Have you heard? The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) has recently released the newly revised 2022 Piano Syllabus for their practical examinations. They are also releasing new editions of the wonderful Celebration Series piano literature collection (available soon). What exciting news for piano teachers!
Continue reading “Freebie: Technical Requirements Charts for RCM’s 2022 Piano Syllabus”
I’m excited to write this app review, because it is one of the most well-designed and useful apps I’ve come across lately!
Musiclock is a $2.99 app for iPad and iPhone that provides a variety of backing tracks intended to be used while practicing scales or improvising.
The first step is to select a scale. The scale choices are: major, major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, natural minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor, blues, and dominant bebop.
Today, I would like to tell you all about the EasyScales Visual Guides, a patent pending product by Jo Tee! Jo Tee is a creative piano teacher from Singapore.
Here is how it works: Continue reading “Review & Giveaway: EasyScales Visual Guides set”
I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for creative and inexpensive items for my teaching. The dollar store is one of my favorite places to go!
In the craft aisle at Dollar Tree right now, there are packages of foam cubes, as shown in the picture. I’ve always wanted to make scale blocks like Natalie Wickham’s, but have never got around to buying the wood blocks and paint. These foam cubes seem like a pretty good alternative, although they may not last as long I suppose. On the upside, it doesn’t take long to write the alphabet letters on these little cubes with a marker! I am going to go back to buy a couple more packages, so I can make a nice set of scale blocks using the orange colored cubes. Continue reading “Recent Purchases: Scale Blocks & A Technique Monkey”
Some of you may remember the Scale & Arpeggio Fingering reference sheet I posted in December of 2010. About a month ago, a friendly reader made some very helpful suggestions for improvement, and so I spent quite a bit of time revising the printable. It’s called “Scale and Arpeggio Fingering for Piano (2 Octaves)” and you can find it on the Printables > Other Resources page.
I originally created this printable with my intermediate/advanced students in mind who are working on 2- and 4- octave scales/arpeggios and have trouble keeping all their fingerings straight in their head once they start getting them under their fingers. It’s nice to have a guide tucked inside the front cover of a book to refer to now and then!
The document contains three pages:
Page 1: Rules and tricks for remembering scale and arpeggio fingerings (as shown on the right).
Page 2: A listing of the fingerings for each Major and Harmonic Minor scale/arpeggio (2-octave) for piano.
Page 3: A continuation of page 2.
Of course, there are a few different ways to finger scales and arpeggios, so I’m sorry if the fingerings listed in this printable do not correspond with the ones you prefer to teach your students. These are the ones I like to use, and I thought I’d share it with anyone who might happen to find it useful.
If anyone else finds typos or inconsistencies, please let me know! I did my best to proof-read the fingerings, but it is certainly possible that I still may have missed something!
Scale and Arpeggio Fingerings (2 Octaves) Reference Sheet (86.0 KiB, 144,292 hits)
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve added a new printable to the Printables page….so here’s one I created a couple of months ago. You can find it on the Printables > Other Resources page.
Scale and Arpeggio Fingering (2 Octaves) Reference Sheet (3 pages long)
I created this printable with my intermediate/advanced students in mind who are working on 2- and 4- octave scales/arpeggios and have trouble keeping all their fingerings straight in their head once they start getting them under their fingers. It’s nice to have a guide tucked inside the front cover of a book to refer to now and then!
The document contains three pages:
Page 1: Rules and tricks for remembering scale and arpeggio fingerings (as shown on the right).
Page 2: A listing of the fingerings for each Major and Harmonic Minor scale/arpeggio (2-octave) for piano.
Page 3: A continuation of page 2.
Of course, there are a few different ways to finger scales and arpeggios, so I’m sorry if the fingerings listed in this printable do not correspond with the ones you prefer to teach your students. These are the ones I like to use, and I thought I’d share it with anyone who might happen to find it useful.
I did my best to proof-read the fingerings, but it is certainly possible that I may have missed something….so if you encounter something that seems sketchy, please let me know!
Why do we learn and practice scales? Have you (or your students) ever asked this question? Is it just for tradition’s sake that piano teachers assign scales to work on? I think it’s important not only for we teachers to know the WHY behind scales, but also for our students to know! Continue reading “Top 5 Reasons to Learn Scales”
Just added: a new free, printable worksheet called:
> Scales & Primary Chords Worksheet 1 (CGDF)
Ideally, this worksheet is designed for the intermediate+ student who is already familiar with the scales and primary chords for the keys of C, G, D, and F major, and perhaps could use some review in writing them out on the staff. However, this worksheet could also be used during a group lesson while introducing these ideas for the first time.
Terms/concepts covered in the worksheet:
To download, visit the Printables > Worksheets page and scroll down to the S’s for “Scales & Primary Chords worksheet.”
Watch for the next worksheet coming soon, covering D, A, E, and Bb major!
If you navigate over to the Printables > Worksheets area, you will find some new worksheets listed. This set of Review Tests was originally created for group keyboard classes of various age groups, but they may easily be adapted for other uses. The set is basically a set of progressive worksheets testing in the areas of basic piano skills and music theory. They may work well for group lessons, or just for single students to brush up on their theory skills.
Concepts covered in each worksheet:
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