Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum seek teaching materials in French- basics: chord theory

Hello,

I'm been lurking a bit in these forum areas to get familiar with where to post. I'm choosing here in Teachers forum, although possible all in Non-Classical forum.

I am looking for piano teaching materials with the following sets of conditions.

Language:
* the entire description must be written "in French" because the people who are asking for me to teach them do not have good enough English skills. However, I've been looking for this for a while and can't seem to find it.

Learner audience:
* teenagers. One of them has a very natural musical talent (creates slash block chords on the piano), but he has no idea how to play, and no knowledge at all of music theory (not even basics about notes or chords).
And he is scared each time that his friends tell him he must learn solfege.

Content:
* piano chord theory (Adult learning style approach) for beginners.

Song types:
* teaching them to use piano only to accompany songs that are collective group songs (church songs, summer camp songs, kids songs, etc)

specific items:
(I can teach all items below, and would build on it, as needed. I will provide in-person lessons and likely create videos for them to practice with)

* must be written in simple terms. The audience will not want to dive into theory.
* must explain the base notion of triad chords (1,3,5)
* include the concept of chord inversions (3,5,1; 5,1,3; etc) / slash chords
* should explain the notion of 3 primary major chords to each key (I, IV, V)
* explanation of chord sequences
* also prefer explanation of relative minor chords in each key (iii, vi)
(Ok if includes visual of Circle of 5ths, but I won't go beyond 1 b nor beyond 3 or 4 #s. I'll be sticking to keys of C, G, D, A, E and Bb at the most, and focusing primarily on the first 3)
* prefer to have the chords described in both A,B,C...G format as well as Do,Re, Mi...Sol solfege (OK, I know this is asking a lot, but if it exists, I'll take it. If not, I'll just add the equivalents).
* cost (if doesn't not exist for free) should not be expensive. I'm volunteering my time to do this and won't charge them since they don't have the financial means to pay for it. I want to do the same for the next generation that others did for me when I was a teenager (however, now I have to do it in French rather than English).

I can easily find this kind of stuff in English, but I need it to be in French. Everything I've seen available in French goes directly into deep theory, and this will not be adapted to the audience I need to work with.
And no need to reinvent the wheel by making a translation when something else already exists.

Thanks in advance.

Postediting

If you can't speak French, then
don't even try this. It would be
insulting to a French speaker. With
French speakers, they expect you
to be able to speak the language
capably if you're going to try to
talk to them.

You don't have to speak any
French to teach piano. Just demonstrate
and have them copy you. Don't
even try to explain the circle of
fifths. This is incomprehensible
even when explained in English to
English speakers.

Gyro, nothing suggests that PostEditing is not fluent in French. I understand that the question was for materials in French to support a certain approach maybe. Of course neither of us is a music teacher.

When I discovered the circle of fifths I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but when I tell people I enjoy music theory, they always say "I tried learning music theory, but got lost when we hit the circle of fifths..."

More nonsensical bloviation from the original master of it...

Just to clarify....

* I speak and write French fluently (that can happen after doing MA and PhD in country and living/working there for 15 years)

In reply to Gyro:
* On the contrary, I do believe you need to speak the language (or find an interpreter) in order to really transmit the passion for the topic. Anyone can do basic show-n-tell demos, or make YouTube clips. But the art of teaching is not just showing what to do, but showing how, what it is important in a basic practical way, what to avoid and not do, or not spend energy on, and what can be focused on later. Everything of course depends on the learning audience, and the context.
My post above indicates that I have motivated learners, and that means having to be 2 steps ahead of them with a motivating lesson that foresees their needs, and yet flexible enough to respond to their requests. Making clips for them would be as secondary support to help them practice on their own at home.

Back to everyone ....

* circle of Fifths:
This summer I was talking with a French teenager guitar player with whom I played guitar for a week (I led the music group for a week). He knew his chords, but didn't know the relationships between them, I simply drew the top half of the circle of Fifths (those mentioned in my first post in this thread) indicating Major and relative minor keys, and he began to understand the pattern behind all the chord progressions.

So, I'm simply looking for such instructional materials, written in French, so I don't have to translate them from scratch based on materials in English that can easily be found all over the Web.

One French music teacher told me recently that I won't be able to find such teaching materials, because it goes against the grain of how the French learn music. Well, he was right in that I'm having a hard time finding the materials, but this doesn't mean that they cannot be found.

I'll be teaching in French to teenagers in France. However, it is likely that such materials have been created by French Canadians. Any variety of French will be OK.

Thanks in advance,

Postediting

Still no replies with such instructional materials written in French?

Thanks,

Postediting

If you're as fluent in French
as you claim (Americans are
notorious for their incompetence
in French, no matter how long
they've studied it or how many yrs.
they've lived in France), then
you don't need instructional
materials in French. It should
be a snap to translate out
of an English text. And are you
saying there are no bookstores in
France like Amazon, or bookstores
at high schools or colleges that
might sell a textbook on music
theory? I don't believe that.

There is a book sold in the US
called Jazz Piano Method by Jean
Robur. It is an overview of
jazz piano and has some elementary
teaching material in it. Nothing
on the circle of fifths however.
It was translated out of French.

However, even if you found the type
of textbook you're looking for,
I think this is a lost cause. If
you try to just quote passages out of
the book, you're going to look
ridiculous in front of French
students, because it's going to
be obvious that you have no
idiomatic command of the language.

It would be better if you just
teach by demonstration. They'll
respect you more that way. You'd
just need a few phrases: Bonjour,
mon petit; Alors, jouez comme
moi; Laissez tomber les mains; etc.

Don't forget the most important one...

Équilibrez cette pièce de monnaie sur le dos de votre main.

Et peut-être Postediting aura besoin d'un autre mot pour s'adresser à M. Gyro. Est-ce que quelqu'un sait comment on dit troll en français?

Étienne

I am cracking up, Christophe and Voix Douce (Ok, some poetic license on that one, Etienne)..

So am I.

Sacré Gyro! In true Monty Python form as usual with this thread!

Sotto Voce:-
In answer to your above question, the French word for Troll believe it or not is.....Troll - no doubt taken directly from the Scandinavian folklore word. Commonly referred to in French as 'Le Troll'.
Troll

All we now need to do is to teach Gyro to sing La Marseillaise with a Scandinavian accent, and recorded on YouTube of course accompanying himself on the worlds best DP......

Why bother with the worlds best DP when a 61 key Casio keyboard will do the job just as well as any concert grand piano?

How true!
Who was it that recently posted that Gyro's advice is usually not merely wrong, but practically criminal. I liked that!
Which begs an interesting question which I'll raise under a new subject.

For beginers, the "Methode Rose" is now in both English and french. A friend sent one to me from Paris. For music theory, and such, my "bible" used to be "Theorie de la musique" by A. Danhauser, edition revue et corrigee pas Henri Rabbaud. That one is all in french.

Hope this helps.

Bach13

Yipes, I hope that it was "corigée par Henri Rabbaud" and not "corigée pas."

Steven

A link to Le piano rose with a lot of other books. This one seems to be classical-oriented (not chords etc.) Le piano rose, etc.

Un détail qui n'aide pas à trouver une solution, qu'en penses-tu? (Actually I wonder if such a book exists in any language).