Tag Archives: Robert Pace Piano Method

A Conceptual Christmas – Teaching Broad Music Concepts through Familiar Holiday Literature

Holiday Songs represent an evolving musical culture that spans 6 centuries and are the one body of songs that are more universal to our culture than anything else. Even though the harmonic treatments become more removed from the original with each passing year, there is still enough recognition of these songs even if they are now used to sell merchandise instead of their sacred original meaning.
The reinforcement students receive from family and friends by playing something “familiar”, as well as the short time span and goal of performance opportunities make students highly motivated to work on these songs.

However, in addition to the benefits to students mentioned above, these songs offer a treasure trove of opportunities to for discovering or reinforcing important basic music concepts that you are already teaching in other areas of your lessons. Don’t miss this golden opportunity for learning.

5-finger Patterns

Dreydl Song
Jingle Bells
Great for level 1 students. Have a spinner with 12 pentachord patterns on cards fanned around it. Students spin to transpose the song into the new key. To add extra zest, students give the jingle bells a shake after completing each scale.

Sequences
Have students discover the sequences in these songs.

Deck the Halls
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
O Christmas Tree
Angels We Have Heard on High
Ding Dong Merrily On High (one of the longest sequences I know)

Applying I and V7 chords
Use the formula, when the melody notes are 1, 3 and 5 use I chord, when on 2 and 4 use V7 to create a left hand for these melodies;

Dreydl Song
Jingle Bells

I IV V

Apply the same formula, adding the information that the 6th scale note goes with the IV chord.
Joy to the World
Silent Night (once the chords are established, apply broken chord style to bass for a simple but effective accompaniment pattern – if they are more advanced, they can apply ballad style (Root 5th 3rd above – use fingers 5 2 1)

Intervals
Look for the examples of these prominent intervals in these songs

Steps – The First Noel (the entire song is comprised of steps and fourths)
Skips –
4th and 5ths find the one fourth and one fifth, one skip, and the rest are repeated notes and steps
Octaves and major scales – Joy to the World

Major and Relative Minor Key Signatures
We 3 Kings
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Modes and Minor Keys
Use these songs to discover the difference between minor and dorian modes.
What Child is This
O Come O Come Emmanuel
Coventry Carol

Common Rhythm Patterns
Short Short Short Short Short Short LONG
Good King Wensceslas Looked Out
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
Compare to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old MacDonald Had A Farm, Melody, by Schumann, Song by Kabalevsky., Haydn Surprise Symphony, and many others

Form – find songs that represent the following forms:
AABA (O Christmas Tree)
AABC (First Noel, Good King Wenceslas)
ABAB’(Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Jingle Bells)
Have students listen and guess which form that song follows.

Repeated Patterns
Students often are so focused on individual notes that they don’t notice broader patterns in the music. With your early level students, don’t make them learn all new notes of Jolly Old St. Nicholas for the second half when all they have to do is change the last note! This song is a great example of songs going “home” at the end, but ending on a dominant note “not home” in the middle.

The same applies to Jingle Bells – just learn the two differing parts of One Horse Open Sleigh first, then the rest of the song is mostly steps and repeated notes.

Acquiring Early Experience in Leading the Sing a Long

Help your students become valuable to their friends and community by getting them used to playing carols early; with the chording tools above they will realize they don’t always need to have music. Additionally they can transpose to singable keys (instead of C which is usually presented in early books because of ease of key signature)

Teach them how to use the last line of the song for a introduction, and to use body language (head nod) to start the group singing.
Teach them basic conducting patterns, by having students take turns, conducting, playing and singing.

Teach them how to work with other instrumentalists or vocalists by reading the chords of a fake book (or chords included in a song with traditional notation.) Many have friends who play guitar, etc.
Teach them a basic sing and strum method if the melody is provided by another instrument such as flute or vocals.

Jump in and have fun!  Holidays only come around once a year!

 

Our “Funny” Clock

Our “Funny” Clock

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“I can’t read that clock,” exclaims a seven year old students in dismay about our clock on the studio wall.  “Why does it have letters instead of numbers?” They want to know. After they figure it out, it’s like being part of a secret club or breaking a mysterious code.

We love our “circle of fifths” clock.  The circle of fifths helps us understand the basic structure of musical composition that has been in use in so called western music from the early 1700s through the present time.

In our circle of 5ths clock, C is at the top.  Counting five notes in order up the scale CDEFG brings you to G  likewise GABCD brings you to D etc.  Each key is 5 notes up from the previous one.  Since we are using scale notes, the fifth note of B scale takes us  to F# (A/K/A G flat) from F# we work our way back by 5ths up to C.

The circle represents many things to us, most importantly how scales are interrelated, and how chords follow a downward path of 5ths to resolution.  In a simple example, a song ending in the key of C would always have a G chord (or G7) immediately preceeding it. Further it likely would go from D to G to C, or even further down the circle, from E minor to A minor to D minor to G to C.  If the song were in the key of G, it would always need to end in D7 then come home to G.  300 years of conditioning have caused our ears to expect this resolution.  As an example, think through Happy Birthday to You, but stop directly before the end of the song, on TO.. and notice the gravitational pulled toward YOU. It almost seems impossible to stop at “TO”.
Our students begin learning the first five notes of all 12  scales (which lay under 5 fingers comfortably), and they learn that every scale follows the same pattern of construction.  From these scales we can change one note, and easily learn all 12 minor scales, as well as all 24 major and minor chords by playing only fingers 1 – 3 and 5; immediate transfer of learning from one concept to another. This is one of the unique aspects of the teaching approach we use. Students learn that we can transpose a song into any other key thus experiencing early the thrill of having the song “sound right” no matter what key they choose.

Being able to transpose a song into other keys is one of the primary skills of a competent keyboard musician because it allows him or her to accommodate the music according to the needs of other instruments and particularly singers who often need to change the key to accommodate their vocal range. This is a fundamental aspect of comprehensive musicianship and why what we teach is more than simply piano lessons. It is our goal that LSMS students be able to play music, not just play songs.

We learn to read and write key signatures.  We learn a simple chord formula for applying the two important chords to a song (“when your melody uses notes 1 – 3 or 5, use the One chord, when it falls on scale degrees  2 or 4, use the Five chord”.  Later, we fill in all 8 notes of each major and minor scale, learning additional chords and how to apply them to the other scale notes of the melody, and become familiar with other positions of the basic chords (inversions); more complex types of chords and applications of the chord formula.

Building this solid understanding of musical construction one step at a time makes music more accessible to students in many ways. First, they know how to  interpret more intuitively (for example a “home: chord might be accented , or have a slight hesitation or ritard, a “five” chord might imply acceleration or crescendo) ; how to memorize more confidently and sight read more easily by knowing what chords will be involved in the piece; how to read chord charts or fake books; how to appreciate the structure of the piece and be in on the thrill of anticipating the expected sound and satisfaction of arrival; how to transfer the concepts that are so easy to see in the piano’s linear layout to other instruments which are not so visually obvious; how to compose their own pieces or apply accompaniments to music.

Next time you stop in, if you still can’t read the clock, ask your child. But don’t worry–there are little tiny numbers on the side if you need help.