Music Education

P Plate Piano website is live!

One of the most exciting aspects of creating the P Plate Piano series with the Australian Music Examination Board has been their corporate commitment to the project.  So many times in business (let alone the print music business) lateral thinking is simply not part of the equation, so it has been a joy to be involved in a project that really is designed for the 21st century. So this is the first examination board-produced repertoire series ever to have its very own website, and that website has just gone ‘live’ at http://www.pplatepiano.com.au Still not live are the online student journal, the teachers forum and some other bells and whistles, but this website does have some nice features already, including some short videos we made at the end of last year.  And I’ll be reporting on when new features are added as the year goes on. I’m still very much involved with the project, with launch events still running til the

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Links to Vodcasts……

My blog has featured my ideas in written format, venturing as far as to include some scored examples – so I am hardly pushing the envelope of the available technology. I’d love to change the status quo, but for now I’ll just include some links to vodcasts that have just gone up on YouTube with me discussing teaching ideas for three pieces in the P Plate Piano series (and hopefully this style of link isn’t too irritating to click through on). From P Plate Piano Book One, a discussion of the fabulous Jane Sebba piece Quick as a flash: http://tinyurl.com/yjboyp8 And from P Plate Piano Book Two an exploration of Daniel Türk’s Presto: http://tinyurl.com/y8jzpzx And from P Plate Piano Book Three an explanation of the stunning little Too tired for anything from the fabulous 2 volume series, Seventy Keyboard Adventures with the Little Monster published by Breitkopf Hartel: http://tinyurl.com/yjy4sx4 There will be a dedicated P Plate Piano website, which is truly

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Choosing Repertoire

I’m preoccupied this week with thoughts revolving around how we choose repertoire for our students.  I’d like to be able to say with rather than for our students, but most of the time the student gets at best a veto (not quite the same thing as being actively part of the process). This topic was one I spoke on at the 2009 Australian Piano Pedagogy Conference held in Sydney in July, and at that time I titled my presentation Repertoire Roulette, attempting to draw attention to the hit and miss nature of a piano student’s repertoire selection, the element of risking something valuable (the attention and long-term interest of the student) if we should happen to stake our lesson time on a piece of repertoire that doesn’t come up a winner. If only the pieces of piano music we use in our teaching came with guarantees. Or at least a warranty. So here’s the thing that comes first, something which

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Judge Not: the question of assessment (beginners)

The really big question when talking about assessing piano/instrumental students is: are external assessments of piano students a motivational tool, encouraging serious effort which certainly would not be made if an external assessment (and the possibility of failure) were not looming OR are piano exams something that strips time from the lesson that could have been spent developing a wider knowledge of the repertoire, a more varied technical expertise and a broader set of musicianship skills? A firmly believed, but often not-expressed, view amongst piano teachers is that the use of graded assessments often ends up being a way for students (and their parents) to compare themselves with their peers, and this competitive perspective can undermine the motivational benefits that an assessment deadline can deliver. I’ve recently been spending a great deal of time considering the benefits of assessments for beginner pianists, many of whom may be as young as five years of age.  It can be exciting for beginner

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What is ‘progress’?

Written on Saturday, prior to the two Sydney P Plate Piano launches….. I’m back tonight from Adelaide, where in the early afternoon I presented a launch event for P Plate Piano.  The weather was unbelievable, literally howling winds, and rain that seemed to bend around the trees that were left standing (one just outside the venue had split leaving two cars trapped beneath enormous broken branches). So with this unpromising meteorological backdrop a group of around 20 piano teachers gathered to explore P Plate Piano. The most exciting response came from a clarinet teacher who wanted to know when the same kind of approach was going to be applied to instruments other than the piano!  She also pointed out that the activities and the approach of P Plate Piano, while being designed to inspire and enthuse children beginners, would be equally inspirational to adult learners.  I honestly had not given adult beginners much thought at all, but this Adelaide teacher

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P Plate Piano: What is it and why?

On November 1, 2009, throughout Australia, a new series of books from the AMEB (Australian Music Examination Board) will be available in all good music shops: P Plate Piano Books 1, 2 & 3. Australian piano teachers will be quite curious about these new books.  The AMEB only publishes materials that are for use in conjunction with their examinations, and the title P Plate Piano doesn’t sound like anything like an examination! And it’s not an examination.  But it is an assessment.  And there’s a difference… But we’ll come back to that later. Firstly, P Plate Piano is a series you can use alongside any of the method books you use now, and the first book corresponds roughly to the skill level a student would have achieved at the end of the first book of any of the well-known method books. The idea of this series is to map out the various keyboard skills and techniques that students need to master

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