A List of Creative Projects for Piano Students
Every summer, I try to do something different with my students. Some years it’s a music camp requiring elaborate and careful planning and others years it’s just doing things “outside of the box.” I’ve been collecting different ideas for little out of the box projects students can do during the summer that might be different than their usual practice pieces. So I thought I’d share the list with you and encourage you to add your own ideas (and have your students add theirs as well).
Here’s the list of creative projects for piano students:
This summer, I wanted to motivate my students to do as many creative projects this summer as is possible. Here is the list of creative projects for piano students that I gave to mine (some are not terribly creative, but are just created to help them continue to make summer progress):
- Teach an easy piano piece to one of your parents. Video your parent performing the piece well (or as well as they can).
- Learn and perform a duet with another student.
- Perform a piece or a duet in a public event (for more than just your family).
- Complete a page of Rhythm Cup Explorations with a friend (you can send me a video).
- Try the all NEW Rhythm Cup Explorations 2 which comes with new cup tapping techniques!
- Create your own song on the piano. (You can use Pattern Play to help!)
- Arrange your own song on the piano.
-
Cartoon Motive Contest Draw a cartoon character (in color) and then compose 2 possible motives to represent that character.
- Notate your own song on the piano.
- Learn one song that you know by ear. Be able to play it accurately and fluently.
- Complete and video a Rhythm Manipulations page to enter in the Manipulations Challenge.
- Transpose a sharp piece into a flat piece or vice versa.
- Learn a song where you can sing and accompany yourself at the same time.
- Learn and demonstrate a 12 bar blues song.
- Perfect and memorize 1 new piece.
- Transpose a piece in your book to 2 other keys. (C major not allowed).
- Perfect 2 lesson book pieces (at least 16 measures long)
- Write out the chord progression of a song and then improvise on that chord progression with a beat on the clavinova or an app.
- Create a slideshow with pictures (of your choice) and record music that you composed, arranged, improvised, or perfected to use as the background.
- Create a special intro and ending to one of your favorite pieces (this is especially for kids who are hesitant to compose)
- Take a song without lyrics and add your own lyrics (thank you Barbara for this suggestion!)
- There’s tons more…I’m hoping you all will share in the comments below!
With any good plan, I think it’s important to provide motivation for students to actually execute the plan! Kids just have a hard time projecting into the future and seeing the finished project and how happy they’ll be with it. So, it’s important to provide motivation, especially in the summer. That’s where Andrea and Trevor Dow come in!
Andrea and Trevor Dow of Teach Piano Today are fantastically generous with their ideas, and their post on an “E-fish-ent Piano Practice Incentive” was what gave me the idea for motivation for this summer project. After telling them about the grand prize that the Dows thought of, my kids are so excited about this (from the young to the old) so I wanted to tell you why I like their idea so much and then you can head on over to their page and see how you can use their practice incentive or even just parts of their incentive for some summer fun.
Remember that one of my goals here on the ComposeCreate blog is to help everyone understand that creativity is NOT creating something new, but rather combining the elements and ideas that already exist in a new way. So, here’s an example of how I’ve adapted their great ideas to meet the summer needs of my own students.
First, why is their idea so good?
The prize is a beta fish, complete with a fish bowl and rocks! But besides the fantastic prize (which stirred up some mild controversy on my Facebook page, but for which I have an alternative), they provided a stellar poster for teachers to use which piqued my students curiosity since I posted it on the front door a week before I announced the sweepstakes
I’ve never really liked sweepstakes because only one person wins. But the great thing about this is that each creative project a student completes, they get an amazing amount of satisfaction because doing something creative is awesomely satisfying itself.
How does the Sweepstakes work?
For every creative project a student completes, the put a fish in the fishbowl with their name on it, just like the Trevors did. I ordered these cute little vinyl fish from Amazon and told my students that they could keep every fish they earned.
At the end of the summer, I will draw a name and the winner will go home with the betta fish that has been in our studio all summer, complete with a tank, and decorative rocks.
There’s controversy over the grand prize?
Yes, I asked teachers what they thought of this on my Facebook page, and several said that they were concerned that some parents wouldn’t want their child coming home with a fish. But Andrea posted that after she had drawn the winner, she called the parents to make sure that it was okay. In my studio, I told my kids that if their parents didn’t want them to have a fish, I’d pick an appropriately different grand prize (which will probably be a $10 gift card).
I have heard from over half of my families that their kids are super motivated about this new contest! Thank you Andrea and Trevor Dow for sharing your talents and ideas with piano teachers! Please visit their great post “E-fish-ent Piano Practice Incentive” for the great poster, details on how they used it to motivate more practice, and more!
If you have any other ideas for creative projects for piano students, please share them in the comments!
I sometimes ask students to take a music-only piece and write lyrics. They can write lyrics to match the title, or give it a different title to go with their lyrics. You may be surprised at how many syllables a student tries to get into an eighth note:) It’s a good teaching tool about how lyrics and rhythm go together, but ultimately the goal is for the student to see they can be creative!
Barbara, That’s a fantastic idea! I just added it to the list. Thanks for sharing!
This is great! I’m going to adapt this to a scavenger hunt style for next winter to keep my students motivated while I have a brief maternity leave. A couple other ideas:
– The Dows’ post about writing a song, sealing it in an envelope and leaving it for someone to find. http://www.teachpianotoday.com/2013/07/11/how-to-involve-your-piano-kids-in-a-simple-do-good-feel-good-project/
– Find a public piano and play a song, if you have pianos available for playing in your area. Where I live there is a piano at a local ice cream shop, and a local summer thing called Pianos on Parade where art pianos are strewn about the city for people to play.
This list is great! I will definitely be passing it out to students next week! One more idea – Create your own rhythm cup pattern and perform it with friends.
How about planning and performing an entire recital (it doesn’t have to be long). Choose a theme, and find and learn pieces which fit, then design and create invitations and a program.
I only have a few students currently and wanted to motivate the 2 youngs boy students who have just started piano. I wanted something fun for them to do, since summertime is a time to be outside playing (being inside practicing piano is NOT as fun this time of year!). So, I created the LEGO challenge. For every 10 minutes of practice or theory work, they get to stack a LEGO brick on a base when they come to their lesson each week. Our goal is 1000 minutes of practice for the summer, which isn’t that much. Needless to say they are excited. After 1000 minutes, which is 100 blocks stacked up, they will get to choose a prize from the prize basket. Don’t know if I’ll find inexpensive LEGO sets to throw in there, but I’ll look.
That’s a fantastic idea, Lisa! I have boys in my studio that would love to have a challenge and reward like this! Thanks for sharing!
Lisa, what type of items do you put in the prize basket? Do all the students get to pick out of the basket for other challenges?
Well, given that I am a newbie at this, I went to Target and found items that were $1-2/ each. Insect nets, puzzles, playdoh and such. These are 2 young boys, ages 7-8, so they are looking for active type items. I only have 5 students since I just opened my studio a few months ago.
A simple way to start students thinking about composition is first to have them make a list of words using the music alphabet. (egg, badge, face, and so on) Next, have them notate the word on the treble staff. Next have them notate the word in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 or 6/8 meter signatures. After that, one could introduce simple harmony by adding chord letters above the word melody lead sheet style, and then introduce the bass clef that leads into chording and triads.