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
Is Erin Your Teacher?
Sign up now to get your weekly assignments delivered, and never lose your homework sheet again!
Thursday June 29 Lessons – Erin P
Happy last day of lessons and have an amazing day at school tomorrow! You’re all rock stars :)
Liam
Great job with balance between hands on Elegant Elephant. Keep thinking about balance to the melody in Every song you play:)
Carnival song – amazing A section. B section do more hands together practice and ensure you feel the difference between quarter and 8th notes. Notice any skips in the melody.
Don’t Stop Believing – this will be such a fun project! We explored the melody by ear today, and we also know the basic chord progression. Being aware of these things will really help make the learning process from paper way easier.
Remember you know all 12 major scales, it would be fun to test if you still know them randomly throughout the summer….
Have fun playing ANYTHING this summer! Just stay connected with music and the keyboard, which I’m sure will be no problem in your household :) Stay safe and have fun!
Marita
Mystery Ride sounds so cool! Congrats!
Fundoodle – so today we confirmed how tied notes work. When a small curved line connects two of the exact same note, it combines their “values” (how long they are) together. This opening RH riff has two 8th notes tied together, so they are held for 1 beat (quarter note). Most of this piece uses inversions of major triads, notice this, it’ll make it easier to find the correct hand shape. Have fun with it’s playful nature.
*NEW* The Can-Can – this piece is in D major and uses only D or A chords. Play the LH a bunch seperate until it’s easy and everything should have a bouncey silly feel. The written fingering is SO helpful, use it. The fingering changes are easy and help set you up to have enough fingers to play higher or lower notes.
This summer, play ANYTHING at the piano, new or old. Just stay in touch with the keyboard and sightreading and we’ll have an easy transition in the fall. Stay safe and have so much fun!
Sara
I am sooooo sad to have missed you today. I will attach a piece here that I was going to give to you, not as homework, but because it’s cool and I think you’d rock it!
Have fun exploring your awesome new level 4 books, they have great pieces in them, and I eagerly await to see your (amazing) mark for your exam. You should be very proud of yourself :)
Daniel
Summer song option = Fundoodle. This piece uses major chord inversions and syncopated rhythms to have a carefree feel.
Summer song options = In the book of Forty Classic Piano Pieces that I gave you and your brother, I put triangles beside pieces that you can do for quick study pieces in the summer.
Summer rock riffs: Highway to Hell intro. Just play the bottom 2 notes of each chord. The chords as you identified are AAA DDG DDG DDG D A A. All the D chords are played as an inversion with F# on the bottom.
Jump by Van Halen.
Summer song option: anything in your level 2 RCM book.
Have a great time in Europe and have fun playing on your relative’s pianos! Stay connected with music, which I know you will, and make sure to spend a littttttttle time reading music so it’s not such a hard transition in the fall :) You rock!
Saturday May 27 Lessons – Erin P
Enjoy the sunny weekend and I’ll see you folks again in June <3
Isabella
Congrats on finishing Primer level!!! You should be very proud! And your B major scale sounds super even and awesome, moreso in the RH, so give the LH a little extra love so they develop evenly :)
Explore C Major triads more. Play them solid (all 3 notes at once) and broken (walking up the three notes one at a time). CEG EGC GCE CEG is the pattern. Fingers 1 and 5 will ALWAYS be used, and finger 2 or 3 can be chosen for the middle note based on what is comfiest. Here is a video showing the 3 different inversions of C.
Firefly – this is the very first piece of the level 1 book, used to review all the concepts you already know. There is nothing in this piece we haven’t covered this year, so get both hands in C position and give it a whirl! I love this piece, it sounds so lovely. (Try not to lose the paper, but if you do, it can be found here)
Jadon
Canon x Memories – Sounding really solid at the leisurely tempo you did today in class!! Each time you go play through this, you can increase speed incremently to get it up to tempo. Do not go directly from slow to fast, but work your way up there and I promise you will get it!! Also deciding on a consistent fingering for the Canon melody will really help.
Avatar – Please bring the paper in next week so I can help with the melody. You’ve got the coordination between both hands down now. Using a fingering like 5321 in the LH makes it a lot easier than crossing fingers over all the time, so work to choose the simplest possible fingering that moves around the least.
Grace
Dancing Scales – print this one out and give it a try this week. Your physical approach to finger staccato looks solid!!
Goldberg Variations – balance to melody. On the first page we went through and decided which hand we want to hear louder for each phrase. While playing, know what you are listening for and determine if it is at the forefront of the sound you’re creating. Also be picky with any staccato notes and ensure they’re being played detached.
Julian
Jazz Blast – The notes that land between the beat create something called syncopation, which is what makes it sound jazzy or funky. Play them louder than the other notes so they stick out. We will do improvisation over this song next week!
Hands together G major scale. Great job on the C one! This will feel the exact same, except F# will be there.
Hands separate Db major scale. This scale onely has 2 white keys, and your thumb will play them. RH fingering is 231 2341 2. LH is 321 4321 2. The system for finding your starting finger for black key scales is: your thumb will go on the first white key, so plan backwards from that.
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
