The first few weeks back to piano lessons should be all about relationship building. Taking the time to develop a positive rapport and good working relationship with your students will set your studio up for a fantastic year.
And one of the best rapport building tools is, of course, creating music together. Which is why I always turn to improv activities during my first few weeks of lessons.
Improv activities allow me and my students to have a blast creating music without the onerous time required to learn a duet… which means the rapport-building power of creating music together can begin on the very first lesson after a break.
In today’s post we’re sharing a rockin’ improv activity that will have your students leaving lessons with huge smiles and boatloads of motivation.
The Rock Your Way Back To School Improv
Our improv activities are so easy to implement that you can be enjoying them in less than five minutes from now… even if this is the first time in your life that you have ever taught improv. Just follow along with the instructions below:
Step 1
Print, laminate and cut out the improv cards found in The Rock Your Way Back To School Improv Pack. Print out The Rock Your Way Back To School Teacher Duet.
Step 2
With your student, clap the rhythm of each “Back To School” sentence. If your student would rather make up his own sentence, we’ve included a blank card.
Step 3
Have your student choose any two cards and then remove the other cards from the piano.
Step 4
With his fingers in the C 5-Finger scale, have your student play the rhythms on the cards selected in Step 3 on a single key and then experiment with different “white key” melodies to match the two rhythms on his selected cards.
Step 5
Begin playing the teacher duet included in The Rock Your Way Back To School Improv Pack. When your student is ready, he can join in playing a melody (from Step 4) that matches one or both of the rhythm cards selected in Step 3 (in an octave that doesn’t interfere with your part).
As he becomes more comfortable, your student can add more cards/rhythms to your duet, change up his chosen melodies, or even experiment with some “off the cuff” creations! Be sure to tag us in your Facebook and Instagram videos! We always love to see our improv creations in action 🙂
Looking For More Back To Lessons Fun?
If you are looking for more music to rock your studio when students return to lessons then check out Cob Webster: Launching Off With Lead Sheets… our most recent release from PianoBookClub.
This looks like a fun activity for ‘back to lessons’!
Exactly! 🙂 Hope you get great use out of it Sandra!
I’ve been to Office Depot and have my cards laminated and ready to use with a couple of today’s students!
Great Yvonne! Hope you have fun 🙂
I was hoping you would come up with something like this to grab the students’ attention at the first lesson!
Tell me something: when you video them, do you use phone, iPad, video camera or something else?
I just use my iPhone Jan! Nothing fancy. If it’s too fancy then I avoid doing it and then it never gets done. The perfectionist in me has learned that *something* is better than nothing 🙂
Wonderful timing – term starts the week after next, so I’m just getting sorted for those first lessons back. This is perfect because I can use it with almost every student and they’ll love it – thank you so much (and for Cob Webster and my August game set, both of which I’m itching to use :-))
Hi Elaine – you sound like you’re primed for a fantastic start to lessons 🙂 Happy our resources are a part of that for you!
Cob Webster is a hit….the pieces vary from simple to sophisticated. Everyone’s happy! My students learned how to read a lead sheet in minutes. Thumbs up!
Hi Donna – I’m so happy to hear it! 🙂
Thank you so much for this awsome material. Im teaching percussion groups and guitar as well and this back to schoolrhythm worked so well.Thanks for being fresh and creative!
Very cool Sanne! Glad you could put it to such good use 🙂
We’re going to use this for the first few WEEKS of lessons. Also, I’m giving the Teacher Duet to my more advanced students. Going to have them make a video that improv students can play along with. LOVE!! And…THANKS!!
Great idea Kelly! Sounds so fun 🙂
You have the wrong rhythm for the phrase – “buzz goes the school bell. – It should be quarter, eighth, eighth, quarter, quarter – not quarter, 4 eighths, quarter
We discovered that too at the first lesson I used them for. My student just made up an extra word to go at the end: Ding! My students really loved this: their favorite hands down was: Too much homework!!!!
I think it must be a Canadian thing Colleen… We pronounce “school” with two syllables 🙂 feel free to modify it of you want to using the blank card we provide. Funny – never noticed this difference in how to say school until now!
Hi, just wanted to let you know that this worked brilliantly with my students as a back to school lesson 🙂 One of my students even came to her next lesson having made improv cards of her own!
Thrilled to hear it Samantha! Thanks so much for writing to let us know!