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 October 26 Lessons – Erin P
Liam
Formula Pattern in G Major
Sonatina by Clementi – hands together practice for the week. Be very precise with what is legato and what is not. Look for sequences and for recognizable scales.
Jadon
Slam Dunk – really good reading! Keep increasing the tempo if you find consistent success hands together.
Katarina
Today we filled out your worksheet about treble clef DEF. Then we learnt what the B directly beneath middle C looks like on the staff.
Magic Wand worksheet
Barber of Seville – this piece combines notes that say what they are, and normal, but you can handle either! Have fun with this this week, I expect to hear it next week.
Sara
Happy Grasshopper – one more week of hands separate spot practicing.
Maple Leaf Rag – more RH by itself practice.
*New* Gavotte – Notice the 2 beat pickup. All the phrases have this, and I’ve marked in the phrasing.
Technique – great work getting the arpeggios going, they sound smooth and awesome. Now let’s focus on the scales and triads in those keys.
Marco
Zum Gali Gali – yippee! In the last line of the first page, you are playing the main beats and Danny is popping in between them.
Visiting Hour – all. Keep going through to the end of the piece. It might be easy at this tempo, but once you consistently can play it hands together no mistakes, increase the tempo!
Totoro – 7 lines. Great rhythms in the RH. Keep plugging away with the LH, you’re doing it right. I think you should work to put the first 4 measures of music hands together.
Chromatic scale – this is a “scale” that plays every note on the keyboard. Play it with both hands. We want to use finger 3 on every black key, and thumb for almost every white key. On notes like EF and BC, use fingers 2 and 1 but in the order that they are on your hand. For example: RH going up E F F# would be 123. It would be the same going down too.
Daniel
Entree in A Minor – nice work! Rather than playing beginning to end, pick 2 bars and work to connect them without any pause in between, then repeat. Once that is fluent, choose another 2 bars.
*New* Breezy – this is an invention so it passes phrases back and forth between hands. I would practice it hands separate as in play whichever hand has the melody (like R, then L, then R).
Passionfruit – be sure you know between which notes/lyric the chord changes fall.
Marita
Breezy – there are 2 main melodic phrases in this piece, I labelled them A and B. I would practice it hands separate as in play whichever hand has the melody (like R, then L, then R).
Formula Pattern – this scale pattern combines same direction and opposite direction. The graphic below shows the two halves of the sunglasses I drew for you. It is totally fine to start playing this by stopping and resetting your fingering at each octave, but build good fingering habits so it can soon be played without pause.

Greta
Andante – nice work! Just add in the RH A’s I circled and add in some more hands together work and you’ve got this! I drew some parallel lines to show you when the hands move together.
New Shoes – LH melody so it should not be drowned out by loud RH chords. There are lots of “ledger lines” used here below the treble clef. Keep in mind that when the treble clef goes below C, it is literally just rewriting bass clef notes floating above the staff. Practice hands separate for several days.
Saturday September 30 Lessons – Erin P
Hello everyone! Nice to see you all on this Orange Shirt Day.
Noreet
Sailing in the Sun – measures 1-8. This piece uses the new skill you learnt = legato (smooth, connected) playing. Notice the rests on some beat 1s. Make sure when you’re playing your smooth notes that you let go of them once another key has been played (just like how we lift our foot up to take another step when the other foot makes contact with the ground).
Jack-O-Lantern – this piece creates a spooky mood by using some black keys in addition to the white ones! The symbol that looks like a lowercase b is called a flat and it lowers the note by one half step (to the very next key to the left). So Eb (E flat) is the black key to the left of E! The # symbol is called a sharp and it raises the note by one half step (to the very next key to the right). So F# (F sharp) is the black key to the right of F! I drew a small diagram of the piano keyboard so you can be reminded where these notes are found. Learn as much of this piece as you can over the next 2 weeks!
In and Out middle C warmup – Put both of your thumbs at middle C and then play each hand going away from each other, slow and steady. The goal of this is EVEN, controlled finger independence. You’ll notice fingers 4 and 5 aren’t very good at being independent yet, this exercise will help them. Watch this video and notice how her fingers are staying rounded, and her wrist is not collapsing, so she can play with a tall pinky. Your wrists shouldn’t be dangling off the piano.
Parent involvement: We used a phone game called Rhythm Cat Lite in class last week to great success. This can be used at home for educational rhythm practice when she has screentime if you wish. Another great app available for iPhone is called Chet and it trains the ear.
Maria
Lovely to meet you!
Triad patterns – begin by exploring the C major triad pattern, broken and solid, both hands but seperate. Root position is CEG, then the inversions are EGC and GCE, before returning to CEG. Use 135 (or 125 when it makes sense) for both hands. You can try F and G major as well if you wish because they’re the same pattern of all three white notes. Your hand should move laterally like a crab.
Etude in D minor by Czerny – evenness is the priority here, therefore do not rush the tempo until it is very secure. I love how you scan for repeating patterns when meeting a new piece, keep it up!
Home Run – Here is a video of the composer performing it. What brings this piece to life is the syncopation (use of off-beats) and tied notes, that’s why we’ve got to be careful with our counting. Lean into those accents because it sounds so fun and happy go-lucky that way. Explore as much of this as you can and enjoy!
Gerardo
Home Run – count carefully. Here is a video if you need to remind yourself of how the groove sounds played aloud. The chord progression remains the same throughout the entire piece – G/Eminor/C/D.
The Wind – you know this way better than you think ! Trust yourself and count yourself in In 3 subdividing by 8th notes and then you’ll be able to feel the flow. You can experiment with pedal too.
Warmup with an assortment of white key start major scales to keep your fingers used to them.
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.
Piano Safari


