Our first piano lesson – teachers blog

First Piano Lesson Structure

Introduction to weight control – 20 minutes

Basic sight-reading concepts – 20 minutes

Exercise – 20 minutes

Introduction to weight control

 

In this section, we will focus on how to use the weight of our arms to prevent our fingers from tensing too much.

We will try to perform the following exercise making sure the student does not stress any muscle except for those directly involved in the finger movement.

 

TABLE EXERCISE

1. Edge of the hand on the edge of the table
2. Extend the fingers
3. Lift the hand slightly off the table
4. Lift fingers 1 and 5
5. Drag your arm using only your fingers

For FINGER TRAINING

6. Lift fingers 2 and 4, leaving only finger 3 supporting the weight
7. Transfer the weight from 2 to 3 and then sequentially to all other fingers one by one

 

Weight transfer

We need to make sure that students transfer the weight from one finger to another without involving any other muscle except for the fingers. That is why the first stage consists of showing them how the transfer works in slow motion.

Once this is achieved, we will ask the student to do it once while guiding us through the process, so we can verify how well they understood the mechanism.

Trigger mechanism

Once the first stage is perfectly mastered, we will go through it again, but this time encouraging them to switch fingers as quickly as possible. This sonorous exchange of fingers is what we call the trigger mechanism and is fundamentally linked to the quality of the tone we produce.

The parameter that the instrument collects to produce any sound is the speed at which we attack the keys, and that value is directly related to the distance that exists at a certain point between the tips of our fingers and the surface of the keys. That is why at the beginning we will always ask them to lift the fingers that are not touching to produce a consistent, precise, and loud tone with each of them.

Key tasks for the teacher It is essential to monitor whether the student is effectively focusing all muscular action on the lower tip of their fingers and nowhere else. Tension should not be detected in the joint between the forearm and the upper arm. The elbow should hang loose. The wrist should be aligned with the forearm – never raised or lowered. The position of the right wrist is what helps the fingers develop grip and also allows them to be aligned with the elbow. Basic sight-reading concepts

The basic objective is to leave the student with enough basic tools to start reading from lesson one (at least one basic piece). For this purpose, we will mainly focus on explaining:

Meaning and function of both clefs. G clef = treble clef: Its function is to define where G is. F clef = bass clef: Its function is to define where F is. How to derive middle C from G and F clefs. Highlight the intermediate analog position of middle C, both on the keyboard and in the sheet music. Counting: Semibreves Minims Crotchets Quavers Rests

It is necessary to strongly emphasize the main difference that exists between monophonic and polyphonic instruments and how this conditions the way sight-reading is approached. Later, we will briefly explain the meaning of “Movements” and “Motions.”

Movements

• Step-by-step: line to space, space to line.
• Skip:

** line to line, space to space: Skip 1.

** line to space, space to line: Skip 2.

** line to line, space to space but more widely spaced:

Motions

• Contrary motion = opposite directions
• Oblique motion = one stays still and the other moves

 

If we are dealing with a complete beginner, we will land on Exercise No. 1 of Bartok Mikrokosmos vol. 1. We will encourage the student to keep each sense attached to a specific task:

Sight: checking the score; and only borrowed at this stage to find the initial position of the hand on the keyboard Touch: responsible for tuning, which is the act of striking the note that is in the correct direction from the tone we are playing at that moment. Hearing: committed to monitoring sound production.

We will explain that Bartok uses only parallel motion and staggered motion, and for this reason we should not worry at all about the names of the notes and instead focus on what the notes do and how long they last.