Thank you to all the Kansas City teachers who came to the workshop I gave today. Here is more information and links to many of the things that I have referenced:
1. Here is Carol Klose’s inspiring quote, along with more of what she had to say about students composing.
2. Here are some articles on this site discussing teaching composition to students. There are 3 pages of articles here, so don’t forget to go to the bottom and click “older entries” to see more.
3. Read about and print handouts from the Theme and Variations Challenge on Jingle Bells I am doing with my studio this year.
4. Watch the video segment for Developing the Ear, the point that we did not have time to cover at the workshop. Print the Ear Pieces handout that I gave out in the workshop today.
5. “Be creative yourself” was one of the points I made to help inspire your students to be creative. I have been a part of several of the many online forums of piano teachers who regularly share their magnificent ideas for teaching piano. Find out more here:
- Pianoteaching.com-This is the Faber’s online piano teaching forum. Here you can post questions or just read all of the wonderfully creative answers that teachers give to others’ questions. This forum is not an email forum, so it does not come directly to your email inbox. You can simply read it online, but you must login before you can post or answer questions. Even if you don’t join, this is fabulous website to visit often (as in every day)!
- Yahoo Piano Teachers – This is a forum that you can read online or have the messages delivered to your email inbox individually or in a bulk summary.
- Pno-Ped-l – This is an email forum only. You can post questions or just read others questions and answers by subscribing. Each question and answer will come to your email inbox, so there may be days when you have a lot of emails and days when you only have a few. Within Microsoft Outlook, I designate that all of the messages from this address (the pno-ped address) go to a separate email inbox so that I am not overwhelmed and I can stay organized in my email correspondence.
6. You can read the questions that were asked by KMTA members when I first gave this lecture.
- When do you have your students first begin writing down their compositions?
- Do you have your beginning students use notation programs?
- How do you get your students to compose outside the scale of C Major?
7. Here are the books I recommended today for encouraging and teaching composition:
Scales, Patterns and Improvs published by Hal Leonard. Available with or without an accompaniment CD.
Music By Me published by FJH. Available in levels 1-5
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8. Here is a list of pieces and books that were showcased today. You can get these at your local music store, or order through Music Dispatch (Hal Leonard), Piano Pal, Prima Music, or Piano at Pepper.
Easy Hymn Solos Level 1, Elementary: HL 00311878
Easy Hymn Solos Level 2, Late Elementary: HL 00311879
Easy Hymn Solos Level 3, Intermediate: HL 00311880
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Twister, Level 3, HL 00296774
Irish Celebration, Level 1 HL 00296803
Piano Recital Showcase, Pre-staff HL 00296784
Check out Hal Leonard’s new “Closer Look” feature which allows you to see contents and pdf samples of the book.
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How Sweet the Sound, late intermediate, published by Augsburg Fortress, available here.
See sample pages here.
All is Calm, All is Bright, advanced, published by Augsburg Fortress, available here.
From now until Saturday, November 21st, you will receive a free CD for every book purchased.
