Beginning piano students have a lot to think about: note reading, rhythm, coordination, posture… their brains are busy! It is therefore easy to get caught up in the mechanics of learning a piece and leave the “polishing” until the bare bones of the piece is mastered. We don’t want to overwhelm beginning students.
But there are certain technical abilities that, if learned early and often, will help your beginning piano students minimize the “slow slog” and get on with the “spit and polish”.
But rather than confuse and frustrate your students as they pick their way through their pieces, be sure to work on these 5 technical abilities alongside their regular repertoire and watch magic happen!
The Top 4 Technical Abilities That Beginning Piano Students Should Possess…
My Top 5 Favorite Technical Abilities for Beginning Students are below. I’d love to hear your favorites in the comments section at the bottom of the post!
1. Staccato vs. legato abilities – Students who can effectively and consistently show a difference between staccato and legato immediately lend a sense of artistry to their playing. Teaching your beginning students how to play with a beautiful sense of legato and to pay attention to all staccato markings (even those “often-forgotten” ones at the end of a phrase or the last in a set of repeating notes) does wonders for their artistry.
Try This: Seek out short passages of music from a technical book or from their method book that do not require too much in the way of note reading, but that require attention to legato vs. staccato. Give your piano students lots of opportunities to practice staccatos at the end of phrases, two-note slurs, staccato and legato stepping and skipping, staccato chords… all of the different scenarios they will encounter within their pieces, but in a pared-down setting.
2. Dynamic range – Students who have mezzo piano and mezzo forte in their repertoire of dynamics (instead of simply piano and forte), and students who can effectively execute a crescendo and a diminuendo are then able to add more interest and color to their playing.
Try This: Speak of the dynamics in their piece even before any other learning takes place. Sometimes dynamics are added into a piece as an afterthought once all of the other elements are up to snuff, but if you give dynamics the significance they deserve instead of adding them after, your piano students will learn to see that they are important and worthy of attention (always!) Introduce dynamics as a way of telling a story with music – so give your students a reason for the differences between mezzo forte and forte and mezzo piano and piano (What could be happening in a story that went along with their piece? How is the change in dynamics related to what is happening in the music?). Include crescendos and diminuendos in their technical work and scales to give your students the opportunity to experiment with hand weight and control.
3. Rhythmic Accuracy – Obviously we all teach our piano students to play with correct rhythm, but we also want this correct rhythm to happen within an overall framework of a steady pulse. Students may hold a half note for two beats, but if those two beats are not exactly within an underlying pulse, then their rhythmic accuracy is not what it could be. The ability to keep a steady tempo and to have rhythmic accuracy within this tempo sets students apart in leaps and bounds.
Try This: Using a metronome is the obvious suggestion, but teaching your student to hear the underlying beat themselves without a metronome is also important. Spend time listening and moving to music together. Teach your students how to clap along with the beat (and try to find more than just one way to clap along to increase their rhythmic abilities). Singing the melody line together as your student taps a steady beat on his lap is another way of training his ears to hear a steady tempo.
4. Articulation Awareness – Beginning students typically only see staccato, legato and fermatas for the first bit, but I like to add in accents and tenuto markings even before the method books introduce them. Kids like the drama that these add to their music, and I like the way it contributes to their awareness as they play. Having a wide repertoire of various ways to strike a key means your students are making significant connections between what they see on their page vs. what sounds their fingers make. Nothing but good things come of this!
Try This: Add your own articulation markings to even your beginning students’ music sometimes. Make these decisions together with your student (“What note would sound good with accented?” or “What marking would we put on this note if we wanted to pause here?”). Allowing your students to assist with the decisions gives them a sense of ownership over their learning and means that they will definitely pay attention to what’s on their page.
5. We want to hear from you! What is your favourite technical ability to focus on with your beginning students? Share in the comments below.
Being “Picky” Has Big Pay-offs
We all want to produce piano students who enjoy what they play, and a lot of enjoyment comes from playing well. Even very young children will rise to the occasion if you provide these challenges within their beginning pieces. Starting with good technical habits (no matter how simple) will mean your students will be one step ahead of the game. If their eyes are used to noticing the technical aspects of a piece, and if their fingers are used to responding accordingly, as they enter more advanced repertoire all of the groundwork has already been done. Beauty and satisfaction await!
I bought your TEDDtales and started using it this year. The kids love the stories. We sometimes add sound effects, or they make up more to the story. It’s really fun, engaging, and teaches them in a fun way. Thank you for writing this resource!
I love the suggestions-one thing I start doing-even with the one line beginning pieces is before playing a single now we”look” at the music so we know what to expect in the way of dynamics or accidentals-very often on the short pieces we’ll add a repeat and play something differently the second time-move to a new octave, change the dynamic, any number of things. Many students then feel they had a hand in helping make the piece interesting and more fun to play.
