Making music together is a great topic to talk about. We could tell you why you should include duets, ensembles, and group lessons in your studio…But instead, we’re going to tell you why we love including them in ours! Download TopMusicMag: Making Music Together at the bottom of this article.
Making music together is a great topic to talk about. We could tell you why you should include duets, ensembles, and group lessons in your studio…But instead, we’re going to tell you why we love including them in ours! Download TopMusicMag: Making Music Together at the bottom of this article.
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This particular duet was a request from their mum.
Emma had been learning the piano with me for a few years and her older brother, Josh, decided it looked fun and wanted in.
Their mum was ecstatic that they were both doing the same thing at the same time – Josh was normally out on the football field and Emma in the local library.
“It’d be so special if they could play together,” she mused one day.
I’d had students learn duets before, but never a sibling pair (let alone siblings who were 13 and 16!)
I was dubious about how it would work, but I was happily proved wrong!
Related: How Multi-Level Group Lessons Work
It had been a constant battle trying to get Josh to count to two or four and to acknowledge rests. But when sitting next to Emma, he listened intently and counted correctly so they stayed in sync. He did not want to feel the wrath of his angry little sister!
He was so focused on getting everything right, playing on time, and not messing up in front of his sister – I don’t think I saw him blink during the first playthrough!
We worked on their parts separately (Josh was desperate not to be shown up by his sister), and then we came together to work on playing the duet together. After a couple of weeks, their mum messaged with a photo of the two playing their duet at home, with the caption, “My heart is melting!”
Following the success of Josh and Emma I thought I’d try another sibling duet with Immy and Dan.
This did not go well.
Immy stepped up her game of listening and counting (she even started bobbing up and down and called herself a human metronome) but Dan did not.
“I don’t want to play with her. She smells of rhubarb.” To this day, I don’t know what that means!
I could tell Immy was enjoying herself though (in between shouting at Dan to count properly) so I started…
Immy’s two best friends also had piano lessons, so I asked them if they wanted to learn a trio.
Immy took the bass, Elle was in the middle, and Cate was on the top.
They took it upon themselves to boss each other around and I’d step in with corrections or guidance.
“Immy, I don’t think you need to hit your chords so loudly in this bit. We can’t hear Cate.”
“Yeah, but it’s fun!”
“Well, enjoy it in this section ’cause it’s your main bit. Let me have my moment!”
They’d look at each other’s parts and analyse.
“Am I playing on the first beat of Elle’s little doo-doo-doo bit? Yeah, okay. Oh, apart from this bit. I see…”
Seeing them work together and figure things out as a team was such a proud teacher moment (and the trio sounded great!)
Related: The Power of Keyboard Ensembles
Another proud teacher moment was with Ferne. Ferne is usually quiet and never likes to ask for anything. But one lesson, she said, “My friend is singing at the school concert next month.”
Sensing more to this story, I said, “That’s lovely! Is she singing to a backing track?”
“Well…I wondered if I could play while she sang. Would that be okay?”
She told me the song, and we found the chords online. It wasn’t a song she’d heard before, so we listened on Spotify and played the chords along.
We practiced for a couple of weeks, with me singing along as she played the chords, and her confidence grew and grew.
She could keep a steady beat and listen to what I was singing in case I sped up or slowed down (which I would do on purpose to see if she could follow!)
One week, Ferne asked, “Should I do something more interesting for the introduction before she starts singing?”
This then led to a creative lesson of using the block chords she’d been playing and calling on the rhythm of the song to create a new intro.
The week after the school concert, Ferne was buzzing.
“That was so fun! We’re going to do another song just for fun this time!”
If you’d like to learn more about how you can encourage your students to play together, read more in the free TopMusicMag: Making Music Together.
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