounds exactly the same. Every time. No soft or loud or crescendo. No staccato, no slurs. Deeper down, these keyboards create very bad technical habits, tension that can cause injuries, and will hinder the student developing good listening and music appreciation skills and becoming a well-rounded musician.

 

You ignore technical work

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWAthletes warm up before a game. They train with lots of repetitious drills so their body learns those actions and they can incorporate them into their game. Dancers work through lots of exercises to develop their physical skill. They also warm up before they dance. This is accepted as normal. Playing the piano incorporates a large portion of physical skill. It requires a strong technical foundation. Trying to play pieces of increasing difficulty without gradually building the physical skills required is like running a marathon because you understand the mechanics of running but haven’t trained. The result will be frustration.

 

You don’t practise between lessons

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWThis is a no-brainer and has been covered in many previous blog posts. Lessons are generally as short as 30 minutes, and are when new concepts and material are taught, not where practise happens. Those concepts then need to be consolidated with practise at home, or at the next lesson you will still be in exactly the same place you were the week before. Practise is about feeling accomplished; setting a goal (even a small one) and achieving it.

Your teacher will plant all the seeds, but you need to water the garden. Believe me, when that garden begins to flower, it will be incredibly rewarding!

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

Common Piano Practise Mistakes (Part 2) – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

“Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.”
– Unknown

With a school holiday period looming here in Australia, students will have three weeks in which they will be practising with no input or guidance from their teachers. That’s a long time to be getting nowhere if they aren’t practising effectively and efficiently. Last month I posted about some common mistakes make by students when practising and how to overcome these issues.

Following are some more tips that will help you practise effectively not just over the term holidays, but at any time:

Using incorrect fingering. Sometimes the fingering noted on the music may seem either unimportant or too difficult, but the truth is it is always there for a reason. It is usually moving your hand to where it needs to be for optimum movement (and minimal confusion). Being consistent with fingering also calls upon your muscle memory, allowing you to learn the piece with more stability.

Practising too fast. I know I have mentioned this many times before, but it is so important to slow down and take your time. It can be frustrating when you know how the piece sounds and you just want to play it at speed so the familiar sound and what you are playing are closer. But playing too fast doesn’t allow you to really pay attention to what you’re playing or note the areas that need additional work. It’s much easier to increase speed once the piece is correct than it is to have to slow down later and try to ‘unlearn’ mistakes.

Piano teacher Wallsend NSWHaving your piano in an out-of-the-way location. Having your piano or keyboard tucked away in a spare room or an area of the house not regularly accessed doesn’t encourage regular practise. Out of sight, out of mind! Have your piano in a prominent position in the house so it acts as a constant reminder.

Not counting out loud. Even though I have been playing for over 40 years, I still find counting out loud is the easiest way to get my mind around a complicated new passage. It is particularly crucial for beginners and works excellently in conjunction with the point above about slowing down. Counting out loud helps develop a sense of rhythm; the physical act of counting makes the rhythm more dominant and the hands tend to follow.

Watching your hands instead of the music. When you watch your hands instead of the music, you tend to learn the piece with mistakes; playing by ear and using memory take over from reading what the music is asking you to play. When you do need to look down to your hands, try to just avert your eyes rather than move your head, or it is more difficult to re-find your place on the music when you lift your (moved) head back up.

Practising “in bulk”. Shorter, regular practise sessions are far more effective than one very long one. Once you are aware you are becoming mentally fatigued, you should stop practise and come back to it when you feel more alert.

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

How the Non-Piano-Playing Parent Can Help Their Piano-Playing Child (Part 2) – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

“I don’t understand what she’s playing, so I don’t know how to help.”

This is a phrase I hear often from parents who have no musical training themselves. Because they don’t know the details of the music, they worry they can’t help their child with their practise. This is most definitely not the case.

I wrote last month about the practical ways a non-musical parent can help their piano student child (that post is here) but believe it or not, you can also help them improve their playing.

1. The most important thing you can do is simple. Listen. That’s it. Listen to them practise. You will hear their pieces often enough that you may surprise yourself when you realise you can pick up mistakes. You don’t need to know how to fix it, but you can stop them and have them go back over that section.

2. Don’t be afraid to say, “Again!” I’m sure you are a music listener, even if you aren’t a musician yourself and your ears will know if something doesn’t sound right. Tell them to play it again. And again. This also works really well for scales and technical work (and my students are used to hearing it – I don’t let a scale go until they have played it without error).

