— Transcript —

You can sense when a child’s enthusiasm and interest is beginning to wane. And it could be for a variety of reasons, some of which we have no control over.

But finding just the right repertoire for a student that has the highest chance of making them eager to keep reaching for that next step, that is something we can influence. Sometimes a student just needs a quick and easy win.

I’m sure you’re already familiar with this genre and have your own favorites. It’s pieces which provide lots of bang for their buck, punch above their weight class, provide a high return on a small investment. Choose your favorite figure of speech.

But serving up one of these pieces to a frustrated or burnt out student at just the right time, it can make the difference between rekindling that spark and giving them confidence to continue or needing to fill an empty slot at 530 on Tuesday evenings.

Today, I’m playing for you three pieces for elementary and intermediate students that you might want to add to your quick win toolbox. Pieces with patterns, personality, and power, but without quite so much painful practice required.

And if that’s not enough alliteration for you, stay tuned to hear what’s coming up next on the Piano Pedagogy Playlist.

Greetings and welcome. I sincerely hope you’re all doing well.

My name is Luke Bartolomeo. I’m a pianist, a teacher, and also a developer of music education apps for children, including Rhythm Swing.

And speaking of Rhythm Swing, I’d like to take just a quick moment to extend an invitation to any teachers out there who would like to help me test out the next version of the app. If you haven’t used it before, Rhythm Swing is an app for iPad and iPhone that’s designed to help students drill and reinforce their understanding of note values, rests, and common rhythmic patterns.

Students practice tapping along with on-screen rhythms, and eventually they progress to an adventure-style game in which accuracy is the key to survival. Rhythm Swing uses gameplay to make practice engaging, but its purpose is serious, helping students build a stronger rhythmic foundation.

Each level builds on what the student has already learned, and students are motivated to put in the repetition required to master new concepts. The app’s almost ready to be released to the public, but I’m looking for some adventurous teachers willing to test it out in advance in their own studios.

If you’re interested, visit beta.rhythmswing.com. That’s beta, B-E-T-A, dot rhythmswing, dot com. And enter your email address into the sign-up form.

I’ll send you instructions on how you can get your hands on this preview version of Rhythm Swing.

Now, on to today’s music. We’ll start off with a piece by Jennifer Lin.

You may already be familiar with her works, especially her many collections of pieces in impressionistic styles at varying levels. Hummingbird is a zippy little number that is reminiscent of a Debussy prelude scaled way down to late elementary level.

The right hand consists of repeating two-note patterns with some eventual variation, and the left hand has to travel more around the keyboard, but there are patterns to be found there as well. It’s a good exercise in developing speed and evenness.

And a student who has the requisite control could ramp this up to a really quick tempo. After all, hummingbirds can beat their wings up to 80 times per second. That’s 4,800 beats per minute.

I’ll go for a slightly more musical interpretation. Here is Jennifer Lin’s Hummingbird.

🎹🎶

Interestingly, that’s the second example of a piece titled Hummingbird on the podcast. The other being by Seymour Bernstein.

And that one’s definitely not fitting into the quick and easy category we’re exploring today. But I’ll drop a link in the description to that episode if you’d like to hear it.

Next, we’re going to look at another piece with repeating patterns in the right hand and a traveling left hand, but with a different aim. The challenges in Ann Crosby Gaudet’s The Waterfall are more musical rather than technical.

It’s played entirely on the black keys. And though it’s listed as early intermediate level, I think a young student might find it even more approachable than hummingbird, which we just heard.

This is a case of knowing what your student needs. If a quick win for a student would mean something a little flashier that leaves the listener breathless after the final bar, hummingbird’s the right choice.

If the student would benefit more from something that would allow them to create an expansive sonic atmosphere without much technical or reading difficulties, then this piece, The Waterfall, is probably the better option.

🎹🎶

Now, if there’s one composer that I think of as my absolute go-to when I need a pupil saver, something that’s going to sound with it and impressive without requiring a huge amount of effort, that composer would be Daniel McFarlane. His website is chock-full of these types of pieces, and he makes it very easy to sort through them with filters labeled jazzy, sneaky, quirky.

I found this particular piece a few years back by checking a combination of easy but impressive and epic. This piece does not sound easy, and it definitely takes some time to work it up to tempo, but the learning of it is fairly painless.

I figure that if in the lesson I can get the student playing the first eight measures or so at a decent clip, and they can sense the excitement and also realize that the rest of the piece is built from these same patterns, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be motivated to put in the work during the week.

The piece is called Exosphere, and it’s got a similar framework to our previous two pieces, right hand repeating patterns, broken triads this time, left hand providing the needed variety, and in this case some punchy syncopations.

I’ve had good success with this piece over the years, particularly in cases where an intermediate or even a late intermediate student has been working on lots of multi-month repertoire. They’re starting to get a little bogged down. They need a bit of a palate cleanser, so to speak.

In case you’re wondering, the exosphere is the highest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, with just empty space on the other side. Prepare for blast-off with this thrilling ride from Daniel McFarlane.

🎹🎶

When a student is struggling or becoming ambivalent about their music studies, our encouragement matters, but words can only do so much. Sometimes kids need more than just reassurance. They need proof.

They need to experience a real win for themselves, to prove to themselves that they are capable, to feel proud of what they hear themselves creating at the piano. In those moments, we are not the ones providing the confidence and the encouragement. They’re creating it themselves.

And with that confidence, they might start to ask themselves, what else might I be capable of?

Today we listen to three pieces by composers Jennifer Lynn, Anne Crosby Goudet, and Daniel McFarlane. As always, links to purchasing the music you heard today are in the episode description. And on our website as well, go to pianopedagogyplaylist.com.

And just like that, we have to close the lid on this episode of the Piano Pedagogy Playlist. I hope that today’s episode isn’t misinterpreted.

Like, I’m saying we shouldn’t challenge our students, and we should just make it fun and accessible all the time. That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m just reminding myself, as much as anyone, that sometimes a child doesn’t need the important or profound piece of music. They just need the right piece of music.

I’ll be back next Monday with some more of what’s good in the contemporary piano teacher’s repertoire. Until then, keep nurturing the music, and have a great week.