Music Education — scales

This week's post is brought to you by Georgina Wilson of Georgina (Greenside Music). Georgina creates wonderful resources to enhance your students' musical knowledge in fun and quirky ways.    "A smile and a giggle always go a long way!" -Georgina   Music games are an absolute asset to piano teachers. They can be used in so many different ways, for so many different types of students, and will always result in your students loving their lessons and thinking their piano teacher is really fun. If you've ever thought, “I'd love to use music games in my piano lesson, but...

The challenges of scale technique As I am sure that most of you would agree, necessity, Plato's famous Mother of Invention, is at the very least a powerful driving force for change. Three years ago, I sat quietly contemplating the awkward hand position of an otherwise talented young student, as he whizzed up and down an A flat major scale in thirds. His tone was, as usual, harsh, with an abundance of undesirable accents – the obvious result of a massive accumulation of tension in his body. His knees were squeezed together, his shoulders hunched and his narrow fingers rigidly...