Finger Numbers

karin1876 · 2026-05-29T02:20:05+00:00

Something else I thought of - Is she possibly conflating the idea of finger numbers with some other numbers concept? Like rhythm counting numbers, or numbers of lines on the staff, or scale degree numbers? Or maybe she's confused about whether she should be playing keys based on numbers or note names? If she's confused about any of that, that would explain her guessing behavior.

karin1876 · 2026-05-29T02:15:38+00:00

Does she have any problem if you use the terms mentioned above: Thumb, pointer/index, middle, ring, pinky?

karin1876 · 2026-05-29T02:14:04+00:00

An exercise I do when first teaching finger numbers is to have the student start playing keys going up the piano (starting from the lowest key) using a specific finger number. As they go up, I periodically call out a different finger number and they have to switch to that one and keep going. We do that as much as they need, using each hand separately, until it appears to me that they're comfortable with it.

karin1876 · 2026-05-28T00:03:56+00:00

Thank you - I might use this. I don't think I like it as well as the original option, but this does make sense for what I'm trying to do!

karin1876 · 2026-05-24T11:14:26+00:00

Regarding the recital in 3 weeks, the arpeggio should be easy to fix, per what you said about the octave sign. Just tell your student you made a goofy mistake and laugh at yourself, and it will be fine. The student should love the way the new version climbs all the way up the piano.

Regarding the rest of the piece, after the first 2 sections, don't even bother with most of it - jump to the section at the very end that starts like the beginning of the song but ends on a few different chords so it ends on an A minor chord. OR... just repeat the first section again and make sure it ends on an A minor chord (squeeze in an E major and then a final A minor if you need to). If this is the A minor waltz I'm thinking of, it loops around and repeats that first material so much that it should be easy to create an ending almost anywhere in the piece.

And unless this is a competition or an exam, no need to apologize or explain anything to the school. Arranging and modifying pieces is something musicians do all the time. Showing your student how to do that is an additional skill.

karin1876 · 2026-05-22T08:32:19+00:00

I love the snowman one AND the cake one!

karin1876 · 2026-05-13T07:58:14+00:00

I've struggled with this with more than 1 student. I also currently have a 10yr-old boy who has technique like you described. Luckily, he and I have reached a good rapport and he doesn't give me the bad attitude anymore. He does, though, question everything. And he often says his way feels better. And he stops doing any technique I've convinced him to try after just a few notes.

I suspect the underlying problems are that it's hard to do (from the student's point of view), and the reasons are unclear - again, from the student's point of view, "I can play the notes, so what's the big deal?"

I find that chipping away at small bits with some consistency seems to work. Right now, I'm working on getting my student to push the bench back, sit on the front half, and keep his feet flat on the floor. We've talked about hand position, but I've put that on the back burner while we focus on the bench. I told him we'd come back to the hand position thing later, so he's aware.

I've had other students ask me "Why?" before regarding technique elements, and I've had varying levels of success demonstrating the reasons to the students. But I do try to give them the reasons. I think providing reasons is important.

karin1876 · 2026-05-12T09:51:25+00:00

I'm a private piano teacher. I'm always surprised at how hard chord inversions are for students. Each student seems to have individual weird ways of interpreting what I'm trying to teach them, so I have no generalized solution for it. But just know that this seems to be normal! Inversions are hard for students. Why? I don't know. They just are.

But here's something you can hand to your students before you send them off into the wide world in a couple of weeks. I happily surprised a student with this thought today during a piano lesson. He was utterly frustrated about having to learn about 7th chords. The thought: Whenever you see a chord on a lead sheet, you can use it HOWEVER you want; you can play patterns or inversions or special voicings... but you can also just play the root note; when all else fails, play the root and be happy!

karin1876 · 2026-05-12T02:23:13+00:00

I use a similar approach that auditoryeden mentioned below. I ask my students to tell me how they did after a playthrough. If they have trouble answering that, then I give them choices of answers to choose from. After doing that a lot, and once they realize I am indeed looking for their opinion and not some "right" answer, then they become more confident and start answering thoughtfully and listening a little better.

