Special Guest Review written by GARRETH BROOKE
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I am frequently approached by those who create and distribute piano educational resources online, keen to be featured on Pianodao. As I have yet to use these resources in my teaching, I am pleased that my brilliant friend GARRETH BROOKE has agreed to write this post as a companion to my Essential Piano Education Resources 2024-25. Over to Garreth…
Introduction
It’s an honour to be asked to write for Pianodao again, and there’s a certain irony to the topic of the article, because if I had to pick an essential piano education resource, it actually would be Pianodao itself.
I love this site: the Music Library is the first place I turn to when I’m looking for new repertoire; the Inspiring Piano Teaching series has really shaped my pedagogical work; I really enjoy the warm atmosphere of the Pianodao Music Club, the private Facebook group. I find the Fermata series to be really thought-provoking; and have found Andrew’s mentoring extremely useful.
But of course, there’s so much else out there. So much so that it would be impossible to give an overview of the hundreds, if not thousands, of online resources for piano teachers.
As such, this article is restricted to sites and apps that I’ve used regularly in the last few years and feel comfortable recommending. I’ve deliberately excluded sheet music sales websites for space reasons, restricting myself to the following categories:
- elementary and early intermediate lesson resources and plans
- continuing professional development
- theory and aural skills apps
- studio management software
Even within those categories, there will likely be something missing. If you think there’s a glaring omission, please do share your own favourites in the comments wherever you find this article, so we can learn together!
Lesson resources and plans
These resources are particularly suitable for teaching beginner to early intermediate level players…
This is an extraordinarily rich source of theory games and lesson plans, run by the Irish piano teacher Nicola Cantan. There are hundreds of resources behind the paywall, but it’s not overwhelming because the search and filter function works well.
Several beautifully designed new resources are added every month covering a range of topics, including all kinds of theory topics up to about UK Grade 5, composition and improvisation, early-years teaching, and aural training.
The lesson plans in particular are impressively detailed, making this is an excellent site for teachers early in their career, but there’s also lots of useful material for the more experienced teacher. To give you one example, I found the practise games and resources really reinvigorated some of my more experienced students this year.
There are also weekly CPD webinars, a members forum, a podcast, and this summer there was even an in-person conference!
This “one-stop shop for music teaching” is packed with downloadable educational worksheets, pedagogy music, and theory games that are tailored particularly to the UK market, and available as downloadable PDFs with studio licenses. There’s a good filter system that enables you to find what you are looking for with relative ease.
One of the major advantages of this site is that, unlike almost all of the other sites listed here, there’s no subscription. Instead you just purchase whatever you need on a studio license, at very reasonable prices, and use it whenever you like.
Among the many resources available, I’m a particularly big fan of site founder Ruth Alberici’s Scales Patterns workbooks, and Alison Mathew’s composition worksheets. But the strength of the site lies in its range and diversity, and in its powerful filtering tool, which mean that whatever you need in order to fill a gap in an elementary lesson, you should be able to find something useful.
Continuing professional development
This is a subscription-based community run by Sally Cathcart and Sharon Mark-Taggart. New, in-depth CPD courses called “Curiosity Boxes” are released every second month with recent topics including “Discovering Bach”, “Essential Guide to Pianos”, “Teaching for Success”, “Essential Repertoire”, “Group Teaching”, and “Learning to be an Arranger”.
The CPD courses are high quality but what really elevates the Curious Piano Teachers is the outstanding member-only community that runs on Facebook: it is truly the most supportive group of teachers I’ve ever encountered, and as a result it has swiftly become the first place I turn to when I need some advice.
This is an extraordinarily diverse site run by Australian music educator Tim Topham with a long list of quality free resources and much more, available behind a subscription paywall.
Amongst the free resources is a lengthy list of CPD training webinars from an impressive list of pedagogues, two different podcasts (including one dedicated solely to piano teaching), three downloadable collections of sheet music, and a monthly magazine.
Join the “Pro” level and you’ll get access to over 50 CPD webinars, monthly sheet music and game bundles, and weekly videos from Tim showing you the process of figuring out how to arrange a pop song with a student.
This site focuses primarily on downloadable studio-licensed repertoire, but is worthy of mention in the CPD section because of the four excellent online training courses run by the site founder Wendy Stevens.
Three of these cover teaching students of specific ages (young children, teenagers, adults), the other is focused on stress-free business practices. They are exceptionally high quality, and Wendy is an extraordinarily empathetic and likeable guide.
Apps for theory and aural skills
I generally prefer physical flashcards for teaching theory concepts because they can be more easily be used as the beginning of a composition or improvisation. However, some students respond well to apps, and these are the three I use most frequently:
MusicTheory.net and Tenuto (app)
Amongst the many pitch reading, keyboard geography and general music theory trainer sites and apps out there, I find this one to be one the most affordable and useful. There is a wide array of exercises on the site, and the teacher can easily customise the exercise and forward them to students. The site is completely free; the apps are available as a one-off purchase and are competitively priced.
Rhythm Trainer (possible alternative for Android devices)
This high quality app focuses on developing practical rhythmic understanding. The excellent “Skill Test” is brilliant for testing a student’s general knowledge, and the comprehensive set of exercises is really well thought through. There is a limited free version but full use requires a subscription.
This app is an excellent tool for building basic aural awareness, including training to identify intervals, chords, chord inversions, chord progressions and cadences, scales and modes. ABRSM exam fans will be happy to hear that there are built in modules tailored to ABRSM’s aural tests.
There are a few free trial modules but most of this app is behind a paywall. The payment options are refreshingly flexible: you can access the whole app via a subscription, purchase access to your preferred modules, or if you’re working on a bigger scale you can buy access to an educational product called “EarMaster Cloud” that allows you to set and monitor progress for multiple students.
Business management software
This site helps to automate many of the essential administration tasks that independent music teachers do every day, including accounting, invoicing, scheduling, lesson notes, and practise tracking. It works for single teacher studios and more complex businesses and is paid for on a subscription basis.
I’ve been using it for years and trust it to be both affordable and reliable, but several others options are available, including Fons and Teachworks.
Conclusion
With such an ocean of information out there, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed, but hopefully this article has highlighted some useful pathways for us all to grow as teachers. If you think there’s a glaring omission, please let us know!
GARRETH BROOKE
Garreth is a composer, educator, writer and grief companion. He runs a busy piano studio in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, teaching performance, composition and improvisation to students from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Garreth’s compositions have been streamed tens of millions of times. He’s passionate about helping other piano teachers to include more improvisation and composition in their lessons, and regularly shares creative resources and ideas over on pianocreativity.com.
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