The start of the piano teaching year is behind us. The excitement of new books, new pieces, and new teachers has waned. Now piano lessons are part of the weekly “routine”.
I hate the word “routine”. It’s boring. It’s commonplace. It’s regular.
Routines quickly become chores. Nobody likes chores.
So if you find your piano lessons starting to become routine, here are 15 things you can do to make your piano lessons wonderfully different this week…
15 Piano Lesson Boredom-Busters
1. Make it “Composing Week”, and unleash your piano students’ creativity
2. Messed up Music – Take a common song like “Twinkle Little Star” and find ways to make it wonderfully unrecognizeable (in a musical way of course).
3. Do a Duet – Piano students love it when you “Jam” with them.
4. Watch funny commercials on your laptop or iPad. Create a jingle to accompany these commercials.
5. Dress up like your favorite rockstar or composer. Teach your students piano pieces associated with your character.
6. Do you play an instrument other than piano? Accompany your students as they play through their piano pieces. If you don’t… grab a drum or tambourine!
7. Teach theory with piano games… as a matter of fact, always teach theory with piano games.
8. Do finger warm-ups wearing finger puppets on every finger. Make the puppets dance to silly rhymes and poetry.
9. Surprise your piano students by allowing them to cut their current piano piece into two bar chunks. Mix up the pieces on a table and see if your student can paste it back together into the correct order.
10. Make up silly lyrics to go along with your students’ current piano pieces. Write them directly onto the music and sing along as they play.
11. Have Jelly Bean day. Every correct answer to ear training or sight reading games earns a jelly bean. Even teens like this one!
12. Choose a current pop song. Help your student pick out the melody of the chorus only by ear. Show them the Left Hand chords that go along with the melody. Keep it simple and let them just play by ear.
13. Kill the lights. Can your student play their current piano piece in the dark?
14. Switch seats. Have your student be the piano teacher for half the lesson. They direct the activities, fix your “mistakes” and take apart new pieces to “teach” you. Go as far as letting them come up with your clap backs, play backs etc.
15. Make it “secret note” day. Choose a note – anytime they play that note during their regular lesson activities call out “that’s it!” See how long it takes them to find out what note is the secret note.
My Favourite Way To Mix it Up…
…is with a brand new piano game! My students come into my studio breathless from running… desperate to ask me the first question they ask every single week… “What piano game do we get to play today?!” And with a $8 membership to PianoGameClub you can have brand new and educationally-sound piano games every month to keep ’em running to your door with excitement (and keep their parents marvelling at their enthusiasm for lessons!)
Kimberly Bennett says
Thanks for these ideas! I will definitely be using these!
Trevor says
Hi Kimberley,
Great! We’d love to know which were favorites at your studio 🙂
Nick says
Some great ideas here – thank you
Kara Blocker says
Excellent ideas! Thank you!
Elaine Bovender says
My students LOVE the Secret Note Game. I take it a little further. Once they’ve found the note, we listen to it using various instrument sounds on my keyboard. Then I have them tell me what they know about the note (i.e. location on the staff, where it is on the keyboard, etc,) Then we write the note on manuscript paper. I ask about the note’s “neighbors” and we write them, too. It’s a great way to focus on note reading. I love to use this when we are learning a new note or when the student might be struggling with a certain note. Thanks so much for the idea, Andrea!