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 January 11 Lessons – Erin P
Have a great week and stay warm everyone <3
Liam
Russian Medley – piece 2 HT. Spend 70% time on piece 2, and 30% on keeping piece 1 in your hand. Great work.
Harlequinade – HS. Learn LH. Great work with RH just watch lift in m4.
Harmonic and melodic scales – Bm, Dm, Gm. Remember LH B starts with finger 4.
P.S So sorry I forgot to give you your Bingo prize today. I’ll give it to you next week.
Jadon
Struttin‘ – Great reading today. A nice laidback tempo is perfect for the mood of this piece.
Canon x Beautiful in White – practice Canon chord progression in C, D and E to prep for this.
Katarina
Thanks for getting another Wunderkeys book!
This week we are going to play Wish for Fish and the other 2 pieces on the page to its right. They all are in the same position, C, but the last one is in 3/4 rather then 4/4. The little numbers they write above or below the staff are finger numbers and we played a finger number review game today and you did great! Use those clues to your advantage!
*Resist the urge to move your fingers from the key they start on (unless the book tells you too, which it doesn’t currently). We want every finger to get its workout, and have a job to do).
Work towards complete evenness in your C major scales. Count.
Sara
Maple Leaf Rag – Extra work on trio. Sounding amazing. See how you like accenting the and of 4 or any time the LH has to move by half step.
Lullaby of Birdland – count carefully and listen to recordings
Start thinking about what pieces you might like to do for exam or if there’s any more you specifically want to explore.
Marco
On Your Mark – HS, learn LH too, whole piece. Make sure you are counting rests. Learn the LH hands seperate too. For RH 8th note passages it is almost entirely stepwise movement, so I drew a line like a graph showing the melodic direction.
Indiana Jones – HT great work. Add on bridge RH. Finger numbers are written in.
A minor natural and harmonic(raised 7th) scale. Standard fingering. HS.
*New* Morning Fanfare – learn HS with correct rhythm and notations since the notes are easy, C pentascale.
Daniel
Home Run – great work! Start a bit quieter, and then on further repetition you can reach the fun boisterous volume. Fix circled dotted rhythm in B section.
Etude in F Major – HS until confident in fingering and chord changes. I want to hear a chunk of this HT and confident next week.
C and G major formula – see below

Marita
Theme and Variations by Krebs – theme HT and confident. Focus all of your piano brain this week into smart practicing techniques so you can make amazing progress on the first of 3 chunks of this piece. Begin HS. Use small chunks and be accurate with details, repeat many times. Then play one hand and tap the other hand..
Greta
*New* Jump Pop Hop – uses parallel motion, and contrary motion of triads. Be sure to be picky about dynamics and articulations.
Into the Waves – nice work! Add in dynamics and go for fluency and painting a beautiful picture.
C and G solid triads – root position and inversions.
Saturday December 16 Lessons – Erin P
Happy Holidays everyone! I’m very proud of each of you <3 take care and see you soon!
Hakim
*New* G Major scale – G A B C D E F# G. Same fingering as your C scale, both hands are the same as always.
C major triads – keep going with these, being sure to use your thumb and pinky for the outside notes of each triad position. CEG EGC GCE CEG. Broken and solid
My Ordinary Life – the numbers written above the staff are finger numbers and are there for when you tuck your thumb under or move to a new position. Make sure all the notes are played staccato.
Shakira
Keep working on your C Major scale with both hands with correct fingering. RH = 123 12345. LH = 54321 321.
C Major triads – triad patterns use the same 3 notes over and over in a different order. This will go CEG EGC GCE CEG. Use your thumb and pinky for the outside notes always, and finger 2 or 3 for the middle one. Broken means to play one note a time in the direction you’re going, and solid means to play all 3 notes at once (practice it both ways).
Noreet
C Major scale – now you know how to do this with both hands! RH = 123 12345. LH = 54321 321.
In your new folder I printed a Choose your Own Adventure style piece where you can play it as written (all white notes) and it will sound minor (sad). Or you can add #s to all the Fs, creating F#s, and it will sound major (happy).
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.
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