Cori Belle Piano

This post first had its home on my substack, At Home with Classical Piano, which is where I write regularly now. Come join me there, or subscribe to my newsletter to stay in the loop and get posts delivered straight to your inbox!

I fell into choral accompanying unexpectedly. I was in high school at the time, having taken private piano lessons for a number of years. I was a good sight reader and loved playing duets with my dad. There was a certain boy who sang in the top auditioned choir at my high school, and when he suggested that I come play for the group, I jumped at the chance.

Those first rehearsals were rough! I learned to “give pitches,” playing first the bass, then tenor, alto, and soprano starting notes; to read different lines at the same time; and to follow the conductor’s gestures. I ended up playing for all four choirs for the next four years, and then was hired “for real” when I graduated and I continued to play for concerts while pursuing my undergraduate degree in a neighboring city.

From there, I went on to major in Piano Performance and spent as much of my “free” time as I could accompanying choirs, opera and musical theater productions, and voice lessons and recitals. After I graduated, I played for an accomplished 100-voice church choir that sang at notable local concert venues as well as travelled.

I also did a ten-year stint in Musical Theater, not just as a pit musician, but as a Music Director, and I learned a lot about timing and balance between singers and instrument in my time there.

Once I married and had three children, life in the music lane slowed a bit, but I kept up my “chops” by practicing when I could, and though I let go of the church choir position when home life got too busy, I started to miss it. After a few years, I started to research local community choirs. I ended up going to a summer “sing” of masterworks where I introduced myself to the accompanist and offered to substitute if she ever had a need. That led to a number of jobs with different choirs, and I continue to sub and play for choirs today!

If you have ever wondered if you have what it takes to play for a choir, here are some things I’ve learned along the way that might encourage you in your pursuit of choral accompanying!

What are some of the musical skills needed to succeed as a choral accompanist?

A competent pianist, able to play hymns and some Bach Preludes and Fugues, maybe a Haydn or Mozart sonata

A good sense of rhythm

Ability to learn music quickly

A willingness to serve the music by following the director and doing whatever it takes to bring out the best in him/her and the choir

How should pianists prepare for a choral rehearsal?

The following tips come from my Timesavers for Choral Accompanists

Prep your score (put it in a binder, break the binding/cut it off and have it spiral bound),

Listen to a recording of the music with your music in hand

Know the choir entrances (mark your score)

Practice the accompaniment – have a basic idea and be able to “get through” from the first rehearsal, but then practice and polish on your own time throughout the season. You should be able to play from beginning to end without stopping, in support of the choir; and then your priority is listening to the voice parts and being able to play them in different combinations *especially entrances*; then, as the choir becomes more confident in their parts, your job is to enhance the score musically by paying attention to the conductor’s phrasing, tempo changes, and dynamics; lastly, your accompaniment is the “icing” on the cake – never the most important; it comes at the end, after the foundations are well established. (And if you are playing an orchestral reduction, not to perform at the piano at all, you will try to add color and “sound” as much like the orchestral instruments as you can.)

Take good notes in rehearsal – keep a pad of sticky notes next to your binder so you can jot down notes when the director is addressing the choir, and return to them later when you can practice on your own at home

Plan for page turns! Practice them just as you practice your notes and rhythms.

If you would like to see how I prep a score in real time, check out this post and video.

How to work successfully with a conductor:

Make it your goal to make the conductor look good.

Don’t draw attention to the conductor’s mistakes (dropped beats, defining an Italian word wrong, bringing the choir in a whole measure early/late)

Always follow the conductor!

Anticipate what the conductor is going to say and be ready (the choir missed an entrance, prepare to go back)

Be professional. Rehearsals are not the time nor place to air grievances about the director or about the members of the choir.

Address any concerns privately.

Ask, “Can you clarify when you want me to start? Will you give me a preparatory beat, or an entire measure, before you want me to come in?” “What tempo do you prefer here?”

If a collaboration during rehearsal isn’t working, assume it is a misunderstanding on your part. Try to clear it up by asking questions of the conductor.

It is normal to feel overlooked sometimes, or not acknowledged (although a good director will express gratitude for your work) – that is part of the job, and if you have done your job well the choir will know their parts and sing musically whether or not you end up performing with them in the concert; however, if there is a clear issue of disrespect, where the director is continually pointing out mistakes publicly or disparaging you, and you have tried addressing it in private to no avail, it may be time to cut ties and find another choir.