3. Sitting with your child for the first five minutes of practise can have a huge impact on your child’s musical success. For starters, it allows them to realise you are listening and involved and know exactly what they are doing. Use this time to ask them questions, which can be done in two ways:

  • Be nosy. Ask them questions about what they are playing. Pick something the teacher has marked and ask them why or perhaps select a word of terminology or an articulation mark on the music and ask them what it means. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the answer… they are having to think about it; or
  • Ask general questions, such as, “What is the hardest part of this piece? Can you play just that part for me?” or “Can you clap the rhythm of this bar for me?” I can provide flashcards containing samples.

Chances are they’ll get quite a kick from teaching you something as well 🙂

Piano teacher Wallsend NSW4. Encourage them to really listen to what they are doing… and listen yourself. If they play a section a few times and it changes from halting to fluent, congratulate and encourage them. Ask them what they are trying to achieve.

5. Most people can feel a basic rhythm so you should be able to tell if the rhythm is uneven or inconsistent. Ask them to show you how they count the piece/section and have them count out loud as they play it.

6. Don’t expect them to always play their pieces through. Often working on smaller sections is more beneficial. I always teach my students to “pull out” the troublesome section and work on that alone until it has improved. We can put the piece back together at the lesson if they have refined each of the sections. Sometimes a teacher may set only sections (or even just one hand) rather than the whole piece.

7. Tell them to slow down if they’re having trouble. Speed can be built back up but bad habits are harder to unlearn. There is no such thing as too slow!

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

App Review “Blob Chorus” by Lumpty Learning – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

Aural training – or developing ‘a good ear’ – is such an important part of becoming a musician. It helps with everything from being able to harmonise through to simply recognising if you’ve made a mistake. But not everybody is born with a naturally good ear and even those who are can still learn to better refine it.

So how do we help our students develop their aural skills without the drudgery of drills and exercises? We use fun apps!

I initially reviewed this app nearly three years ago, but it has had a resurgence in my studio, with all current students really enjoying it, so it is worth revisiting it here.

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWBlob Chorus by Lumpty Learning is one such app, which introduces students to basic pitch recognition in a fun way. It is used in thousands of schools around the world because it also works well in a group setting, but its simplicity means it is also totally suitable for individual lessons.

The premise of the game is simple: a number of green blobs have formed a choir and they are singing for King Blob (who is purple and wears a crown). Each blob sings a note and then King Blob sings a note. The note sung by the king is the same as a note sung by one of the blobs. But which one? This is what you need to identify.

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWAlthough the game always opens with the default of three blobs, you can set the game to as little as two (which is the best place to start). As you improve, you can increase the number of blobs in the choir. The maximum is eight blobs, which is very difficult.

If the incorrect blob is selected, that blob will explode, but you are able to select another blob and continue doing this until the correct blob is selected. At any time you can click the ‘hear blobs again’ button at the bottom to hear the remaining blobs sing their notes again.

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWThe game is separated into groups of ten questions; after each set of ten you will receive a score and an overall rating.

$1.49 on the Apple app store (but not for Android), the Apple version can be found here.

If you don’t own or have access to an iPad or Android tablet, never fear! The game is also available in a web version here; it just requires an internet connection.

They not only look cute, but they sound really cute as well 🙂

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

Common Piano Practise Mistakes (Part 1) – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

Sometimes you may feel as though you are beating your head against a brick wall. You set a practise schedule and you try to stick to it, but you just aren’t progressing. You could be making one of the following mistakes, all of which are easy to overcome:

Not actually practising. You intend to and you pop it into your schedule but it is never given the priority it requires and deserves. It requires a true commitment. Trust me, once you practise enough to get past those early learning hurdles, you will start to enjoy it much more and even look forward to practise.

Playing what you already know. It’s so much easier to keep playing the pieces you already play well and neglect the ones that require more effort, but you’ll pretty quickly become bored with your repertoire as well as not having a challenge.

Not reviewing old pieces to maintain a repertoire. Following on from the point above, you want to revisit older pieces occasionally so you can maintain a repertoire that has both volume and variety.

Piano teacher Wallsend NSWAlways starting from the beginning. If you start a piece at the beginning every time you play it, you will find you quickly become proficient at the start of the piece but less so as the piece goes on. I often tell my students to start at the part they find the most difficult, work on that part and then incorporate it back into the song.

