ARCT • Teachers’ Diploma (RCM) in-progress
Trained Music Together Teacher
Erin Plank (they/he) is a passionate young piano teacher. For their professional development, Erin received the highest exam scores in all of Canada last year for “Teaching Elementary Piano” with the RCM.
Erin’s main goal is to turn students into lifelong music lovers, not just pianists. I seek to provide them with the tools to practice efficiently at home, sight read a song at their friend’s piano, learn the melody to a song off the radio by ear, and nurture a technical foundation that lasts a lifetime so it’s “just like riding a bike” to play the piano. And even better, they’ll want to.
Get to know Erin…Beyond the Bio!
Hobbies: Piano, weightlifting, playing with my cat, and hanging out with friends
Musical influences: Ben Folds, Brad Mehldau, Edvard Grieg
Favourite food: Fried chicken sandwich
Least favourite food: snap peas, because I ate too many as a kid one time and threw up and now I dislike the smell
Favourite music: Romantic era piano music, Beach Boys and similar era music, math rock
Favourite song: “How Dare You Want More” by Bleachers
Favourite movie: Sing Street
Favouirite movie music: main theme for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or anything Star Wars
Favourite musical theatre/opera: Wozzeck
Best quote from your teacher: “Don’t show the audience you messed up, they won’t know! Keep going!”
Favourite quote: “That’s what life is, Happy Sad”
Favourite book: Recursion by Blake Crouch
Best thing about teaching at ABC: Getting to reach and connect with so many lovely people!
Latest Homework from Erin
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Thursday March 7 Lessons – Erin P
Have a lovely March break everyone! See you on the 21st.
Liam
*New* Sonatina in G Major – For now, leave the grace notes out and just play the main melody. When doing the “Alberti bass” in the LH (where it goes bottom-top-middle-top), *rotation* of the wrist is your best friend. Think about twisting a door handle and let the rotation be what takes you from thumb to pinky effortlessly. Listen here.
If you have the time, explore the Ragtime medley that begins with Hello My Baby in Piano Pronto. It is not swung, just sounds jazzy due to the short-long syncopation. Count carefully!
Nice progress on the scales! Keep up all of your technique.
Katarina
Wunderkeys – Laundry Limbo – Move and Groove. This will be right after your pages with sticky flags on them. This pieces might not be in a position we are used to! You have to identify the starting note, then read the finger number written up above to learn where to place your hands.
Marita
*New* Nightingale – D minor. Look carefully at the LH, it typically has 3 different “shapes” of notes used. Whenever the RH goes up high into ledger line territory, it is typically playing a melody we have already played lower down, so look for repeating patterns and ideas.
Sara
Maple Leaf Rag – Here’s today’s performance. Absolutely killer, however we can get another recording where you nail the ending.
Desafinado – Use a 120bpm boss nova backing track on youtube to play the melody along with. Once you can feel an underlying beat, it will start to come to life.
Warsaw Session – BEAUTIFUL! Your phrasing and dynamics are lovely.
Marco
Superman Theme – WOW! I’m impressed. You can start learning the next section between the stars. Start with just the RH, but quickly add in the LH as a pulse keeper, it is mainly just constant Cs. Lots of triplets which I circled.
Song of the Dark Woods – all. Lovely! Give the 3rd line some extra love and ensure LH is doing the written fingering.
Cranky Cat – m1-8. Now HT. Great job with the notes and staccato touch. Now let the hands interrupt each other :)
Keep all technique prepared.
Daniel
Keep all technique skills prepared.
*New* Raiders in the Night – This is in 6/8 so feel two main beats per measure, the accents help to feel this. A minor key signature. Page 1 is the expectation, but feel free to continue onwards if you like.
Greta
Song of the Dark Woods – All. In the 3rd line, the LH fingering is essential to keeping it legato. Work on this phrase hands seperate so you can eliminate the “splitting” of the notes (we want them to be pressed down at the exact same time).
INTERVALS – so today I included perfect 5ths, but on the level 1 exam you are only tested on major or minor 3rds. I apologize for throwing 5ths into the mix, my mistake, however no harm in more learning and knowledge, but don’t stress over them! With this link you can practice identifying the types of 3rds ascending or descending.
Maintain all your technical requirements.
Saturday February 17 Lessons – Erin P
Have a great long weekend everyone!
Hakim
Barefoot on the Beach – All. The > symbols are accents that mean you can make those notes slightly louder than the rest. Be sure to bounce and play the staccato notes like a chicken pecking at their food. I wrote in the places where your hand positions change.
G major scale – hands together now. Really nice work!
*New* Pumpkin Boogie – opening groove. Notice how the Cs in the RH always land at the same time as the bass line.
Shakira
Keep doing contrary motion C major scales.
Grace
Satie – Andante – 5th line first measure, fingering 15 – 14 – 35 – 14 – 23.
Satie – Vivace – 2nd line, practice by playing 1st inversion triads within the A major scale.
Preferred Books for Erin Students
Click to buy them here, and they’ll come right to your house! What could be easier?
BOOK TITLE
COMING SOON
Faber Piano Adventures
The 2nd Edition Level 1 Lesson Book introduces all the notes of the grand staff, elementary chord playing, and the concept of tonic and dominant notes. Students play in varied positions, reinforcing reading skills and recognizing intervals through the 5th. Musicianship is built with the introduction of legato and staccato touches. This level continues the interval orientation to reading across the full range of the Grand Staff. The 5-finger approach is presented here in a fresh, musically appealing way.