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I'm going through one of those paranoid phases where you think you're not a good enough teacher. I'm seriously lacking in the history/theory side of things. (Apart from the anxiety I quite like these phases as they force me to grow). So I'm making up a bullet point list to bluetak to my wall of things I can do to fix up my gaps.

I'm thinking i need to read books about the major composers, different periods of music (I have rough ideas about baroque, romantic, classical etc but I need my knowledge to be more solid), write up a personal information form for parents to fill out and a studio policy (at the moment I have neither - just phone numbers of parents and email addresses of about half), read 5 of the major established books on piano pedagogy, and develop a better approach to teaching scales (aiming at students getting more out of their study of them and finding them more interesting).

I'm sure there's a truckload more areas that should be on that list. Any ideas? And any suggestions of invaluable books that cover those areas? I need a plan!

Aren't you doing a course at the moment, mitts_off? If you are/were doing a course this would give you a strong program to follow, I would think.....

I don't think teachers ever get to to the end of their own learning. You will be making these lists til the day you die!!

I would simply recommend spending an hour a day learning standard repertoire and/or researching the composers who wrote it. That will serve you really well.

In addition, read whatever comes your way that you see relates to your teaching interests. You will never have read enough. And reading to an action plan means you won't be absorbing the contents of the books the way you would if you were reading from a sense of intrigue or connection.

Some thoughts, none of which may be all that useful?!

Just published about two years ago: The Independent Piano Teacher's Studio Handbook by Beth Gigante Klingenstein.
I've found this to be extremely valuable in running a business (procedures, policies etc) and teaching musical concepts.

Mm, I'm doing a bachelor of music which includes a pedagogy course, but a few hours a week just isn't cutting it. I'm sick of having moments similar to this:

"Ok pull out your Kabalevsky."
"My what?"
"Toccatina."
"Oh. Why did you call it Kabalevsky then?"
"That's the guy who wrote it. He's...Russian...I think...err anyway Toccatina, where is it?"

I suck at context basically, and really there's a limit to how how much I can expect uni to fill me with this stuff.

To start with read up on things that are relavent to yourself and your pupils, so look into the history behind pieces your students are learning, this way you can pass this knowledge across to them. It will be interesting for you and for them as you will be learning as well, and you can learn with them.

As a piano teacher I don't think you ever stop learning, and you learn from your students. Every student is different and will learn a different way and as a teacher its about finding suitable ways to get the best out of your pupils! So don't panic!

Personally I don't have a form with information on, but I have all their details on my computer. So find a system that works for you!


Maybe sit down and write a little plan out of all the things you want to cover, and then work from the list.

Ha Ha! lool about the Kabalevsky thing...

I do tell my students a little about the composer and the period of time the music comes from. And in their assignment notebooks I list the pieces by composer, study first and then chronologically meaning Baroque composer first, classical next and so on. While we talk about the music I either call them by the genre/title or by the composer.

STILL when it comes to asking the child what they are performing most of them look at me puzzled and I've had hilarious answers like I play Beethoven by Sonatina and Burgmuller by Arabesque.

Piano pedagogy should help a lot as far as teaching insight is concerned (provided it's done properly. I had three years of piano ped and I've sit in a grand total of half a lesson and I gave only one assisted lesson - that being the final exam! The rest was endless talk about Pestalozzi and Piaget and the like, never about a real life example of a lesson).

I've been recently reading books on piano ped for a paper I must write and I couldn't believe what a wealth of useful information / page I could find. So, having a good teacher or supplementing that with books is great.

What piano ped can't "fill in" is obviously the history of music/ theory like you said.

Reading books about the major composers is certainly a good thing, regardless of your profession but as Elissa said you should take your time with that, not doing it "on a schedule".

What I'd do "as a shortcut" or in the meantime is either buy or make yourself a set of "fact files" about composers that you could actually use with your children. [some 8 years ago there was a company that made very concise one page fact files about composers you could buy; they were pdf files you could download and print, but I can't remember the site. I'm sure there are a lot now]

I've also found that anecdotes about composers help students (young and old) keeping them entertained and interested, and they make the composer more "likable", more familiar.

Putting a face to the name is great way to make them associate the music with the composer so check this pdf file with composer cards you can print out from layton music.
Composer cards

DO CHECK THE INFORMATION you find, especially on the free internet resources. I've just noticed in the above set of cards that they list Bartok as Russian!!!! That's not to say you can't use the set, just white-out the Russian and pencil in Hungarian, and you're set!

Also, Handel was German by birth (nothing wrong here no need to correct but maybe just add it as a side information), but he lived a great part of his life in London and was naturalized as a British subject. Same with Lully, Italian by birth, French by adoption (not sure about naturalization though)

I've just found it now on Google, and the blog seems to have many more useful resources.

http://www.classicsforkids.com/ also has nice resources you could print out and use. (I don't always use the computer in the lesson - at least not in the beginning or the middle of the lesson - even if it is available, as some kids get distracted and can't focus on the piano later)

another one here:
http://artsalive.ca/en/mus/index.asp

What I'd do is have something like they they present here:
Beethoven brief for some of the composers in a sort of studio library that children can borrow or at least browse through (if you teach at a fixed location) or to bring them out when you come across a certain composer.

