Each week, my piano students are equipped with a page of notes that let them know what to prepare for their next lesson. There are never any surprises.
Interspersing the prep work for piano lessons with some opportunities to experiment and get creative is a great way to extend practice time in a manner that puts your child in charge and helps to get you involved.
Try any of these out and remember that any effort towards creating music deserves a clap and some kind words, especially for our beginners!
Beginners
i) Teach me what you learned today! Let them be the teacher.
It’s good to play precisely what they’ve asked for the first time around, even if you know it may not be 100% accurate. Play it a little bit wrong a few times too and ask “Is this right?”. Keep it fun and light-hearted.
ii) Play me your favourite piece:
Slowly like a tortoise is walking along the beach.
At a moderate pace like when you walk to the school assembly.
As fast as you can without falling over your fingers! Remember – little fingers can only do so much and the goal is ‘achievable' and 'fun'.
The word piano is short for pianoforte. In its full Italian name, the words mean (the harpsichord) with soft and loud because it was the first of the keyboards invented with the keys having a response to pressure (touch).
iii) Play me your favourite piece:
Soft / p / piano (English word, symbol written on music, Italian word)
Moderately soft / mp / mezzo piano
Moderately loud / mf / mezzo forte
Loud / f / forte
Grades 1-3
i) Pick a scale you’ve learned. Pair any of the notes in this scale together and jot down 4-6 pairings that you really like (you, not anyone else!). Create a simple rhythm and play the pairs that you’ve notated to that rhythm.
ii) Pick a piece of music from one or two grades ago that you absolutely loved playing! Try to play is so that it sounds like:
It is the background music for a funny scene in your favourite cartoon movie.
Someone is walking quietly and fastly along a very long hallway.
A piece of music that everyone would dance to at a celebration.
Grades 4 – 6
i) Create a simple four-bar rhythm in common time for playing chords using both your right and left hands. Utilise minims, crotchets or quavers (dot any of these). Jot it down. Pick a key. Create a chord progression that starts on the tonic or root chord of the key. Stick to one chord per bar or a maximum of two per bar.
Repeat this exercise twice more to create a 12-bar chord progression. Make sure you end on the tonic chord.
ii) Using your chord progression above, ask a member of your family to clap a simple one or two bar rhythm and play your chord progression to that for them.
iii) Improvise using only the black keys with an emphasis on syncopated rhythms in 6/8 or 4/4. After you’ve experimented a little and you’re building your confidence, see if you can stick to a 12 or 16 bar structure each time you create.
Grades 7 and up.
i) Search on YouTube for a piano version of ‘Unsquare Dance’ by Dave Brubeck. Work out the bass note pattern in the opening on the keyboard. Play this through and add the ‘clapping’ section on your right leg. Now, transpose this to another key of your choice.
ii) Listen to ‘Unsquare Dance’ Use the 7/4 rhythm in the opening bars to create a 16-bar chord progression that starts in G Major and ends in B Major. Make use of first and second inversion chords. Note that the 7/4 rhythm is grouped as follows 12, 12, 123.
At a moderate pace like when you walk to the school assembly. eft hand in Gb Major. Create a melody over top of that using only the black keys.
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