Playing easier parts faster than the harder passages. If – as the point above suggests – you usually start at the beginning of a piece, you will probably play this part best and consequently a little faster. Then when you hit passages that require more concentration, you will slow down. From the time quavers are introduced to my students, I tell them to look at the hardest part (which at that stage is usually where the quavers are) and see at what speed they are comfortable playing that part. The rest of the piece is then played at this tempo. An added bonus is if that means the majority of the piece is feeling too slow, there is an added incentive to work on the troublesome section first to get it to the speed you want. Effective practise!

More common mistakes and how to fix them next month 🙂

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

How the Non-Piano-Playing Parent Can Help Their Piano-Playing Child (Part 1) – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

Parents who have never played a musical instrument often feel lost when it comes to helping their child practise at home. They may feel their ability to help is limited to phrases such as, “It’s time to practise the piano!” or “Your lesson is in 15 minutes – quickly do some practise!” or even, “Did you remember to practise this week?” But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Believe it or not, non-musical parents outweigh musical parents most of the time. Even if you don’t know one note from another, can’t hold a tune or recognise a treble clef, you still have the skills required to help your child learn how to do these things.

Piano teacher Wallsend NSWIn this first part of a two-part post, we will look at some of the ways you can help your child that don’t involve the music itself. Part two (in two weeks) might surprise you with the ways in which you can be involved with the content of their practise.

1. Make practising like brushing teeth. Piano practise shouldn’t be something that is done only when there is spare time. Let’s face it… we have to bug our kids to do even the simplest things sometimes (like brushing their teeth or having a shower) so why should piano practise be any different? Yes, you may need to continually hound them, but they will better understand the commitment required if they see you making practise a priority. Practise = progress.

2. Use flashcards to work with them on their music theory; note names, values, symbols and terminology. I have pdf files of flash cards I can share with the parents of my students.

3. Encourage them to perform for friends and relatives. Even for yourself. They can perform for you each week, after they have spent most of the week working on their pieces.

4. Let them hear you bragging about them to other people – it may be about how well they are playing but it could also be about how disciplined they are with practicing.

5. Have them practise when they are awake and alert – practicing in a state of fatigue won’t get them very far.

Piano teacher Wallsend NSW6. Ensure they are sitting correctly at the piano. Keep an eye on them and if you see them slouching, suggest they hold their back straight. This will not only stop body fatigue but will also help them balance their arms and hands properly. Their teacher should also be able to show you how they should be holding their hands, so you can keep an eye on that as well.

7. Allow them to have some “messing around” time at the piano; it doesn’t all need to be structured. This type of activity encourages creativity and early composition skills. I love it when a student turns up and starts the lesson with, “Guess what I made up this week?”

8. Help them organise their practise; schedule it into their routine and keep track of how much they are doing (this doesn’t include the “messing around” time mentioned above).

9. Accept there will occasionally be tears and frustration… learning the piano is not easy! Take a break (and a deep breath) and assess whether or not it is worth proceeding after the break. Either way, encourage your child to note the problem area so their teacher can help them with it at the next lesson.

Part two will be published next month. (This can now be found here.)

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.

With a Little Help From My Friends – Piano Teacher in Wallsend, NSW

Sometimes when we’re learning new things, we just need a little something extra to help us along. In the studio, we use games and iPad apps, as well as good old paper and pencil, but there have been some new additions that have the younger students buzzing.

Animals!

Yes, these little animals have quickly become a firm favourite with most of the under-10s (although the older kids think they’re cute as well). As they fit nicely on a piano key, they have been a wonderful asset for keyboard recognition exercises and to help in games, but they have discovered other uses as well.

Piano Teacher in Wallsend NSWOne little girl sometimes asks for them to watch as she plays and she arranges them either on the music stand, or on top of the piano, and then performs for them. They bring her confidence.

A little boy likes the animals, but prefers the transport vehicles that live in the same drawer, and he sometimes learns a song by giving each note a vehicle of its own.

So if your little ones arrive home from their lesson and tell you they have been playing with animals – or helicopters and motorbikes – for half an hour, never fear. It’s still all about the music, but learning with a little help from our new friends.

If you are considering music lessons for your child or for yourself, please contact me to discuss the options. Piano lessons are conducted at my studio in Wallsend, NSW.