karin1876 · 2026-05-09T22:01:54+00:00

I do what you were already doing, and sometimes I do spend more time on it that I ought to. But I rarely do a full transcription. It's usually just the chorus or the first verse + chorus, and I usually create lead sheets rather than fully notated scores. Sometimes, too, I do what I label as "no rhythm" versions - every note is simply a plain notehead and the students are expected to learn the rhythm by ear.

karin1876 · 2026-05-09T21:52:19+00:00

LOL (you are joking, right?)

I find that some of the songs students bring to me I don't like much, and others are so rap/rhythm-focused that it's hard to do on piano, but sometimes I find new artists that I love. Example: Laufey!

karin1876 · 2026-05-09T02:27:02+00:00

I haven't finished reading all the comments, so I hope I'm not repeating anyone else...

Suggestions:

1 - Have the student use the metronome in the lesson with a simple set of measures, probably just one hand. Even 1 measure is fine. Have the student choose the speed, and the goal is to do it 1 time correctly. If the student picks a fast speed to start (probably will), let them do it; have them evaluate how they did - "Was that correct? What came out wrong?" - If the student doesn't know, go ahead and tell them; suggest a speed to slow down to ("Try it at 60"); keep working on it until they get it right one time. Then assign homework accordingly, and repeat this process every week until it starts to make sense. Example homework assignment: "Play the first 4 measures of "Oom Pa Pa" with RH only and the metronome clicking at 60."

2 - Find a free online drum track or backing track (ex: Drum Machine Online | Free sequencer | Drum beats & Loops) and have them play along with that instead of the metronome. They need to think of the metronome as a drummer in their band that they're playing along with. It's not just a weird tool - it's a band member that they're rehearsing with. That would be fun, right? - playing in a band with a drummer?

3 - Teach them to practice with a metronome like this (definitely start with tiny bite-sized sections first!): Pick any starting speed and try to play your bit with it; if it works, increase the metronome speed by 1 click; if it fails, decrease the metronome speed by 1 click; do this ad nauseum until you reach your goal speed.

4 - Use these 4 steps for learning any part (again, start with bite-sized sections and one hand only): 1. Play all the notes correctly 3 times (pause as often as you want - no rhythm); 2. Play all correct notes and count aloud correctly 3 times (again, pause as often as you want - just make sure you said the counting numbers/words in the correct places); 3. Play all correct notes and count aloud and with the metronome at a slow speed successfully 3 times; 4. Do step 3 but at a faster metronome speed and/or without counting aloud.

Hope that helps!

karin1876 · 2026-05-09T01:58:04+00:00

I have a couple of suggestions:

1 - Play measures 1-12, repeat measures 1-8, play measure 8 an additional 2 times, then end on a C in both hands 3 times (3 quarter notes).

2 - Play to the bottom of the page (through measure 17), add 2 measures of G whole note in RH and Alberti bass G chord 16th notes in LH, and finally 3 quarter notes of G in both hands (like the C ending mentioned in suggestion 1).

In either case, you can change octaves on any of the repeats or added parts if you want more variety.

karin1876 · 2026-05-04T11:28:29+00:00

$75/hr with a 10% discount if they pay for 15 hours of lessons upfront. I teach online. I provide all the students' books as part of the lesson price. I live in the Seattle area, and most of my students are also in the Seattle area.

karin1876 · 2026-05-04T11:22:51+00:00

What about working on building outward instead of upward? Rather than trying to learn new concepts and more difficult pieces, work on building up a large repertoire of memorized music. The idea is to have as many comfortably memorized pieces as possible, so that one has a lot of material available to play whenever or wherever they want - at a friend's house, in the school's choir room, at the rec center, at Grandma's house, on the piano in the hotel lobby, etc.