I agree and appreciate these suggestions…especially writing in new articulation a that might not be there. Unfortunately I have several beginning students who only have keyboards
(And less than 88 keys) and they cannot practice dynamics so I spend a lot of time doing that during lessons. Believe me, I do all I can to get parents to upgrade as soon as possible (within a year) but those early pieces ALL have dynamics. Your suggestion to speak the words of those early songs in the proper dynamic range is one I will use!
Hi, Karen. We have all struggled with the beginning students and the keyboard at home. You can fix it by adhering to one simple rule you never break: the children MUST have an acoustic piano at home or you don’t accept them into your studio. I have found that if the parents won’t accept your expert opinion that there IS a difference between a keyboard and an acoustic and that an acoustic is mandatory, they don’t respect you as a professional. If you still take the student on the keyboard you are probably in for years of frustration for yourself, the students and the parents. IMHO.
I use English instead of Italian when explaining dynamics. For legato we play “creamy” and for staccato I use “hot potato”. For phrasing, we make “hand pictures” and make curves with our hands. When you teach phrasing, you can teach dynamics by letting the students hear when to go loud or soft during the “hand picture”. Try “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water”. They automatically get high on “fetch”.
Great ideas, Eleanor!
Non legato. It puts their hands and fingers in sgood rounded position, avoids flat fingers and collapsed knuckles and produces a clean sound.
Also, proper posture and body position on the bench.
I agree with all of the ideas of technic and how important it is and how much better it is to teach them while new and young –
THEN,we have to raise our level of expectation to what they can handle. This will encourage them to continue to learn and be successful at playing …I call it performance mode – they seem to rise to that level
Also the ability to play slow. Which produces evenness and good sight reading and muscle control.
This is absolutely important – slow and steady as the saying goes…
I remind them to get their piece correct in every aspect –
timing/notes/fingering/expression and then they can speed it up!
We also “walk thru” each piece and identify all technical aspects, so they can begin their practicing correctly!
When my students tap the rhythm, either hands separately or together, I have them tap other elements as well, such as dynamics and articulation. They could even learn to tap the shaping of phrases. This eliminates having to thing about fingering and notes right at the beginning while helping them to think about the whole piece at the beginning.
We start at the very first lesson “see-sawing” between all the various two-finger combinations (1-2, 1-3, etc.), playing each one several times. If a child has trouble with the concept, we stand up and shift our weight back and forth.
Thanks so much for the article! I really liked the fact that you said dynamics should be given the weight they deserve from the beginning. So often I see students playing with absolutely no dynamics. It makes me wonder why they weren’t introduced to begin with. It is so much more difficult to go back and add something, as it is to have it added from the beginning.
I really love teaching the feel and technique to playing contrasts between FORTE and PIANO. We talk about playing with a weighted arm for FORTE (I practice them holding my arm as I relax all of my weight into their hand and then dropping my arm and listen for the “thud” as my hand hits the bench. We laugh a lot as I have them try it – it’s challenging to relax all the weight into someone else’s hand and then let it drop.) I also have them practice FORTE in the bass, and if their hand is relaxed enough after the initial drop, they can feel the vibrations of the note run up their hand. They love that! Teaching PIANO is the opposite – I have them play a note so gently that they make no sound as the note is depressed all the way down. Then we practice pressing the note down faster and getting different sounds above silence. I’ve found these are great exercises for getting students to not only listen but also for how a dynamic feels in the body.
I agree with all the points above. I’d probably suggest the following two areas in conjunction with the points – I work on these from day 1 with every pupil, no matter what age:
1. Producing and recognising production of beautiful tone from the piano (it can be forte, piano, staccato or legato but the sound has to be great!). This means a pupil need to be taught how to listen out for the right quality of tone produced.
2. Sitting posture (helping the pupils to recognise and adjust the height of stool, footstool, right distance/ height from keys)… and to keep revisiting this as they grow!!!
I am especially thankful that Dayna and Louise brought up the playing ‘SLOW’ – it is a very valuable skill for life!
Great ideas. I encourage beginners to be musical detectives whereby they try to spot the musical clues as to how to play a piece. They eventually get really good at looking at dynamics and articulation etc and are able make a stab at these aspects from the word go.
Im one to use descriptive language with younger kids to produce the necessary dynamics and articulations. For instance the accent sign is a bird beak…he’s just waiting to squawk loud! The fermata is a frog eye peeking out from above the staff…lets wait here to see what he see’s. A phrase above is a beautiful rainbow to slide smoothly on; one under the notes is a rocker on a rocking chair…nice and smooth action. etc.
For younger-middle school kids, I always pseudo-shout ‘FORTE’ and whisper ‘PIANO’ in an over-exaggerated Italian accent. The kids get a kick out of it and it reinforces the meaning…