What are some tips for practicing open score?

First of all: If you just need more sightreading practice, make sure you’re reading music 1-2 levels below your playing ability. Read a lot of easy music to get used to scanning the music quickly and then keeping your eyes moving ahead as you play.

You want to get really good at moving your hands around the keyboard without having to look at them. In rehearsal, you will be looking up at the director from time to time, and keeping him in your peripheral vision all of the time. You need most of your vision to be on the music. That leaves little to no time for looking at your hands. I like to think that if I were blind, I could still play familiar pieces on the piano because my ears and hands would guide me. Get used to how chords and octaves feel in the hands, and even how things feel when you’re switching hand positions (I would say jumps, but really what your hands should do at the piano is shift horizontally - not jump.)

Practice basic 4-part open score reading using Bach Chorales. I have two resources available to pianists to help you develop this skill:

A Choral Accompanist’s Guide to Open Score Reading (free guide)

The Well-Tempered Chorale Player, a selection of 15 Bach chorales written in varying key signatures, including both major and minor keys

Additionally, I have an Open Score Summer Intensive coming up this June 18-20, 2026, where I will teach not only how to work through the Bach chorales, but also share tips and tricks for learning music quickly and prioritizing what is most important.

Join me LIVE for a three‑day online intensive offering practical, hands‑on analysis and guided open‑score practice for choral accompanists and directors, helping you confidently play everything from Bach chorales to fugues.

Learn more and register here.

Just get started!

The best practice is on-the-job! Find a choir. Start by offering to substitute for a local group.

Practice reading a lot of music – it doesn’t have to be choral music; work on reading straight through without stopping and without looking at your hands. Glance up from time to time as if you are looking for cues from a conductor.

Practice your open score reading using Bach Chorales. Take my summer intensive and get a toolbox of strategies that will serve you well in rehearsal. The intensive includes three great workbooks that will give you practice with a variety of real-life choral scores long after the course is over.

Check out more choral piano resources on my website! You’ll find lots of information about what the job looks like, how to tackle different scores, and how you can prepare to be successful as a choral accompanist.

The choir world is a unique one, in that it is made up of a wide variety of people. Of course, serious professional singers may be a part of a choir, but more often than not, choirs are made up of schoolteachers, psychologists, judges, lawyers, doctors, chefs, waitresses, actors, music teachers, firefighters, and every other profession that you can think of. The members may have minored in music, or they may just miss singing in their church choir. They may be proficient sight readers, or they may be fantastic aural learners who struggle to read music notation. Usually, every member can point to one significant musical memory from their childhood that got them “hooked.” And the best choir directors can take this conglomerate of people, musical abilities, and experiences, and weave their voices into a beautiful, unified tapestry of sound that touches the souls of those who listen.

If you are not yet part of a choir, I encourage you to look around and see what is available in your area! Check out a few concerts. Offer to substitute for the accompanist. Get involved in your local community and you will be rewarded with new friendships with people who love music as much as you do!

This post first had its home on my substack, At Home with Classical Piano, which is where I write regularly now. Come join me there, or subscribe to my newsletter to stay in the loop and get posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Whether you are a piano teacher looking for music for your students, or a pianist looking for something new to study or play for an upcoming performance, there are a growing number of resources for free music on the Internet. Generally, “free” music falls under the auspices of what is in the public domain - music that is out of copyright because it meets your country’s requirements for X years past the publication date. However, there are some generous folks who have made their arrangements for beginner-intermediate students available for free download. Below are some of my favorite resources:

Chrissy Ricker has a number of pre-reading and elementary arrangements, as well as a few intermediate selections on her Free Stuff page. You’ll also find quite a few teaching resources on the page as well! (And if you would like to support her work financially, check out her music on PopMusicPlus which has fabulous arrangements of popular songs at every level.)

Gilbert DeBenedetti generously offers his arrangements of classical music and folk tunes, as well as some original tunes, on his site, G major theory. Browse by level.

Making Music Fun is a wonderful place to find music history resources. Did you know you can also download their free sheet music arrangements? Browse by classical, patriotic, Christian, jazz, Christmas, celtic, or nursery rhyme categories, or find by level (1-5).