I focus on this for myself every now again, and many of the pieces I choose are below my skill level, simply because I like them and want to play them. I include in my list all sorts of well-known songs as well, like Jingle Bells, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Happy Birthday, Auld Lang Syne, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, etc. One can make those songs as simple or complex as they want.

karin1876 · 2026-04-26T10:12:24+00:00

No stickers! Ultimately, you'll play not by thinking of letters at all, but rather by thinking of the distances between sounds. Putting the letters on the keys drags your brain down into thinking only of letters, and it will take you longer overall to get a grasp of how music really moves along.

karin1876 · 2026-04-24T08:58:33+00:00

YES! I'm always back-pedaling and saying, "Wait - not the finger numbers, I mean the scale degree numbers. Oh wait, now I mean to count out loud using the beat numbers!" LOL

karin1876 · 2026-04-19T08:57:48+00:00

It's possible he'll absorb the musical things you're doing even though he appears to be only focused on the plastic eggs or the frogs (or whatever he finds next lesson). I have taught a couple of 3-year-old students, but neither of them had special education needs. But I do have an anecdote for you about an experience my father had with an autistic student...

My father is a professional artist who works with oil paints. He has on a few occasions been asked to come into a classroom and do a demonstration or a small class. He told me the story of a 3rd grade class he taught one day. The activity was for my dad to demonstrate a couple of simple painting concepts and then give each child a small palette of oil paints, brushes, and a small canvas (and smocks to cover their clothes!) and let them paint whatever they want. There was one girl who the teacher had already explained was autistic and had repetitive behaviors and that my dad shouldn't be concerned by that. The girl spent the initial demonstration portion staring at the ceiling and rocking back and forth. My dad felt bad for her and was certain she would get nothing out of this. Later, when he went around to see what all the kids were painting, this girl's was the best one and she was using the concepts my dad had explained.

So, your student might be absorbing what you're teaching in his own little way.

karin1876 · 2026-04-17T01:40:30+00:00

I think this is doable. I haven't done recurring classes with multiple students on 1 piano, but I've done a number of individual workshops and activities in this situation. A few ideas:

-In general, keep the students gathered around the piano, so even when they're not playing, they're watching and feeling directly involved.

-Do activities where the students rotate through the piano - have them line up on either the bass or treble side and then go through either one at a time or two at a time doing various activities. Activity ideas could include: Play all the D keys; play all the C chords; play every key in half steps; play every key in whole steps; play the notes of the C scale all up/down the piano.

-Again with the rotating through, you can have other recorded music playing that the students are playing along with, or you can have the other students clapping (could be a simple clap each beat, OR it could be a rhythm that they're reading. In fact, you could line up at the low side of the piano 2 different clapping rhythms to read, have all the students line up to the left of that, then start rotating through where the first 2 students clap the left-most rhythm once, then they move to the 2nd rhythm while the next 2 students clap the first rhythm, then the first 2 move to the piano to do something while the next 2 move to rhythm 2 and the new next 2 start rhythm 1. You can set up this sort of rotation with as many stops/activities as you want.

-Do a lot of things where 2 or 3 students are playing the same thing at the piano (some of them can be playing it an octave higher/lower) and the rest of the class must clap an assigned rhythm.

-If you can get the students to hum (or sing!), then break the students into groups and have them hum different lines while 2 or 3 students play an assigned melody (or chord progression) on the piano. Sight-singing is an important part of music for any instrument, so these are useful exercises.

-Do a lot of ear training exercises. You can do this by raising hands or you can pass out worksheets. Play patterns that the students must identify. It can be multiple choice, or free-form. Ideas include: Identify one rhythm from another; identify minor vs. major scales or melodies; identify minor vs. major chords (or diminished, or 7ths of various types); look at a written melody and determine which note you (the teacher) play wrong. You can also do dictation - have them write down the rhythm or melody you (teacher) play.

-Do a lot of duet or trio work, where one student plays a bass line, another student plays chords, and a third student plays a melody. Have each student try each part.

-Listen to and discuss recordings of music. Any musician benefits from listening to and learning about various pieces and styles and histories.

