I love planning creative activities like composition and improv to use with my piano students in music lessons. Although I had no formal training in music composition, I have discovered many valuable resources that I've used with my students over the years to help keep their creative juices flowing.
I'm excited to serve as the Assistant Composition Festival Chair for the Upper Valley Music Teacher's Association and plan to share a post about themed resources every month that music teachers can use with their students. While most activities are designed for pianists, I'll also include some resources that can be used for string players or other instrumentalists.
Beginning to compose can be a bit intimidating for many students (and teachers😉) so I like to start with bite-size motifs using a game approach to take the pressure off. This Scale Degrees Gameboard Free Printable) can be used as a quick lesson starter when paired with any of the seasonal rhythm pattern cards from the Free Improvisation printables on the Teach Piano Today blog. For example the TPT Back to School Improv includes rhythm pattern cards like "leaky lunchbox," "make new friends," "running for the bus," etc.
To play, first choose a major or minor scale. The teacher and student (or 2 students) sit at the piano (or other instrument), take turns rolling a die, and move their marker around the game board (removable sticky flags) as they improvise short musical melody ideas on their instrument using notes from the chosen scale. To ramp up the difficulty more advanced students could also add chords for harmony.
For each spot they land on, they create a musical motif starting with the scale degree note and matching the rhythm. For example, if a player lands on dominant using the C major scale they create a musical idea that starts with G (dominant) as they say the phrase from the rhythm pattern card they chose.
This game cleverly introduces the intermediate concept of scale degree names, while allowing the teacher to model rhythms and musical ideas and let the student try them out in a no fear of failure approach. The winner is the first one to reach the end of the board. For a twist you could choose a "magic degree" and let players roll again if they land on that scale degree.
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 26.
Watch the PianoAnne Circle of 5ths Video to learn more about sharp key signatures.
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 25.
Click Teoria.com Cadences to listen to the samples of different types of cadences.
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 24 Carnival of the Animals.
Listen to the Classics for Kids podcast about Saint Saens or watch the Short Biography
about his life.
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 24.
Watch the Piano Anne Video About Relative Keys.
Watch the Winter Song Video to hear the difference between 4/4 and 6/8 Time Signatures.
Pronto 2 Medley of Scottish and Irish Tunes
Discovering Piano Mysterious Traveler
Discovering Piano From Foreign Lands and People
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 23.
Watch the 6/8 Time Signature Explanation Video.
Then practice clapping 6/8 Rhythm patterns along with this video.
Listen to the Classics for Kids podcast About Tchaikovsky or watch the Short Bio Video about his life.
Click each video below to hear music composed by Romantic composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Dance of Little Swans Line Rider
This post includes piano lab activities that correlate with Let's Play Music Bridge Lesson 22.
Listen to this version of Camptown Races.
Listen to the Classics for Kids Podcast About Brahms as you do the online Brahms Coloring page.
Listen to the music samples below composed by Brahms.
I have a confession.
For many years I had a case of "piano teacher imposter syndrome." I loved playing the piano from the start of lessons at age 8. I quickly progressed and had teachers who poured on the praise because of my speedy progress and diligence. My parents never had to nag me to practice. I loved competing in the Sonatina Festival and feeling the dopamine rush during practice when I mastered a tricky spot.
I was a little heartbroken when I couldn't practice regularly for a couple of years. In my teen years, we relocated and left our old clunker piano behind with plans to buy a better piano in our new home after a move. But then we had some economic challenges when my dad's new company discovered an employee was doing fraudulent crimes and my dad was soon after diagnosed with a rare muscle disease, polymyositis, so buying a piano was put on hold for a while.
My gracious grandma provided us with some funds to buy another "clunker" and I resumed lessons with a kind neighbor who taught me in exchange for some light housecleaning. I especially loved to play calm sacred music and spent a lot of Sunday afternoons "catching up" on my orchestra practice record by playing hymns on the violin for two or three hours at a time.