And, of course, everyone should know of the Petrucci Music Library, where you can find a huge assortment of classical music in the public domain. Search by composer, nationality, time period, or instrument difficulty (Piano levels are ordered by the RCM levelling system, which generally starts at year 2-3 of piano study. No pre-reading music here.).

Choral pianists and conductors in search of choral-only music can check out the Choral Wiki, where you can search by voice part. If you’re looking to strengthen your open score sightreading skills, this could be a great resource for you.

Recently, I took advantage of several of these websites as I am preparing summer music for my students. I always like to have something a little out of our “norm” for the summer to keep things fun!

What is your go-to resource for sheet music? Do you take advantage of any of these free resources, pay for a monthly subscription for access, or write your own? Let me know in the comments.

This post first had its home on my new substack, At Home with Classical Piano, which is where I write regularly now. Come join me there, or subscribe to my newsletter to stay in the loop and get posts delivered straight to your inbox!

This is the time of year when I start thinking about what I want summer to look like—for me and for my students. If you’re a piano teacher, you’re probably starting to think about that, too!

Summer offers a natural change of pace—a chance to mix things up, take a little time off, or do things differently than you do during the school year. However, it can also be a season when income takes a hit, especially if your studio follows a traditional school schedule. Planning ahead now can help you so that you’re not scrambling come June.

If you love to teach groups of kids, have the space to host 4-10 kids, and want to either recruit new students or offer a fun alternative to lessons for current students, consider offering a summer camp!

Here are a few things I love about camps:

Camps Build Community

Camps give piano students, who usually learn in isolation, an opportunity to learn together, laugh together, and make music together. They discover that rhythm games are more fun with friends, composing is easier when ideas bounce around the room, and music is something to be shared.

Camps Attract New Students (and Re‑Engage Current Ones)

Summer is a natural time for families to explore new activities. A camp is a low‑commitment, high‑interest way for new students to meet you, experience your teaching style, and get excited about music. It’s a natural recruiting tool!

It’s also a wonderful way to re‑energize current students who need a little inspiration. A week of hands‑on activities, games, and creative projects can spark motivation that carries into fall lessons.

Camps Give You Flexibility

Some practical benefits of running a camp are that it allows you to:

• Replace or supplement summer lesson income
• Consolidate teaching hours into a few focused days
• Free up the rest of your summer for rest, travel, or creative work

For the price of a month of lessons, students get to participate in a fun music camp “intensive” —and you get the benefit of teaching multiple students at once.

Camps Let You Teach Musicianship in New Ways

Explore rhythm through movement, composition through storytelling, listening skills through group games, and theory through hands‑on activities. Students absorb concepts differently when they’re immersed in a sensory camp experience…and they’ll remember the fun they had when the bullfrog visited them during an outside theory game!

But… Planning a Camp Can Feel Overwhelming

The questions pile up quickly:

• What kind of camp should I run?
• How many students should I plan for?
• How long should it be?
• Should I use an existing curriculum or create my own?
• How do I structure each day?
• What should I charge?
• When do I start marketing?

So many decisions can be overwhelming.

That’s why I put together a planning workshop for you!

How to Run a Summer Camp: A Planning Workshop for Piano Teachers

In this on-demand workshop, I’ll walk you through:

• Choosing the right type of camp for your studio
• Deciding on length, structure, pacing, and group size
• Reviewing the best camp curriculums available for piano teachers
• Tips for writing your own curriculum (if you want to!)
• Pricing, marketing, and registration strategies
• A planning timeline to keep you on track
• Sample emails and registration form

You’ll leave with a clear plan of action for this year’s camp—plus a planning guide with all the resources you need to get started.

Summer camps have been a fun way to supplement my private piano teaching and keep students engaged. If you’ve ever thought about running one—or even if you’re just curious—I would love to help you get started.

Ready to plan your camp?

👉 Click here to access the workshop. 

I can’t wait to see what you create this summer!

Happy music-making!
Cori

P.S. For more ideas on how to boost your summer income, check out this link.

This post first had its home on my new substack, At Home with Classical Piano, which is where I write regularly now. Come join me there, or subscribe to my newsletter to stay in the loop and get posts delivered straight to your inbox!

I have slowly been making my way through Ravel’s Jeux d’eau. You may know the piece from the 2024 Olympics, when it was played in the opening ceremonies by pianist Alexandre Kantorow on a grand piano in pouring rain.

