One of the greatest blessings of being a musician is when you’re given the opportunity to be a part of something that’s greater than anything you can do by yourself. Playing piano while others sing alongside others can be so delightful. Once your child can play this hymn rather fluently, I encourage you to… Read More
If you are ready to start your students with the 1st Step, but you haven’t studied Mrs. Curwen’s Teacher’s Guide yet, below is a video to get you started. It’s a summary for teaching the 1st Lesson of the 1st Step.
What is the depth and breadth of the content to be taught here? What is the order in which the content should be taught for the best learning? These are the questions I’m hoping to clearly answer here.
Mrs. Curwen’s method is geared toward two groups of people. She has a complete method written out for use by the teacher. She also has a complete series of books written for use by the student. Can one be used effectively without the other?
Early in Mrs. Curwen’s preliminary courses, the teacher plays piece after piece of music with two pulse, three pulse, and four pulse measure. This gives the opportunity for the student to feel and hear the accented pulse and the following weak pulses.
In the below video, you’ll see the over arching principles Mrs. Curwen uses to teach the staff. It encompasses facets from all five preliminary lessons. This is not something that would be taught in a single lesson. One of the defining traits of her method to teach the staff is her use of the continuous intervals of the thirds.
Mrs. Curwen believed firmly that you “teach the thing before the sign.” In this video, let’s discuss how she applies this idea to the teaching of pulse, measure, and finally the quarter note.
When it comes to studying Mrs. Curwen’s Method, I’ve spent the most time studying her beginner Preliminary Lessons. Most of my students are beginner students. Mrs. Curwen also mentions rather often that piano teachers make their greatest mistakes in their beginner lessons. I’m included in that group of piano teachers who made mistakes for so… Read More
Remember, Mrs. Curwen always draws upon the known to teach the unknown. What does the child know?
The child knows the Sol-fa scale. The child usually can hear and sing doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te, doh. They know what that should sound like. Let them choose a starting sound on the piano (a middle pitch that works for their range) and sing the scale.
Unbarred sentences are simply lines of music without bar lines. The child has the responsibility to fill in the bar lines. If a child has any misunderstanding of time notation, this is yet another exercise put in place to bring that misunderstanding to light.
This is another thorough way that Mrs. Curwen tests the knowledge of time notation.
If you’ve done any searching around online for some original versions of Mrs. Curwen’s piano books, you quickly see there are two versions of each Step book.
Mrs. Curwen had a watchful and observant eye when it came to children. She had their best interest in mind and pointed out some common faults of teachers, including myself, that could be made much better with a little work and thoughtfulness.
Hmm. What a harsh title. The only reason I can pen that title is because I was one of those piano teachers that made the below mentioned mistakes for many years.
Playing Christmas music is such a blessing for a child. Last November, I gave almost every one of my students a Christmas book to play from for the holiday season. Mrs. Curwen has taught me something, though. Christmas music is often hard for beginner pianists to play.
It doesn’t take too much reading in Mrs. Curwen’s Pianoforte book before you run across the term crotchet. After seeing it repeatedly and taking to heart a few context clues, I realized I need to clarify this word.