The Singing Piano
This course is for you if:
- You’re a lifelong learner
- You value critical thinking
- You thrive with accountability
- You respect mastery
- Wanting to eventually become an independent learner
🌿 You’re willing to invest in yourself to expand—into greater skill, artistry, and musicianship through a premium program.
Class textbook: "Alfred's All-In-One Course: Lesson, Theory, Technic" by Palmer, Manus and Lethco.
Students must have a keyboard or piano at home for daily practice. Students should aim to practice for approximately 15-30 minutes every day to achieve good results.
Casual
Fundamentals of piano study
The fundamentals of piano study (Classical and Jazz combined) include
- learning the elements of music: tempo, tone quality, melody, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, articulation and form
- learning and playing traditional Western European scales, chords and arpeggios with proper fingering, wrist, arm playing technique on the piano
- learning the Western system of music notation and reading by /notes/fingering/intervals to play written music at sight
- learning jazz modal scales found by starting on different notes (scale degrees) of the traditional major and minor scales, major and minor pentatonic and Blues scales
- learning the chords and their shorthand symbols which are used in reading Jazz/Pop/Rock charts, or lead sheets - often used in professional bands and Jazz ensembles
- learning to play by ear
- learning to improvise
- learning to compose (if it suits you!)
- Standard Classical and Jazz Repertoire - The Greats! Your favorites should be memorized and performed or recorded!
Beginning students learn the elements of music through exercises in lessons which isolate each element into a short, fun activity like clapping and counting rhythms aloud. These exercises engage students to hear, feel, learn and incorporate new knowledge correctly into their thinking and playing. Scales and chords are taught methodically, emphasizing blocked, hand positions. Learning how to think in groups of notes rather than just individual finger numbers, will promote confident, secure playing.
Performances
To prepare for making performance videos or for playing in public, I teach my students:
- strategies for a successful performance
- memorization techniques
- how to use sheet music in performance
- management of performance jitters
- recital etiquette
Composition/Writing Skills
Some students have an interest in developing their creative musical thinking and opt to create, write, and/or record their own:
-
piano instrumental composition
-
songs for voice with piano accompaniment
-
arrangement of a pop song using their own chord accompaniment patterns with the melody either sung or played on the piano
Writing music notation with a pencil on staff paper is the old fashioned way to write down musical ideas for ones memory or for another person's use. It's also a great exercise to underpin meaning and understanding of musical symbols. Later, students may choose to learn how to use Musescore, a music software system ,so they can self-publish their music for themselves or for other people's use. Finale or Sibelius are also other options for software notation.
Other students simply record their pieces. Many modern day musicians rely solely on sharing recordings rather than fully notated music on staff paper, or they commonly use a musical short hand form of writing, called chord charts, containing the letter chords symbols and only the melody written out on the treble staff.