Piano Teaching
Discover a world of great music...
With so many piano composers and styles to choose from, students are encouraged to explore the repertoire as widely but always to select music that interests them. This approach helps sustain each student's musical interest but inspires the development of new skills and techniques along the way leading to great musical accomplishment.
Working with such a wide range of students at different ages and levels is both rewarding and invaluable: to appreciate how students learn and develop across a much wider plane and the challenges faced at advanced levels provides perspective and understanding, and help shape the learning programmes of those just starting out.
Establishing the basics
Taking your first steps as a beginner may be daunting but with a carefully-selected programme of attractive and enticing pieces, and supportive exercises to develop your technique, you will soon have the basis of a musical foundation on which to build.
We will start by learning how to sit at the piano and the importance of adopting a good hand position. After a few simple warm-up exercises to get some mobility in the fingers, we will learn our first piece together. This will be shown to you without the music, initially, to help you develop a better aural sense of the music and to make your first piece more accessible.
You will, of course, still be taught how to read music: a vital skill that gives pupils the confidence to discover new music independently; however, approaching a new piece without the music helps new students actually play something meaningful at their first lesson without being overwhelmed with reading and playing simultaneously.
To develop rhythmic awareness and listening skills further, a number of duets intended for beginners will be introduced. But, please don't worry about this: many beginners find the playing of duets really enjoyable and are surprised by just how good the ensemble sounds! Having worked with many beginners, rest assured, we will find the one that is right for you.
Piano Accompaniment
Completing the ensemble...
IMJMusic
piano | theory | accompaniment
Theory and Musicianship
Joining the dots
Music theory is often thought of as an uninspiring part of learning a musical instrument because all too often that's the way it's taught: away from the piano without any relevance to the music the student is actually playing. However, by encouraging students to really think about how music works not only accelerate their progress, but enables them to make sense of the music they see, hear, and play every day.
Throughout your studies, you will have the opportunity to expand your knowledge of music theory and analysis, alongside developing essential aural training and musicianship skills, which will prove invaluable as your playing improves.
Music theory
Learning how music is written on the stave and the symbols used to represent pitch and rhythm is the cornerstone of effective music reading in performance. And when combined with a sound knowledge of scales and chords provides the student with confidence to understand musical tonality from the ground up.
Through completion of a progressive series of theory handbooks, students practise how to write and recognise a wide range of musical aspects such as scales, intervals and chord progressions, in addition to work on rhythm, and learning about time signatures and its impact on how music is felt or perceived. At advanced levels, students learn how to write stylish and effective harmony, as well as learning about transposition and orchestral instruments, and how to analyse unseen musical scores to answer questions on compositional features and harmonic language.
It is my belief that a sound understanding of music theory often leads to more insightful and enjoyable playing. And should the student decide to take a performance or music theory exam in the future, such knowledge and understanding becomes invaluable in these contexts.
Aural perception skills
Infants imitate the sounds they hear from a very young age to in order to communicate but it is not uncommon for some students to play without really engaging with the music. Understanding the musical sounds we hear, or perceiving how something might sound when reading from a piece of music, are skills which every musician needs to develop.
Alongside the development of piano playing, students are taught how to develop essential listening skills, which can transform their playing and overall musicianship. The ability to develop our ears helps us to identify intrinsic musical features such as dynamics, phrasing, articulation, rhythm, and any changes in tempo. And with more practice, we can recognise specific scales, intervals, chords, and cadences using our aural skills .
Many grade and diploma exams assess this aspect of musicianship, as well as in GCSE and 'A' Level Music syllabuses.
Harmony | Composition | Music Analysis
Students who take music at GCSE or 'A' level are sometimes quite surprised by the range of skills they need to develop alongside their playing. In addition to learning about musical history, music students will be expected to compose, complete harmony exercises that respect conventions, and to analyse music scores and recordings.
With a postgraduate degree in Music Theory and Analysis, I am well placed to support students wishing to study in a range of disciplines, such as historical performance practice, harmony, composition, and music analysis. I have also prepared a number of students for higher grade theory exams over the last twenty years, so am familiar with the format and content of these examinations.
