Teacher Dreamaurora - Piano Q&A

[sacredmusicals]

Hi dreamaurora,


a quick question. Do you have any recommendations on repertoire books for younger children around grade 1-3 that sound more catchy and tuneful?

[Dreamaurora]

sacredmusicals:

Hi dreamaurora,


a quick question. Do you have any recommendations on repertoire books for younger children around grade 1-3 that sound more catchy and tuneful?

Quite a lot of choices actually:
Piano Time Pieces Book 1-3
Pianoworks Collection 1 and 2
Simply Classics Grades 1-3
Janina Garscia's Miniatures
Elissa Milne's Little Peppers Series

ABRSM and Trinity also have plenty anthologies for lower grades but not all the pieces inside will appeal to children.

[sacredmusicals]

Thanks so much for the reply.

[sacredmusicals]

One more question if you do not mind. What kind of practice structure you adopt for your student to ensure all the sections for exams are all well prepared?

[Dreamaurora]

sacredmusicals:

One more question if you do not mind. What kind of practice structure you adopt for your student to ensure all the sections for exams are all well prepared?

This is quite a broad question to answer. For a student preparing an exam, I would recommend that 1/3 of the practice time per day dedicated to scales/arpeggios, technical studies, and sight reading. Then the rest of the time work on the pieces. Adjust the percentage accordingly to students' needs. Scales and arpeggios no need to play everything every single day, but should rotate accordingly. Technical studies like Hanon, Czerny, and other etudes are necessary as well to ensure proper development of techniques that will serve the higher grades well. Sight reading, often the most neglected section, must at least try to learn one easier piece standard around 3-4 grades lower every week. Alternatively can learn a duet to be played with the teacher also. Aural no need to do homework at home unless really weak, do for 5-10 minutes per lesson per week from time of registration should be enough.

I will elaborate a little more also. As I have mentioned before, to comfortably progress and pass the graded exams every year a student should practice from 25 minutes to 1 hour per day. For merit, distinction, or plan to accelerate the grades of course have to practice more accordingly. I am aware that some students may find this hard to do because of their busy schedule. It is ok to take your time to prepare for an exam, but speaking from an experience, for grade 1-5 at least 2 pieces and 75% of the scales must be completed at point of registration and for grade 6-8 all pieces and scales are completed at registration. This will ensure a comfortable progression towards the actual exam and also to give enough buffer for other activities such as school term exams. Two months before the exam ideally the student should be fully exam ready and the remaining time spent to do polishing to push the standard into merit or distinction. Remember, you go into an exam to try to score, not to try to pass.

[sacredmusicals]

Thanks for the informative reply. However, I wonder, your requirements for students seem to be quite steep. If say a student takes an exam in September, then he will have only approximately four to 5 months to learn 2 or 3 pieces plus all the scales. In reality even less time because the students need to study for year end exams and go for holiday. So I am curious, do all your students manage to meet your requirements?

[Dreamaurora]

To be honest, no. In reality i had to make some exceptions to accomodate some students. Like for example, i have an adult student who wanted to take grade 7 trinity. But owing to his hectic schedule, he could only practice at most 30 minutes a day, and some days even none. He took a total of almost two years to pass the exam. I had to advise him once not to register because his pieces are not ready. He of course managed to pass in the end but he was realistic about his result and i think it was quite a good job considering it is extremely difficult for adult beginners to get where he is.


I also made exceptions for exceptionally hardworking students. Like recently i let a student of mine register for grade 7 exam despite having only one piece ready. But she assured me that she would practice extremely hard because she really wanted to progress and in the end i am quite pleased with her merit result.

So, as you can see, teaching is not exactly as straightforward as it is. As a teacher we must be able to strike a balance between perfection and fun. Too much perfection will cause death of interest in student and too much fun will cause a student to be stagnant.

[Dreamaurora]

And as for your question how to learn the pieces in such a short time. Actually the students should be working on the next grade pieces the moment the pieces for the exams are completed. So let say my student take exam in September, he should finish his pieces latest by may if he has followed my requirement of 2 pieces by February. Beside polishing up, new pieces should be started also to maintain the progress and to prevent the students from getting bored.

[violet04]

Dreamaurora:

I have decided to start this thread to help parents here answer burning questions about their children's piano lessons or piano pieces. Ask me anything under the sun except about choosing pianos or teacher recommendation since there are already other threads for that. I will try my best to answer the questions based on my experience as a teacher

Hi Dreamaurora,
May i know the meaning of the following comments from ABRSM Examiner. Thks

\"The fingers lacked enough support. The fingers would have benefited from more support from the weight of a relaxed arm.\"

[Dreamaurora]

violet04:

Dreamaurora:

I have decided to start this thread to help parents here answer burning questions about their children's piano lessons or piano pieces. Ask me anything under the sun except about choosing pianos or teacher recommendation since there are already other threads for that. I will try my best to answer the questions based on my experience as a teacher

Hi Dreamaurora,
May i know the meaning of the following comments from ABRSM Examiner. Thks

\"The fingers lacked enough support. The fingers would have benefited from more support from the weight of a relaxed arm.\"

If an examiner writes this, most likely your child's playing suffers from weak or overly soft tone, quite common among young children in lower grades. There are a few factors that may cause this, such as:
- poor hand posture and curvature, some young ones like to play with fingers almost completely flat and with dropped wrists below the keyboard.
- home piano keys too light and the exam piano heavy. Can be somewhat remedied by sufficient rehearsal at exam venue.

Do note that this is just a guess. If you can provide me with a video I would be able to advise you better.