Young Mr G was resisting participating in a composing activity. I use a system that tells a cute little story and each lesson of the system builds on that story and subtly introduces another technique the students can use in their composition. Mr G liked the story and the idea behind it but he wasn’t going to try it out. No way. He procrastinated. He changed the subject. He fiddled with other things. So I let it go for that week and we smoothly moved on to something else.
The next week Mr G turned up with two plain books that he had made in school that day. He had folded in half many sheets of plain paper, with a different coloured sheet on the outside of each one. He had experienced trouble stapling the middle and wondered if I could help. We stapled up the books and I had an idea… I asked him what his plans were for the books (he had no specific plans) and asked if perhaps he would like to use one in his lesson to compose some rhythms. He was so thrilled to have a purpose for one of his treasured books, he jumped at the opportunity. He chose his red book and composed his rhythm. I drew a staff in the book, he put his rhythm to music and his motif was born. The first composing lesson was done! He was so proud of his achievement, he even let me video it to share with my Facebook page (and normally he is not a fan of sharing).
The moral of the story? Go with the flow.
I work hard on creating curriculums and I have a plan mapped out for each student. It’s important to know where we’re heading, plus it provides them with structure and a goal. But it’s all pointless if they aren’t engaged and sometimes that engagement can come from the most unlikely of sources. As a teacher, I need to be constantly alert for teaching opportunities. It may mean the lesson plan is derailed, but as long as they are learning something valuable and at their level, then the things in the lesson plan can always be caught up later.
Miss G (sorry, but their names really do start with the same letter) is a young teen who loves to experiment on the piano and she plays a lot of songs with a chord base. She has worked out a lot of this herself and will often show me what she has been doing. I realised though that she is solely playing by ear (a great skill in itself) but without understanding why she was playing those particular notes. So all of a sudden the lesson changed and turned into a conversation about chord construction, major vs minor triads and typical chord progressions (and even 12-bar blues). I wanted her to have the knowledge to work out where she should go next without having to try every note until one sounded right. It was important to ‘derail’ because playing this other music is what fuels Miss G’s love of piano when the slog of scales and exam prep becomes a chore.
Of course, this is harder with the students who are on an exam trajectory. If they want to reach their goals by exam time, their time is fairly tightly scheduled and because most of them don’t practise very much these days, lesson time is often spent going over things that should have been conquered during home practise. But even within those confines, it is important to be adaptable. Go with the flow.
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.
The middle pedal:
Following are some tips that can help you make the maximise the effectiveness of your practise time:
4. Schedule your practise sessions – While this seems self-explanatory, this technique will only work well when in conjunction with the tip above – if you schedule in time, you must be prepared to give that time your full concentration. For some, the best time may be first thing in the morning when the mind is fresh (and you will feel accomplished at having started your day by completing a major task) while others may need to wait until the kids are in bed and the household jobs completed.
7. Keep a practise journal – A practise journal is a log of your practice sessions, including what you practise and for how long. It can be a notebook, a Word document, a spreadsheet or whatever works for you. At the end of each practise session, write down which pieces you worked on and how long you spent on each one. This can serve to force your mind to focus and may also help with planning future practise goals (in fact, it can be an interesting exercise to compare it to your original goals).
9. Study away from the piano – This has been covered in more detail previously 
As good as digital pianos have become in simulating the sound and feel of an acoustic piano, there is nothing that can totally match the real thing. The majority of electronic instruments lack the tone and touch of an acoustic piano, as well as the feel and the ability to convey subtle emotion and feeling. An acoustic piano has strings and hammers, while a digital piano has none. Having actual strings means that there are thousands of things in an acoustic piano (such as sympathetically vibrating strings) that are difficult to reproduce convincingly on a digital piano.
Whichever way you go, if the piano is incapable of delivering a good response to touch, the student will not improve.
These days we have so much technology at our disposal and it is always tempting to look for tools that are complex and multi-use because we feel the more they offer, the more useful they should be. But sometimes we are just making things harder for ourselves. It’s like trying to work out all the complexities of a smart phone, when all we really want to do is make a telephone call.
The difficulty can be increased by adding more notes and/or speeding up the race. The speed is determined by whether you choose to walk, trot, cantor or gallop during your race. Before you know it, you’re an expert at naming the notes of the treble clef, the bass clef, or both.
I have posted before about 
Have them pick one of their pieces and turn all of the notes into twins. i.e. play every note twice.
Play only the first note in each bar. Write out this new melody.
merri bell music 