Will Hay

Category: Piano Teaching

  • 6 concerts in 8 days…

    River and RainbowThe 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:

      Mon 3rd March 910am – Upton Heath
      Tue 4th March 910am – St Oswalds
      Thu 6th March 910am Saighton and 1020am Eccleston
      Sat 8th March 11am – All Saints
      Mon 10th March 910am – St Werburghs

  • “Happily Ever After” Concert Series

    Happily Ever After Cover Photo

    The theme for the concerts this term is “Happily Ever After“.
    Dates, times, and venues are as follows:

    Sat 8th June 1100am – All Saints Church, Hoole
    Tues 11th June 0910am – St. Oswald’s School
    Mon 17th June 0910am – Upton Heath School
    Thu 20th June 0910am – Saighton School
    Thu 20th June 1020am – Eccleston School

    As well as themed solos on a variety of instruments, my students have been taking part in a number of collaborative compositions which should result in some intresting multimedia performances in the forthcoming concerts. Parents of those involved are welcome to attend the school concerts and anybody is invited to the first concert in the series at All Saints Church, Hoole.
    For this concert there is a ticket charge (suggested donation) of £3/adult, £1/child, proceeds of which go towards supporting a lesson bursary at  Kampala Music School, Uganda.

  • Exam Preparation: Scales

    Scale PractiseAs the exam entry deadline for the next session approaches (Friday 3rd May), the big question on every teacher’s mind is which students are going to be ready to enter this time. Can we afford to leave it another term or is the student going to go “off the boil”? Will the scales be perfected in the next couple of months? Would the pieces be ready in time?

    As students progress through the grades, the sheer volume of scales that need to be learned increases (almost exponentially in the advanced levels). A formal approach must be taken to ensure that ALL the scales are known. To this end I have started to use weekly scale practise sheets on which students can either record and/or evaluate their scale practise. There are eight boxes for each scale to enable the sheet to be used in a number of ways.

    Daily practise can be recorded throughout the week then the final column can be used in the lesson to assess the progress of each scale and chart improvements. Some students prefer a mark out of ten, whilst others prefer a range between crosses, circles, and ticks, or a combination of both.

    The sheets are available to download for free in PDF format and currently cover the requirements or the ABRSM piano syllabus from Grade 1-4. As time permits, I shall add sheets for the higher grades to the collection.

    ABRSM Scale Practise Record Sheets

  • “Blast from the Past” Concert Series

    Blast from the Past Banner

    There will be six concerts taking place in the series later this term. The venues, dates, and start times are listed below. Parents of the pupils involved are warmly invited to attend:
    • Upton Heath Primary School – Monday 11th March @ 0910
    • St. Oswald’s, Mollington – Thursday 14th March @ 0910
    • All Saints Church, Hoole – Saturday 16th March @ 1100
    • St. Werburgh’s Primary – Monday 18th March @ 0910
    • Saighton Primary School – Thursday 21st March @ 0910
    • Eccleston Primary School – Thursday 21st March @ 1020

    The concert at All Saints Church will again be supporting a student bursary at Kampala Music School. Tickets £3/adult, £1/child. The concert programmes will features themed solos, duets and ensembles this term and will also include some of the outcome of the Ground Bass composition project which has been taking place this term.

     

  • 2012 – Review of the year

    2012 is nearly over and it’s a chance to look back over the year and take stock of what has been achieved. I don’t think I’ve ever organised so many piano concerts in one year before.

    Over the past 12 months, there have been 16 concerts for my students to perform in around Chester. 36 of my students have taken exams including 19 prep tests and 2 theory exams.

    The themes this year have been Sea Idylls, Creatures Great and Small, and Going Places.

    Whilst the major project for the spring term featured a composition in a set format to run alongside a video I produced, the other terms featured collaborative video projects in which many of my students took part.

    The review video clip below features excerpts from some of the concerts which have taken place over the year.

     

    Some students have performed in as many as five concerts over the course of the year and their teachers in school have commented on how nice it is to see the progress they have made from concert to concert.

    The concerts at All Saint’s enabled another £300 bursary to be sent to Kampala Music School in June. The bursary is now providing piano lessons for Justus, a 22 year old university student.

     

    Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
    WILL