The picture makes me cringe – what an awful way to treat a beautiful instrument! However, the image of rain falling on the very instrument whose music simulates the movement of water is incredibly effective. My shock and awe at this sight drove me to explore the piece myself a few months later.

Let me start by saying that this is a difficult piece to learn! It is not straightforward like Mozart, where the notes fit neatly into their appointed beats and the melody is often clearly delineated in the right hand. Instead, Ravel seeks to create an impression of the different ways in which water moves.

In the Pacific Northwest, we are very familiar with water, specifically rain! Our rain comes in all shapes and sizes: fine mist that you barely see, steady unrelenting rain lasting weeks on end, quick torrential downpours, light pitter-patter drops that evolve into unexpected hailstorms. And then there are the rivers, lakes, ocean...and the waterfalls that barely drip with water in the summer’s heat but cascade violently during winter storms. Think of the millions of tiny water droplets that make up all these expressions of water and then imagine translating them into ink by giving a toddler a ballpoint pen with the instruction to “cover the paper with dots.” This is what the music looks like. How do you even make sense of it all?! My process with this, and all new pieces of music, tends to look like this:

1. Get an overview – listen with and without the score, muddle through a first reading

2. Analyze sections to identify patterns, work out chunks

3. Practice note by note, taking it apart hands separately, and write out the beats where necessary

Zoom in, zoom out and repeat. Even though I may start this process by going through steps one, two and three consecutively, I am constantly revisiting one or the other of the steps as I work towards mastery. I can never stay in one step exclusively or I hinder my own progress.

When presenting a new piece to a student for the first time, we make choices about how we will teach it: play it first for them; talk through it and analyze what is happening; or let them muddle through without any assistance. All three approaches accomplish different goals, and all three approaches are needed throughout the student’s time of study with us.

When we approach a new piece ourselves, we also make choices about how we will begin learning it. It is important to get an overview of it at some point (some may argue that this is an essential first step), perhaps by listening to a recording or muddling through a first reading. The latter is almost impossible to do in the Ravel, as parts are just not readable at first glance. Nonetheless, it is important to have an idea of how the piece is laid out and what Ravel is trying to communicate.

Analysis can get us a long way, as we study the piece first for an initial theme and begin noting sections that vary from, or repeat, the theme. We look for key changes, tempo changes, and register changes. We might even mark our music before we ever begin playing, identifying an ABA form or writing in names of notes or chords that are difficult to read (multiple ledger lines, for instance, or passages with double sharps!).

Practicing note by note, hands separately, slowly and methodically is also an important strategy, but it can be easy to “miss the forest for the trees.” In other words, we can get too focused in on the minutiae that we lose the whole arc of the piece if we stay in this mode too long.

Our practice must constantly be a process of zooming in and zooming out. Similarly, we need to teach our students to have a sense of the whole (This is usually not a problem, as students like to power through to the end, despite making numerous mistakes, or playing haltingly as they struggle to figure out notes in the midst of “getting through”) and to attend to small sections that need troubleshooting. This is why “play your piece three times a day” or “practice for 30 minutes a day” is not sufficient instruction. We need to spend time during the lesson demonstrating how to look at the big picture and identify sections (zooming out), and then in writing in fingering and practicing short bits in a focused and detailed manner (zooming in) so that our students learn effective ways to practice.

One fun way I like to “zoom out” when students are getting lost in practicing short bits is by taking them to the last four measures of a piece and teaching them the section. We then discuss working backwards as a practice strategy: now that they know the last four bars, they can learn the few bars before those and play to the end, feeling a sense of accomplishment!

If you play for a choir, you know that practicing choral music often demands a quick, efficient approach. This is where analysis is most beneficial to begin with, then muddling through the whole piece (identifying shortcuts), and working note by note only at crucial points. If you are interested in learning more about this approach, you can check out my Open Score reading workshop.

Practicing does not have to be a chore; it can be an enjoyable process of problem-solving and discovery when we learn to zoom in and zoom out, taking advantage of our time and energy by working hard on details in short, focused bursts, and then rewarding ourselves with the chance to play what we know and have already mastered – or listening to the music with our score and taking note of what another pianist does to make it musical.

Which of these three phases of music learning do you enjoy most? Do you tend to spend your time in [teaching or practicing] one phase more than the other two? I didn’t even speak to the topic of memorizing - is that a part of your learning process? Let me know in the comments!

