The hottest potato on UK Piano Forums within the last couple of weeks has been the issue of using touch in our teaching.
One good thing to come from the discussion has been the reminder that UK professional associations usually have Codes of Conduct requiring teachers to obtain written permission from parents before using touch with students under the age of 18.
This post considers how we can create such a policy, and why it is actually useful to do so.
Book Review by Andrew Eales, with a Second Opinion by Karen Marshall.
All good piano teachers are concerned to teach and monitor good posture to their students, and as players we are hopefully equally aware of our own posture at the piano.
But how about our posture when we are teaching?
This, in my experience, can too easily be overlooked as a less important concern.
I am trying to address my own posture while teaching, so write this article to share my experiences and findings, while also suggesting a few easy tricks that other piano teachers can incorporate into their thinking and practice where helpful.
In this article I will hope to touch upon:
Pianodao – The Way of Piano – seeks to inform, challenge and inspire piano players, teachers and students.
Interview by Frances Wilson
This interview includes material that originally appeared on Frances Wilson’s site The Cross-Eyed Pianist, and is reproduced here with her kind permission.
Guest Post by Karen Marshall
In memory of Christine Brown – Died in September, 2009
My first meeting of Christine Brown was in my early teens. I was playing at a concert for EPTA students in Ilkely. And she at that time, I believe, organised the events. I remember her smiling face and also rather big round glasses, with a large number of other teachers surrounding her.
It would be many years later that I had a lesson with Christine. At 15 years I started having piano lessons with Christine’s best friend, Enid Oughtibridge, who would regularly mention Christine in our lessons – so there was still a link even then.
