Will Hay

Category: E-Newsletter

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Struggling with scales

One of the most important things I realised when I started teaching the piano ten years ago was the value of time I had invested myself (however reluctantly at the time) in learning scale patterns. They really are one of the fundamentals of piano technique upon which much of the repertoire is built. Making it fun or simplifying the task of learning them is always a challenge for the piano teacher. There aren’t really any short cuts however this new book I have come across with visual guides seems to be particularly helpful. I have tried various cards that you can slot in front of the keys with varying degrees of success. Putting visual fingering guides in a book in this way is brilliant though and it covers the complete set, all the keys you need for Grades 1-5.

the key to learning SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
by Jane Mann priced at £9.99 is a fantastic resource to make the teaching of scales just a little bit easier, especially when it comes to putting them hands together.

Other resources related to learning to play scales…

12/09/2015
New Arrival

Happy New Year! First announcement of the year is that I am now a daddy. Eleanor Felicity was born on 2nd January weighing 8lb 10oz. She is a gorgeous little girl (not that I’m biassed at all) and seems to enjoy vying for attention with Geoffrey and Ruxpin when she isn’t draining her mother’s milk! She hasn’t visited the studio yet to hear the piano play but there is plenty of time for that.

I sang my last service as a lay clerk at Chester Cathedral on Christmas Day. Having sung there for over 10 years it’s quite the end of an era but it will free up a considerable amount of time every week to do more teaching, enjoy some family time and take more wedding bookings.

The new teaching schedule is set up and starts this week. I will now be teaching 5 days a week rather than 7, keeping the weekends free to spend with the little bundle of joy. I have also stopped doing home visits for piano lessons. The studio is all clean and shiny again (thanks to my mother-in-law) and ready for the new term with a new recording facility.

I’m looking forward to more student concerts and exam success this year. Last year, 34 students took piano exams which has to be the busiest I’ve been in that respect over the past 9 years. I also saw the most engagement with my student composition task with 22 students completing a backing track for the Autumn Leaves video. Plans are afoot for a similar sort of creative music technology project this term. Watch this space for more information.

10/01/2015
Autumn Leaves Project

This term, my students have been creating a backing track for an Autumn Leaves video I made. Most have chosen to use a drum track and record a performance of their piano piece along with the drums. This provides the extra challenge of playing in time with the drums! We have used Tape Machine and Audio Evolution Mobile to record the performances and mix/align them with the drum track then the video editor on my Galaxy Note Pro to put the backing track on the video, add credits and render and upload each student’s video. Each composition has also been notated on the Noteflight Classroom.

07/11/2014
Waterfalls Project 2014
Waterfalls Project 2014

Starting this half term, I am running a studio-wide composition project; “Waterfalls“.

Object: Compose a piece of piano music, 96 seconds in length, titled “Waterfalls” to reflect/accompany the video.

There are three different types of waterfalls featured which may each be represented differently in your composition.

You may want to team up with a partner for this project and divide the work between yourselves. Perhaps one person might take care of the ostinato, the other, the melody.

(Details also on the Noteflight projects forum)

The project must be completed by the beginning of June 2014.

Instructions:
1. Watch the video
2. Make up a simple watery ostinato
3. Play your ostinato along with the video
4. Does it need to change at all throughout the video?
5. Record your ostinato into your Evernote ideas notebook.
  (If you haven’t got one, ask)
6. Next, try to make a melody to fit with your ostinato.
7. Play your melody while watching the video
8. Does it need to change at all throughout the video?
9. Record your melody into your ideas notebook.
10. Notate your ostinato and melody using the template score on Noteflight.
23/02/2014
6 concerts in 8 days…
The next student concert series will be taking place at the beginning of March 2014. The title will be “River and Rainbow”, a pastoral countryside theme for springtime. The theme is inspired by some charming compositions of Walter Carroll who published a number of books of these delightful pieces over a century ago. These compositions will feature strongly in the concerts this term as I am assigning pieces for my students to learn so that the concert programmes largely follow the theme this time.

All of my students, should they wish to, will have the opportunity to perform in one of the concerts listed below:
25/01/2014