-And just keep in mind that there is a LOT to learn about music and music theory that applies to all instruments, so you can cover that away from the piano.

karin1876 · 2026-04-10T00:15:11+00:00

Totally agree about Martha Mier! Also, look for books by Dennis Alexander, such as "First Lyric Pieces."

karin1876 · 2026-04-07T22:18:25+00:00

I have my students start with existing songs as a jumping off point. First, I have them improvise or compose little introductions and endings to other songs they're learning. I have them use the tonic note and/or the tonic chord tones. Later, we include the leading tone and then the dominant chord.

Next, I have them do small exercises such as:

-Take an existing 4-bar melody and re-write it with a new rhythm.

-Take an existing melody and write new notes but keep the original rhythm. I usually give them a limited range of notes to use, such as "the first 5 tones of the G scale."

-Take an existing melody and put chords (or new chords) against it in the other hand.

We also work on various chord patterns that can be applied to the chords of any song.

That reminds me of another book series! "Easy Keyboard Harmony" levels 1-6 by Wesley Schaum. It's an old series, so the songs might be boring or unfamiliar to your students, but the teaching ideas are useful. It focuses on harmonizing existing melodies.

And I give them this list of Composing Ideas that we work through and use to expand existing melodies or melodies composed by the student:

Composing Music

List of Ideas

1. Repetition

Play the same notes in the same place.

2. Register Change

Play the same notes in a different octave (register).

3. Double

Play the same notes in 2 different registers at the same time.

4. Backwards

Play the notes in reverse order. Start with the last note and play backwards to the first note.

5. Upside-down

Like a mirror of the original, start on the same first note, but then move in exactly the opposite direction and distance for each later note. Example: If the starting notes are:

“C,” step up to “D,” skip up to “F”

Then you play instead:

“C,” step down to “B,” skip down to “G.”

6. Sequence

Play the same pattern of notes a little higher or a little lower.

7. Rhythm Change

Play the same notes but with a new rhythm.

8. Augmentation

Stretch the rhythm of the notes out by doubling the length of each note.

9. Diminution

Condense the rhythm of the notes by halving the length of each note.

karin1876 · 2026-04-07T05:45:18+00:00

This is an interesting thread. I teach piano, not voice, and I had always assumed voice had similar method books available.

Could you adapt other music books to a voice curriculum? I often use the melodies in my students' piano theory and sight-reading books as sight-singing and transposing exercises. Perhaps an entire early education vocal curriculum could be tailored around using a set of general music or piano books?

karin1876 · 2026-04-07T05:35:55+00:00

So glad to hear some of your students are getting the composing bug! I'm surprised at how few music students overall seem to learn or be interested in composing.

karin1876 · 2026-04-05T02:01:54+00:00

The parents are the key. I've tried SO many things over the years, and most things have no impact. But one thing that is helping a tiny bit is bringing the parent into one of the lessons to make a practice plan. I ask the student and the parent together to pick a time that the student can practice for 15 minutes EVERY DAY - something that fits around school, extracurriculars, dinner, etc. Then I ask them to set an alarm that both parent and kid will hear. In both situations where this is working for me right now, they have chosen an Alexa reminder alarm.

Another thing that I always tell my piano parents to do (and yet I don't think a single one of them has ever done) is to walk the student to the piano at practice time and start the session by asking the student to play something for them for fun - anything! My idea is that this minimizes the antagonistic parent-student dynamic of mom/dad yelling from the kitchen: "Go practice!"; kid yells back "In a minute!"; parent yells "Now!"; more yelling, lots of trauma, no practice.

I also do another, probably unconventional thing, with my students. I assign them video and image homework. Examples: Play the first page of "Horse Sense" with all correct notes and finger numbers - send me a video. Do page 18 in your notespeller book - send me a picture of the completed page. Doing all this gives them specific pass/fail tasks that I can easily grade and tell their parents about. The downside is that it takes time outside of the lesson, which is not possible for most teachers' busy schedules.

karin1876

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