THANKYOU MIRELA !!!!! Those resources are a perfect starting point. Exactly what I was needing. A million karma points floating your way

Chopin's heart is buried in Poland while the rest of his body was buried in France with a box of Polish earth sprinkled over it?! I'm going to like these sites.

I'm glad it helped.

Yes, you do find loads of interesting information on these sites, but make sure you at least double check before you present a "fact" to the children.

I mean just stick to these 2 common sense rules:

1. Make sure the source you are looking at is a credible one: sometimes powerpoints made by middle-school children for show and tell projects may look nice, but the information is not always accurate, on the other hand sites owned by philharmonic orchestras or professional associations have more credibility

2. double or better triple check. If you find the same information on more than two DIFFERENT credible sources (not for example three sites all citing the wikipedia article), than you can start using the information.

[I'm just stating the obvious here, and I'm sure you already knew/did these things, but this forum does get read by younger teenagers too and in the end it might help someone]

BTW The Chopin story appears to be correct, apparently he kept the box of Polish soil with him all through his life (he took it with him when he left Poland).

I dug up the fact file samples I was telling you about, I had stored on a hard drive.

The company that made them is Keynotes education and they have more general music resources mainly for class teaching Music Resources but £19.99 inc VAT for an average of 30 pages is not a price I could afford to pay myself, although I like the way they present things.

The price is actually due to the fact that the sheets are phocopyable, and once you buy one CD with the resources you can legally photocopy them as many times as you wish to use them with your own students. They are intended for schools with multiple classes, and it does make sense then.

They still give the same samples and I liked the ones about composers a lot as templates. You could make your own compiling information from the books, dictionaries and even the internet.
Here's the link to the Great Composer Sample and the one for Music Theory

Actually, a subscription to the Grove Music Online would give you access to the most trusted music reference in the world.

Since Grove has been taken over by Oxford there's a very twisted way of getting a personal subscription if you're not American apparently (I'm still puzzled by the discrimination. Isn't Oxford supposed to be a UK company anyway?). For the Americans [meaning the whole (2) Continent(s), North and South] it's about 30 USD per month or 300 USD per year. It's worth every penny.

BUT, keep in mind that a lot of public/university libraries have subscriptions to such online resources and you only need to find out if yours has it, or how you can get to one that offers it - in this case you'd have the same resources a lot cheaper.

Welcome to the club!

Seriously, though, I do have a few suggestions - things that helped me:

I did a project in college where I wrote one-page biographies of 20 different composers. I was allowed to choose, so I picked composers I liked, and it was a great experience.

Something else I tend to do is put recordings on in the car and listen to them over and over and over again. A few months ago, I got Jeffrey Biegel's sonatina album - in the car, I listened to it a couple dozen times through. Then it was the cast album for a musical I'm playing. Now it's the Op. 39 Rachmaninoff etudes, etc... I've always got music playing - even if it's just in the background, it helps get the sound in your ear.

Performance practice is tricky. For baroque music, read Little and Jenne's "Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach." For classical music, read Sandra Rosenblum's "Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music."

Also, use a student as a resource. Assign stuff you want to know better and learn it alongside your student. I remember one year I had a "No Bach" theme in my studio. I forced myself to use composers other than Bach for all my students, so I ended up assigning things like Handel, Telemann, Rameau, Scarlatti, Daquin, Krebs, etc... It was a great experience.

practicespot.com has some theory worksheets as well as other teaching items and most are free. You might wish to check it out and see if there are things that help you.

Ralph

Another thought: depending on the age of the student, maybe have them do a bit of research on the composer?

How's that K545 going? What about your Op 49, #2? And that BWV999? Classical musicians often refer to music thusly, and so it's a great idea to help students become familiar with more than just the composer's last name. I frequently ask my older students to do a quick internet search and report back to me some highlights of a composer's life.

My daughter-in-law gave me a neat book last week - Secret Lives of Great Composers. Seems many were bad boys at heart. Fun read and might be of help with a recalcitrant student.

I love to give my students little snippets of info about the composers who wrote their pieces. It makes the songs come alive and kids will never forget them.

I like to travel and have been able to visit both the Beethoven Haus in Germany and the Mozart Museum in Salzburg. I usually bring back a small token for my students, usually a pencil or something.

The book "Lives of the Great Composers" by Schonberg has been helpful, as have other books:

"Why Beethoven Threw the Stew: Lots More Stories About the Lives of Great Compsers"

"Meet the Great Composers" and "Stories of the Great Composers" are in a workbook format with bio information, word finds, puzzles.

You are someone who would really benefit from the teachers handbook that accompanies the Celebration Series (published by Frederick Harris). You would also enjoy the student workbooks that go with each level.

Mitts off, I know what you mean. My problem isn't that I am not exposed to things but that I don't recall them. Beethoven's dates? 17 er something to sometime later. Just reading this information doesn't stick - unless it's really engrossing.

You know what, mitts_off, (channelling Kevin Rudd here) I reckon you'd sort out a lot of this stuff by attending some professional development days. The session Samantha Coates organised in January this year covered loads of the elements you mention in your OP, for example. Even better are the two or three day conferences the local music teachers associations organise. In Brisbane there's going to be a great weekend in October which you could attend (contact MTAQ) - and they only do these events every two years so get in now!! And of course next year in July there is the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference, this time in Wagga Wagga - and attending that conference would give you a genuine sense of having improved your base knowledge, and over a range of topics!