This post was originally published on my Substack, where you can find my latest posts, Practice Sessions, and Mini Musikhaus recordings. To have content delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for my Newsletter.

This post first had its home on my new substack, At Home with Classical Piano, which is where I write regularly now. Come join me there, or subscribe to my newsletter to stay in the loop and get posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Several months ago I was visiting my parents at their house and my dad showed me a notebook that his dad, my grandpa, had put together years ago. It was a simple brown binder with no label or identifier on the cover, but upon opening it I found a certificate awarding a gold medal to my grandpa for its contents.

Before I go on, you have to know this about my grandpa: he was a collector. He collected books (hundreds? thousands?), rocks (and cut and polished them), iris (and belonged to a garden society), antique blue and white plates (which hung all over the kitchen walls), and stamps. He was most proud of his Queen Elizabeth stamps, but he collected all kinds. And he spent hours putting together his stamp collections into neat, orderly pages in binders.

It turns out that the brown binder that contained the gold medal certificate was another of these stamp collections! Inside was an exhibit of “Musical Themes from Great Composers” that he presented at the Second A.T.A. Topical Stamp Exhibition in 1953. Each page contains one or more stamps depicting a classical composer, a typed short bio of the composer, a brief description of the stamp’s origin, and a hand-written excerpt of a composition written by the composer.

It was this last bit that caught my dad’s attention. My grandpa was not a musician, and to our knowledge he had no formal musical training; yet the copied music is meticulously rendered in black ink with all the proper formatting and no mistakes. The attention to detail is astonishing.

I don’t know if there is any “use” for these pages any more, but as a part of my family history - and the fact that both my dad and myself became accomplished pianists - the binder is a wonderful treasure to us.

Here are a few of the pages: 

Do you have similar musical artifacts in your family’s history? I’d love to hear about them!

From treble clef paperclips and music-themed ornaments to beautifully illustrated children’s books and resource books to use in your teaching, to a magnetic iPhone tripod and a Bluetooth pedal page turner that will make your life a little easier, you are sure to find something to love!

Check out my Substack for 15 of my favorite books, gadgets, and teaching tools for pianists - including gift ideas for piano students!

Change is in the air…literally. It seems like overnight we went from 70 degree afternoons to snow in the mountains, trees exploding in color, and 43 degree mornings. My car even gave me a warning today: “Ice possible.” I am not sure how exactly it calculated that one, but regardless, the season is definitely changing!

Around here, things are changing too! 

I am moving my newsletter and blog to Substack! 

I am excited to join a community of writers and readers in this new space. It will allow me to give you a chance to participate in dialogue around my writing by commenting on posts, as well as the opportunity to support my work with likes, shares, and recommendations. I am also excited to now offer paid subscribers bonus content, including access to my Practice Sessions and Mini Musikhaus recordings, and to the whole archive of posts.

What this means for you:

All of the current blog archives will stay intact here on my website. And I may post occasionally here, too. But for my latest posts and news, you will need to head over to Substack and “follow” or “subscribe” to At Home with Classical Piano.

I love being a musician and sharing what I have learned (and what I am continuing to learn) with others. You have been so supportive of my work up to this point, and my move to Substack means that I can offer more benefits to you, my current readers, as well as being able to share my work with more people. 

frequently asked questions

What will moving to Substack look like? Substack lets you access my posts just like you always have here, but it also automatically emails those posts to your inbox and allows for different levels of membership 

What if I don't want weekly e-mails in my inbox? Once you set up an account with Substack, you can click on “My Account,” then under “Email notifications,” you will see an option to opt out of the newsletter posts.

Is it free? Yes! You’ll get the same articles you’re used to getting here. But if you decide to become a paid subscriber, that means you’ll get content on top of that: access to Practice Sessions and Mini Musikhaus recordings, special subscriber discounts to my shop, and other bonuses!

How much does it cost to subscribe? $6 a month or $60 a year

How do I follow you on Substack? I'm glad you asked! Just click here and enter your email to subscribe.

I'm already a subscriber to your newsletter, but I want to try out the upgrade. How do I do that? You can do that here.

What if I'm reading on an RSS feed? If you follow me on feedly or another RSS feed, you will need to add this URL to your RSS reader: https://athomewithclassicalpiano.substack.com/feed

I am excited for this new season on Substack and hope that you find much encouragement and inspiration as I share the music and resources God has given me. 

