If you’re like me, then there’s nothing better than watching two of your students create awesome music together. There’s just something fabulous about seeing even the youngest of children collaborate and enjoy music-making together.
Maybe it’s the fact that piano can be such a solitary instrument. Or maybe it’s because piano duets are just so aurally satisfying. Whatever the reason, duets in your studio can be a fabulous teaching tool and are something that can really boost the enthusiasm of your students.
How To Make Duets Actually Work; Avoiding The Struggle
For some students who have never played with a partner before, a duet pairing can rapidly become a complete disaster. And because complete disasters are often discouraging, you’d probably like to avoid this from happening.
Check out our 4 Tips for Successful Piano Student Duets below.. and be sure to check out the link at the bottom where we’re giving away a really cute sibling duet too!
1. Teach your students to count in on their own. A successful duet starts with a coordinated entrance. Practice having your students count in and and then just playing the first few notes of the piece. Practice this over and over and over until it’s completely syncronized. So many students depend on a teacher to count them in and can be like a fish out of water once the teacher isn’t there to fulfill his or her counting duties.
2. Teach your students to listen to their partner. Duet partners need to be able to listen as they play to know if they need to pause, slow down or catch up to their partner if something goes wrong mid-performance.
You can play many different games to teach this ability, but my favorite is “Tag you’re it!”. I stand behind my students and quietly tap one of them on the shoulder as they play. This signals that they are to either slow down, stop or speed up. It is their partner’s job to match them. A second tap means return to normal and the process is repeated until the piece is over.
3. Teach your students to sense their partner’s dynamics, phrasing etc. This is tied in with learning to listen as you play, but so much of what we sense about dynamics and phrasing comes from our partner’s body movements as well. Learning to not only listen, but also watch and sense a duet partner’s movement will allow your students to better match dynamics and phrasing (and entrances).
4. Teach your students to find their “Safety zones” and give each a name so that mid-way through a performance one can whisper “start at ___” and they both know what that means. Practice calling out “stop!” and having them choose the appropriate safety zone on the fly. These come in handy as it eliminates any sort of discussion that may happen when something goes wrong and a seamless re-entry or re-start can happen quickly.
The Perfect Opportunity To Try These Tips Out
Because we love duets and because duets with siblings are often much easier to coordinate than they are with non-related students, today we’re giving you the sheet music to a cute little duet designed for a student at approximately Level 2 and a student at approximately Level 1 in the hopes that you can use it with a sibling pairing at those levels (or a pairing of two great friends!) in your studio.
Click here to grab your copy of the Level 1/2 Duet “Bluesy Kidz”. Have fun!
Love our fun take on supplementary reperotire? Try out PianoBookClub and receive an entire book of music every month (with unlimited photocopying/printing rights) for just $8!
Thank you for this great article. It comes just in time for a couple of students who either are or soon will be at the “play your first duet” part of their method book. And since the author chose a horrible one by Bruckner I’m always on the hunt for cute and exciting duets. They’ll love Bluezy Kidz!!
So glad to hear it Jessica! Hope your students have fun with it 🙂
I am a fan of duets!!!Thank you so much for posting about it.Sometimes students complain about playing with metronome then its time to play duet this way they are forced to play on the beat and enjoying while playing the duet!!!!
This is true Rachel – a duet partner is a wonderful “living metronome” 🙂
Wonderful tips for teaching duets. I especially like “Tag You’re It.” Thanks for the Bluesy Kids music. I love getting my students to play duets. Hey some trios would be nice…got any of those up your sleeve in the future???? Thanks again:)
Hi Barbara! A trio book is a beast to write… but I’m up for the challenge (it’s actually on our PianoBookClub future release list) 😉
Thanks for the duet:). I like to have some duets for my end of year recital, the children enjoy them too.
I love the idea of naming the ‘safety zones’ — so much more fun than “go back to bar16”! ….I certainly will use this duet in my year end recital!
I have twin sisters now working on Scooch (Piano Club). It is their major project for this semester and they really have stepped up to the plate. I think it will be a real crowd pleaser!!
Scooch has been a hit at two of my recitals Sandra – it always gets a giggle! Glad they’re having fun with it 🙂
Thanks for the duet. I have two brothers who it will be perfect for. I always enjoyed playing duets when I was learning and I’m sure they really helped when I started accompanying singers.
Glad you can put the due to good use Ann! 🙂
Thank you for the duet! I have started using Christopher Norton’s Popular American Piano series. Although it can’t be a substitute for live ensemble playing, my students LOVE to play these pieces with the backup CD. They not only have to play with precise rhythm, but also to learn how to respond to nuances in the recorded tempo and to recover when they stumble while playing with the CD.
Thank you so much for this duet!!
Awesome, thanks!