In my “not-a-piano-teacher” life I don’t have a lot of pet peeves. Okay, so it bugs me when tourists take pictures with their massive iPads… and when my socks slide down inside my boots… but other than that… I’m pretty even keeled.
But inside the piano studio, there is something that drives me absolutely bonkers! Want to know what it is?…
When a piano student reaches the end of his method book and cannot easily play the pieces at the beginning. Ugh… I just totally did a little “shake it off” wiggle to lose that mental image…. and now that song is stuck in my head. Which reminds me of another pet peeve named Taylor Swift…. but I digress.
Piano Piece Passports and How to Use Them
It makes perfect sense to me that if a student has reached the end of his method book, then the pieces at the beginning should be ready to perform at the drop of a hat. It is for this reason that I don’t “check off” a piece (I use POP instead… read about that here).
Another strategy that I use, and that I’ll discuss in the rest of this post (and share a free printable for!) is “Piano Piece Passports”.
What is a Piano Piece Passport?
A Piano Piece Passport is a way of providing a moment of reflection before moving on after a piece is completed. A Piano Piece Passport is made up of a Passport Cover (link below) followed by 3 sticky notes. The cover is taped to the sticky notes and then the entire booklet (passport) is taped to a completed piece. On each sticky note inside the Piano Piece Passport is a student reflection pertaining to the completed piece.
The 2 Step Process To Using Piano Piece Passports:
Step 1 – Filling out the passport questions.
After a piece is “completed”, the first step in this activity is to answer one of the following questions on each of the 3 pages (sticky notes) on the Piano Piece Passport. These questions are just samples. You and your piano student can certainly have different discussions.
1) What was the most difficult part of this piece and why?
2) What was helpful when learning this piece?
4) My favourite part of this piece was ______
3) I still have a question about (or trouble with) ____
4) My favourite part of this piece was ______
5) If I were to teach someone to play this piece, I would be sure to _______
These simple little questions provide two very important things 1) a moment of reflection for your student where he actively reviews his own learning and 2) a chance for insights on your part…. are there common themes emerging from piece to piece?
Step 2 – Revisiting each piece and stamping the passport
As your student completes regular review of his pieces, ask him to also refer to his passport and to reflect on each answer on each of the sticky notes. Every time you assign a “passport piece” for review, add a passport “stamp” (or small sticker) to the passport cover to show how often he has “traveled back in time”.
Because We Love Ya… Here’s the Printable
If you want to add Piano Piece Passports to your students’ review, you can print the template below. Simply cut out the squares, attach them to a set of 3 post-it-notes, use one post-it note per “reflection question” and tape the bundle to the top of each completed piece.
Click here to download and print Piano Piece Passports. These fit your average 3×3 post-it notes. Have fun!