I was super studious in school and was thrilled to get a full academic scholarship to the college of my dreams, Brigham Young University, where I planned to studio Piano Pedagogy. I eagerly enrolled in all the music major classes. I headed to my piano major audition with high hopes. But I felt a bit frazzled when they only asked me to jump between short excerpts of my pieces and soon got the devastating news that I was not accepted into the major and therefore could not take any of the music classes I had enrolled in.
I was able to take private piano lessons with the possibility of applying to the program the following year. My confidence had definitely taken a blow and comments from my stern teacher like "No! No! No! You're doing it all wrong" seared into my memory the feeling of being inadequate. The tears didn't flow until after that lesson when I left the lesson feeling a bit dejected walking through the parking lot. I was intimidated by all the performances required for music majors. I really just wanted to focus on learning to be a private piano teacher, with less emphasis on performing. At the time with my fixed mindset, I also felt like financially I couldn't wait a year and add on a year's worth of college tuition that I couldn't pay for. So I changed my major to Family Science with a Music Minor.
I was grateful to switch to a graduate student instructor for my private piano lessons the next semester. She was so much more encouraging than the Ph.D. professor I started with and a better fit for my personality. She renewed my hopes that I could still teach piano someday and provided me with some excellent pedagogy resources. I still regret not having the courage to take a college "Songwriting" class for non-music majors. I had intentions to sign up, but when I attended the recital of the students who had taken the class I was blown away by their skills and felt like I could never create something that amazing.
After serving a mission, meeting the man of my dreams, and graduating from college, my husband and I worked at a home for troubled teen boys. We had a piano in the home and I loved hearing one of our boys improvise music based on a few tips about chords he had learned from a friend. He inspired me to start "playing around" on the piano a little more instead of just reading music.
Four years later we finally bought our very own piano! My neighbor asked if I could start teaching her 4-year-old to play. I devoured all of Martha Beth Lewis's online tips. My Child Development classes came in handy when I started teaching my first student and I incorporated plenty of play and piano games into lessons.
Later I taught teens in exchange for babysitting services and eventually, I started this blog when I began my preschool piano for a couple of my young children and their friends.
When I first heard the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square sing "Our Prayer to Thee" in General Conference, I was so inspired by the peaceful message of the lyrics and beautiful melody borrowed from the lesser-known hymn "Our Home Beloved", written for men's choir.
I decided to create my first hymn arrangement using the melody of this hymn in the style of other Simply Sacred arrangements that I love by Marshall MacDonald. I love the simplicity of a thin clear melody line with broken chord accompaniments instead of the heavier thick texture of a traditional hymn and wanted something easy enough for early intermediate piano students to play.
MTT Travel Through Treble Spaces - identify treble space notes on the staff
I love revisiting seasonal music year after year and sparking piano students' love for music by letting them explore music beyond their method books.
In addition to the free Halloween music I have compiled in leveled folders for students to check out each year, there are a few supplementary books and sheet music pieces that I come back to again and again because students just love to play them.
I've been prepping Halloween folders for my piano students and decided to add a few new options in addition to many of the free music Halloween music that are listed on my Free Halloween Piano Resources Page. When I compiled folders to send home last month with Will Baily's Piano Tunes, so many students came back eager to perform their favorites at group lessons.
Following are a few "spooky sounding" pieces that I'll be adding to their Halloween piano folders although they aren't necessarily made for that holiday.
Watch the 4 sample improvisation videos below from Leila Viss's Halloween Hocus Pocus at the Keys.
Then choose your favorite style, follow the 3 boundary rules, and improvise your own short Halloween piece during piano lab. Choose a fun title that matches the mood of your piece.
Choose the link below for lesson plans and activities that correlate with Piano Adventures 3B. The theory, improvisation, and music and movement activities can be done in private lessons, group lessons, piano lab, or assigned for at-home practice.
