Hi,

I'm wondering if any of you can help me with teaching ideas. More specifically if any of you know the piece in Upgrade 0-1 'Make Way for the King' the second section has runs of quavers between right and left hand. How would you explain the way to play this section evenly?

I've tried marching around the room (OK)
I've tried counting out loud various things (1,2,3,4 or t,t,t,t etc) (also ok)

Pupil takes it away and on return the quavers are all uneven and jerky again!
Incidentally the pupil can play 2 octaves of scales without too much trouble.
Is this a technique that will just develop over time? Are there some useful mini exercises to supplement this?

I expect I'll find out all this when I do the CTABRSM that I'm working up to doing , but until then any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks very much

Haven't got the piece in front of me, so guessing a bit.
but you might try tapping rhythms with hands on knees - start simple with steady crotchets one hand, then both hands, then quavers, and build up so that the quaver / hand pattern is precisely as it is in the piece (eg RRRRLLLL or RRLLRRLL, or whatever it is). Hope that is clear - it's easier to do than to describe I think. Your pupil could invent variations on this - RLLL, LRRL etc, all useful practice in keeping even and steady.

It sounds as if your pupil might be hearing the rhythm wrongly in his/her head (although what you have already done is good and should have helped with that) , OR is possibly is having to pause to find the note here and there, ie is hearing the rhythm correctly but not quite able to play it that way.

Hope something here helps.

I sometimes find that if you clap the pulse while your pupil claps the rhythm and then swap over it helps.
It might just be establishing the relationship between pulse and rhythm that is the problem.

When I read your thread title I didn't realise "Make way for the King" was a piece - I thought you were referring to yourself and were going to tell me about some fantastic piano teaching technique you had discovered....

xxx

HA HA! Sorry no, I'm a 'beginner' teacher :-)
So I have alot to learn!!




Thanks maggiemay,

I do use that technique with my students.
I think you're right - part of the problem is that the student is not 100% certain of the notes - I can see that he literally tenses up and pyschologically there's probably a bit of 'here comes the tricky bit' going on in his head.

That's why I was trying to give him something else to think about (like counting) to distract him from the 'tricky' part.

I'll keep trying!

If my pupils get stuck on a rhythm I try and make up a little sentence which goes with the rhythm they're stuck on. They say the rhythm as they play the notes. One of my pupils was doing this piece and she was stuck on the rhythm at the beginning - think it's crotchet, quaver quaver, crotchet, crotchet. So I made up some words to go with this rhythm - the sillier the words the better. It worked a charm.

Have you tried getting him to sing it? And then sing it as he plays it. Or sing it and walk the rhythm at the same time? Good luck!

rhythm clapping! Or you could resort to the metronome!

I occasionally put pupils back on periods of practicing with a metonome. If they survive a week without throwing the infuriating object out of a window it normally serves the trick!

I've had very little success with pupils and metronomes - at least not prior to Grade 5. They hate it - and I remember hating it myself. (And my own son "inadvertently" dropped my digital one down the toilet - don't ask...) I've had more positive feedback from nodding heads and tapping feet - and even chomping teeth!

I hope you bought a new one.......... (instead of........well, I won't write any more......... )

If he is panicing about the tricky bit coming up why not get him to play the rhythm with different notes. Leave the book shut and ask him to "compose" a tune using a run of 4 right hand notes followed by four left hand notes. The right hand could be playing at the top of the keyboard and the left at the other end but it might get the rhythm into him without worrying about the correct notes.
I'm not sure I,ve explained this very well but I have used the idea very successfully before now.

Yes I've tried the singing, he loves singing luckily (I have some who won't even open their mouths...!)
Unfortunately his singing follows his playing, not the other way round!

haven't tried the singing and walking though - that sounds interesting, thanks!




Hey, good idea! I will try that too :-)

thanks very much everyone for all your suggestions - I'll let you know what works for me if you like!

I have found that once a pupil gets a rhythm firmly and wrongly entrenched in their head it is very difficult indeed to change it. You might be better to ditch the piece for the moment, do lots of general pulse and rhythm work and maybe return to that piece at a much later date when his basic rhythms including quavers are more secure.

Good for you that you are doing the CT course. Try and get yourself on a Kodaly course. You will learn about this on The Ct course. It is the most fabulous way of learning skills for teaching rhythmic concepts and singing is used as the vehicle through which all the fundamentals of musicianship are learnt. It would give you a wealth of new ideas and might interest you. Good luck!

Thanks :-)

Where do I find out about a kodaly course?

Also looking into the EPTA course I read about somewhere on the forums recently.

decisons decisions!!


[quote name='Hammerklavier' date='Oct 12 2006, 10:20 PM' post='406741']

[/quote]

Good for you that you are doing the CT course. Try and get yourself on a Kodaly course. You will learn about this on The Ct course. It is the most fabulous way of learning skills for teaching rhythmic concepts and singing is used as the vehicle through which all the fundamentals of musicianship are learnt. It would give you a wealth of new ideas and might interest you. Good luck!
[/quote]

It may not be rhythmic problems, but maybe just fingering. Even now, in the Mozart Fantasia in D minor, there is this really awkward part with semi quavers to quaver notes and i cant get it even, so start really slow, and then gradually, gradually speed up.

Hello!
I used that piece in my last concert - the pupil who played it really liked the first part of the piece, but didn't like the next part (with the quavers) because he had the same problems as your pupil. (It is rather an odd section, isn't it?) I tried getting him to practise with the metronome and it did help, but then the problem came back when he had to play without it. We tried playing all the quavers with one hand (like scales) so that he could hear how it should sound and that helped a bit, but it's the changing from one hand to the other which is obviously so difficult for a pupil without a really strong sense of rhythm. You could try playing the quavers as dotted quavers and semiquavers, as that often helps to strengthen the fingers and will hopefully make the even quavers easier to play afterwards.
Good luck!
Jenny

I always advise people to practice runs of quavers in a dotted rhythm - it makes sure they have control of over their fingers, as well as practising pairs of notes very fast. Once they can do it the obvious way (i.e. long short long short) then turn it round - short long, short long. This is much harder, but if they can do both well then paradoxically they always seem to be able to play them smoothly as well.