Happy music-making,

Cori 

My formal training in piano stopped shortly after I completed my undergrad. I took a few graduate level courses at an international music school, but never ended up pursuing my master's degree. Yet, I have worked hard in the years since to maintain my skills and even to improve both technically and artistically. There were opportunities that presented themselves to me - like being offered the pianist position at my church and taking one-off lessons with a friend's teacher - and others that I intentionally pursued - like getting into the musical theater world and finding a community choir. But the thing that has grown me the most is something I never would have predicted: listening to myself play.

In 2018, my children were squarely in the grammar school phase and it occurred to me that I should try making a CD during the hours in which they were attending school. I'd recorded one before, with the help of friends who owned a small production studio, and we had recorded live tracks at a beautiful music center in the mountains. (Listen to that album here.) I'd also been a part of several live choral recording projects, so I was aware of the pressure to perform and the hyper-consciousness one enters when in such a situation. But I didn't want to record in a studio on someone else's instrument or even on a single day. My vision was to record on my own piano, in my own living room, over the course of weeks, taking a leisurely pace and listening to takes in between recording sessions.

Doesn't that sound fantastic? The reality was so much different (read more about that here). Between the piano developing weird clicks, airplanes roaring overhead, and the neighbors mowing their lawns, it was quite the experience! I learned a lot about self-recording and producing. But I learned a whole lot about myself as a pianist, too.

Listening to recordings of yourself is eye-opening and not for the faint of heart! The process of recording and my desire to share my music turned the heat up even more, and so for several months I scrutinized my playing ruthlessly. Everything was subjected to criticism, and I found myself asking, “What makes my playing different? What is my signature sound? How might I convey my personality and feelings about this music solely through sound? Who am I as an artist? What differentiates my sound from the thousands of existing recordings?”

The exercise was immensely stretching and so good for my playing. I became more concerned about accuracy, but also more intent on producing a beautiful tone. I wanted listeners to hear the shimmery top of my piano and feel like they were in my living room listening to one of my intimate house concerts.

In the end, the recording was far from perfect, and there are definitely things I would do differently a second time around. But it was mine. And I had emerged a better musician and pianist because of it. (Listen to the recording here.)

Why do I share all of this with you? Because too often we sit down and play the piano for the thrill of playing and we forget to listen to what we're producing. The physicality of playing is so absorbing that we forget to make music. Either we are facing technical challenges, or fingering difficulties, or odd leaps, or we're taking pride in how fast our fingers can fly and what kind of physical gymnastics we're capable of at the keyboard. It is so easy to forget about the sound. Even worse, when we are faced with a new piece of music, especially in a collaborative situation where we are playing for a choir, we get so hyper focused on playing the correct notes that we forget to breathe and sing the lines.

We have the incredible privilege of being musicians. Our goal is to make music. And the way we get there is to start listening.

In your playing this week, whether on your own or with a choir, I encourage you to listen intently to the sound you are making. Challenge yourself to be musical every time you sit down, even during a first reading. You will find that it makes the process so much more enjoyable, and your playing will be better because of it!

Keep up with my writing by subscribing to At Home with Classical Piano on Substack.

"Tell me about what you just played. Did you include the dynamics?"

"I don't know."

Have you had a similar exchange in your studio? This is all too common with my students. They play for me; I make some comments, praising them for what they did well and addressing one or two things that need work; and then they try again. Then they look to me for my approval. 

But I don't want them to always look to me; I want them to notice if they have accomplished what they set out to do. I want them to listen.

My goal in piano teaching is to create independent learners. I want my students to play well technically and express themselves musically, but I also want them to eventually be able to learn music on their own. In order to do this, I will need to spend a number of years with them building up their technical, musical, and reading skills. I also need to teach them to listen.

How is this accomplished?

When students first come to us, their movements are often crude and unrefined, and they are so intent on pushing the keys that they forget to listen. But that doesn't mean they can't be taught! This is why we begin teaching them how to count, drawing their attention to when notes move higher or lower - aurally and visually and kinesthetically. It is why we teach dynamics and the difference between staccato and legato playing. As they grow, we talk about phrasing and making the music sound like a conversation, or a story. We introduce concepts like rubato.

We  need to teach students to pay attention to what they are doing at the piano.

