Do your students all play with excellent rhythm without much guidance from you? Do they value rhythm as much as they should, or do they sacrifice rhythm in favour of correct pitch? If we think about it, we know that’s not the right way round. It’s remarkable the difference good rhythm makes. And, yet, many … Read more
No matter what scales or other technical exercise you need your students to practise, this Scalesters pack can help. The link will take you to a form. Fill in the 10 scales, arpeggios or other exercises you want to cover and the customised Scalesters will be automatically generated and emailed to you! (If you want … Read more
This is a simple template in Google Docs that you can use as the basis for your studio theme planner. For more info on how I use monthly themes, read this post on the Colourful Keys blog. *Please note that this link will open in Google Docs. You need to have an account to access it. … Read more
Do you ever wonder what your students are actually doing in their practice at home? Do you wish they would mix it up a bit? Enter: Practice Hero! These game boards are designed to be used over a week of practice to make practice time more engaging, and also more efficient as students will be … Read more
This improvisation activity is great way to get your students improvising outside of the normal scales or patterns, but still with some helpful structure. Students draw notes and music terms at random and must use this to form the basis of their new improvisation. Sometimes the notes will clash, sometimes they’ll go beautifully together, either … Read more
In Cadence Chaos, students work to identify cadences both visually and aurally. The game includes audio samples and there’s some note name review thrown in for good measure. This is a truly enriching game for intermediate students. How to Play Place a game counter for each player on the red “Start Here” space. Place the … Read more
This is a game which requires intense concentration from your late intermediate students. They will need to work carefully to place appropriate note values in tricky time signatures to win each round. This is a more difficult version of the game Rhythm Skirmish. If you want to go a bit easier on your students and … Read more
This is a simple template in Google Docs that you can use as the basis for your own assignment sheets if you want to give digital assignments a try. Google Docs is particularly useful because it can be shared and updated by parents and teachers. *Please note that this link will open in Google Docs. … Read more
Buddy piano lessons are my name for when students’ lessons overlap for some portion of their lesson time. E.g. Student A comes for 40 minutes, then student A & B have 20 minutes together, then student B stays for 40 minutes. This cheatsheet is designed to help you lesson plan for that overlapping, buddy or … Read more
As more and more scales get introduced, it’s great to have lots of tricks up your sleeve so piano students don’t mix them up. Try out all of these scale drills and your students will know their scales backwards, forwards and upside down! Have fun! How to Use Keep the sheet in your student’s folder/binder … Read more