(I practise like this a lot myself, too. Bach Preludes sound much more fun when dotted!)

Thanks for the advice - is it a good idea to use dotted rhythms with a pre grade 1 sudent though? Wouldn't that just confuse the issue?

I do use the technique myself though and it works for me - so I suppose I just need to explain it clearly enough.

thanks again everyone for your helpful suggestions

[quote name='staccato' date='Oct 12 2006, 10:36 PM' post='406746']
Thanks :-)

Where do I find out about a kodaly course?

Also looking into the EPTA course I read about somewhere on the forums recently.

decisons decisions!!


[quote name='Hammerklavier' date='Oct 12 2006, 10:20 PM' post='406741']

[/quote]

Good for you that you are doing the CT course. Try and get yourself on a Kodaly course. You will learn about this on The Ct course. It is the most fabulous way of learning skills for teaching rhythmic concepts and singing is used as the vehicle through which all the fundamentals of musicianship are learnt. It would give you a wealth of new ideas and might interest you. Good luck!
[/quote]
[/quote]

Go onto google and type in British Kodaly Association and it should direct you to their website and there are contact details there. Also, you might like to PM Cyrilla and see if she can help. She runs courses which are stunningly brilliant (I know because I've been on them!) and if you are local to her, you might be able to get onto one of hers. Cyrilla does the Kodaly workshop on the CT course so more than likely you will meet her and have your eyes opend very wide as I did!!

Hope that helps.

HK

It's also worth looking at the MTPP course, I got absolutely loads out of the first module of the course. It's a distance learning course at Reading University, don't be put off if you don't have a music degree, so long as you can play around diploma level they seem to let you on.

Sorry I've taught "Make way for the King", and I can't see how going on a Kodaly course is going to help here over and above any other teaching pedagogy. (Please remember I'm normally pro Kodaly, but where is going ta ta ti-ti going to beat clapping the rhythm)

well, we all make mistakes!
I wasn't over-keen on Upgrade either.

I'm not diploma level yet but I'm working on it!

But if I pass my OU exams next week I will have a BA of which music is a substantial part. Does that count?





I don't much like the piece either but it is the set piece for a festival my student wants to do.

I don't much like the piece either but it is the set piece for a festival my student wants to do.
I sympathise - that's really annoying when that happens.

The point I was making about a Kodaly course is not so that anybody can teach Make Way For the King but rather, to give new insights into the whole area of rhythmic awareness and inner hearing and how it might be taught in a way that makes a piece like this easier to learn from a rhythmic perspective amongst others. Inner hearing is absolutely key here and most of the time the reasons why difficulties are experienced with these kinds of situations is because of a lack of awareness of inner hearing especially when it comes to playing what might be considered a difficult rhythm in time with the pulse.

There are frequent occasions where people post about their difficulties with a particular piece and they will often say that they can do it slowly but when it comes to increasing the tempo, it goes wrong. This is where I believe Kodaly as a general approach would be helpful to anybody.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail....

Ha-Ha....! That has to be the funniest reply I've ever seen. Thanks for making me laugh so much!!

I don't regard it as a mistake, the student loved it and played it very well... especially the rhythm... which we clapped!

[quote name='staccato' date='Oct 14 2006, 07:57 PM' post='407580']
I'm not diploma level yet but I'm working on it!

But if I pass my OU exams next week I will have a BA of which music is a substantial part. Does that count?

Yes, a Degree is higher than a Diploma......you will have to apply to the OU for the 'Music Diploma' part BEFORE they register your qualification as a BA only.

Stupid rules of the OU, but I got my BA Hons qualification and subsequently thought, like you, that I should have a Diploma ( well, it's an extra one) as my degree was all music courses. Anyway, they said they cannot do it after the event...I should have told them I wanted a Diploma as I went along. The Diploma is a 'freebie' ....and silly me didn't know this silly rule.

Thats the good news.

The bad new is....... the OU let me down on the practical musianship part...there was no training as such that you would get doing a Music Diploma. Luckily I've always had lessons, way past my Grade 8 and am well up to AS Diploma level, without doing this exam.

So, I do think Music Diploma standard in the Practical sense is so important if you want to teach an instument. If you see what I mean.

Good luck.

I was encouraged to teach piano, even though it was my second study at degree level by a number of good local teachers.

I don't have a CT ABRSM. I do have a formal Music Degree. If I need advice I ask my own teacher. Thus far I have not, and my pupils exam results speak for themselves, especially the comments about their posture and technique.

I also teach the Oboe, another one of my second study instruments. Fortunately it was my first study when I did A Level Performing Music in 1987 and I learnt a lot abour the history of the instrument there.

Voice is my first instrument, and i did a years Instrumental Knowledge Course as and Undergraduate, and it is an area that facinates me so much, I have continued to study it.

Now back to "Make Way For the King" My pupil loved it and played it very well.

To be able to teach a musical instrument requires more than pieces of paper. I just love the rappor I get with my pupils and that fact that none of them "thump the piano" nor do the play with straight fingers and hunched shoulders.

Wise words....that's why I've not taken the DipABRSM. I have my OU Music Degree, and confidence that I am a half decent player after learning for 30 years plus!

Apart from the fact also, that I don't think I could bear to write any more essays ever, ever again!