One thing we can do to help our students begin listening to themselves is to have them play through a piece once, working out movements and fingerings, and then ask them to play it a second time with dynamics (or articulation, or whatever it is you want them to attend to). The physical won't always be isolated in practice, but it is often this way when we approach a new piece.

We can't toss out body mechanics. Students still need to move their fingers, control the force of their arm weight, and so on. And so much of their work in learning to play the piano is focused on controlling their movements. But as they work out technical difficulties, they ought also attend to the sound.

I remember learning in this fashion for many years - practicing to master playing the instrument with each new piece I was given - and then my teacher would start asking me to "add expression."

As pianists, our goal should always be to play musically. The movements our bodies make are just a means to an end. If we, or our students, can play all of the correct notes but lack any shaping of the phrase, articulation, dynamics, or rubato, what are we doing?

I like to tell my students that the piano is a musical instrument, not a computer! 

Pressing the right keys doesn't make music. Shaping the sound with the way we move, breathing between phrases, listening to how notes rise and fall, and making adjustments to the tempo and dynamics does!

Here are some things we can do to train our students to listen so that they can become musicians at the keyboard, not merely piano "players":

1. Demonstrate what we want them to do. Have the student sit in your "teacher chair" while you play. Talk about what you are doing. Then, have the student try to imitate your playing. Praise their efforts. Discuss how they can manipulate their movements to achieve a certain sound.

2. Record the student and play it back to them. Tell them what to listen for. When students are physically removed from making the sound, they can listen more intently.

3. Play recordings of other pianists, either audio or video, for your students and encourage them to listen for a specific thing each time.

As students mature and become more self-aware (and better listeners), they will develop the ability to play more musically. Their desire to make music will grow, and they will begin self-correcting their mistakes and adjusting their movements to create the kind of sound they want to hear. 

As you welcome students to lessons this week, consider how you can encourage them to be better listeners as they play!

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1. Duets are fun! As one of my young beginners said once, “It sounds better when we play together.” A duet can help the simplest beginning song sound like “real music,” and even our youngest students need to experience making beautiful music!  I love mixing things up once in awhile and starting a lesson by playing a duet with a student. 
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3. Here are some reasons why playing duets with our students can be really beneficial:

• Duets are one way to teach steady beat. We can clap, count, march, and tap until we are blue in the face (and sometimes we do!), and still we have students who need more practice with this concept. Duets are one tool we can use to help keep the beat as our students play, and as we play together more often, the experience can help our students start to internalize a steady pulse.
• Duets strengthen the teacher-student bond. We all want to connect with our students, to form a relationship of trust and respect so that the teaching-learning exchange is profitable and enjoyable. When we sit beside our students and play duets, we create a shared experience where for a moment we are musicians together.
• Duets are a great way to practice sightreading. Some students will naturally read every piece of music they can get their hands on. Others need a little encouragement. Find pieces that are a level or two below the student’s playing level, and read them together as a duet at a moderate tempo. Help the student be successful by previewing the score together, discussing where there might be unexpected rhythms, leaps, or key changes. Then, set the tempo and play!

If you are using a method book series like Faber and Faber, Alfred, or Bastien, you will find teacher duets written in the lesson book for many of the student’s songs. These are great to play with beginners after the student has mastered playing their part.

For students who have been taking lessons for a few years, Margaret Goldston has some fun elementary level duets that are great for sightreading. Try “Duets for Bear Lovers,” “Duets for Cat Lovers,” or “Duets for Dog Lovers.” (I just learned that she also has three books of “Duets for Christmas Lovers!”) Goldston’s books feature primo and secondo parts of equal difficulty, and it can be fun to take turns playing each part with your students.

You might also try Helen Marlais’ “In Recital Series” of duet books published by Alfred Music. 

A fun book for intermediate and advanced students is The Rodgers and Hammerstein Piano Duet Book arranged by Walter Pels and David Carr Glover. (You may have to find this one as a used copy!) Depending on your student’s sightreading ability, you may prefer to assign pieces in this book for the student to study at home before playing together.

At the advanced level, students may enjoy Faure’s Dolly Suite, Dvorzak’s Slavic Dances, Compton’s C.S. (Chopsticks) Theme and Variations, or any of a number of wonderful pieces for four hands.

What are some of your favorite duets to play with students? Let me know in the comments!

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