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 April 20th Lessons – Erin P
Hello everyone! Enjoy the week, thanks for your hard work.
Liam
*New* Microstyles 2 Struttin’ – Keep the LH smooth and exactly on the beat. Bring out the RH melody and ensure that the parts of the melody that are on the beat are locked in (for example the two quarter notes in measure 3). Great reading today!
Star Wars – very good! Don’t let it lose speed and energy in the A section due to the triads and pedalling. Keep the triads light both in volume and in touch and this should help keep the light hopeful mood going.
Fun bonus – 3 against 2 scales. Try playing triplets in your RH while playing 8th notes in your LH. Achieve this by doing body percussion like we did in lesson going “together, right, left, right” and repeating again. This video shows the same thing but on just the first 5 notes of the scale. Don’t feel pressured to do this, it’s just for fun! My teacher said “hot cup of tea” as the words for the rhythm, Hot = together, then the other words are for Right Left Right.
Marco
Terrible Trolls – Play opening C minor pattern in quarter or 8th notes hands together, ensuring it is kept steady. Don’t let yourself play it messy because that will teach your brain to play it messy! Go as slow as you need to to play it accurately. You said your 4th finger kept messing up, so common! To fix, play the 5 note pattern and make the 4th note the loudest one! You won’t actually play the piece like this, but pracice it this way C-D-Eb-F-G.
Mission Impossible – Excellent progress. Tackle the C minor line this week (line 3).
Young Ludwig – Also great progress. This week work to eliminate the hesitation between phrases. Try and make 4-6 as seamless as the rest. Go slowly to achieve this.
Marita
Heavenly Blue – practice in 4 bar chunks and repeat them multiple times before moving on. You know the notes, the goal this week is to increase familiarity and make the piece begin to actually play itself. Repetition repetition repetition :)
Angelfish – good reading today! Your playing is very even which is great, we want to keep it that way so count steadily. Ensure the LH melody is legato when it crosses overtop by using the written fingering.
Sara
Le Coucou – wow! Awesome! Become aware of the rests now before you get too far and have to add them back in. This is very impressive, have fun with it.
Memory is great for your repertoire, keep working on it. Pick a random spot to play, study it, then put the book away and go from there. Try and see the page in your mind if you can and always “fact check” yourself after by looking/playing the book!
Sonatina – fix timing last measure of page 1 and fix the G in that line as well.
Next week I shall hear your technique. Also here is an awesome 3+2 blues backing track for playing along with.
Jadon
Canon x Memories – Great work! Keep doing the root-5th-root LH part with the melodies, and after about a week of that, you could try adding the last two notes to the LH part, but don’t rush it. Work on finding how the LH lines up with the Memories portion of the melody.
Interstellar – awesome! Keep on keeping on. I’ll look into the rest of the piece where it gets more notey and see what happens. Work to “bring out” (play louder) the A-E, B-E, C-E, D-E melody in the RH so it soars above the rest of the sound.
Sina
Minuet – the point of this piece is articulation types. Make sure you get that short-short-short-long-short-short articulation. The 8th notes in this piece are always played smoothly, so ensure there is no hole in the sound between them. Remember my walking metaphor, always one foot (or finger) in contact with the ground (to make a smooth sound.)
C contrary motion scale – WOW this got me so excited! Congrats on your first ever hands together 1 octave major scale! Keep playing steady and slow, great habit. Start with thumbs on C and go out using 12312345. This is my favourite way because both hands use the same finger at the same time.
Saturday March 11 Lessons – Erin P
Happy March Break everyone! Enjoy it <3
Jadon
The Swing – **DOWNLOAD BY CLICKING TITLE** This is your March Break reading practice. It’s a beautiful piece, enjoy.
Avatar – greattttt progress! Begin working on the beginning, in addition to the spot you’re already tackling. The most important spots to practice are the beats before and after changing keys/positions. Work at a slow pace to get these changes in time without hesitation.
Marco
Mission Impossible. Great! Practice the first 3 beats of each bar HT. This will look like: Together R R L. All three RH notes fit within the first LH G, and the second LH G comes immediately after.
Also practice the C minor LH bassline section.
Composing assignment. Compose your melody, and write it in, remembering to put the note stems on the correct side of the note (look to the written part to see what’s correct) and then play your creation!
Rhythm worksheet #s 2 and 4 now. You did amazing work on 1 and 3, now this quarter note one will really help you with Never Gonna Give You Up as well as Mission Impossible.
Daniel
Periwinkle Twinkle. Awesome work on the LH, and today in class you were able to play the opening two bars hands together! Please practice the opening bit hands together, as well as that same part when it’s in F. For the rest, keep going hands seperate being sure to count slowly and accurately. Everything can be reduced to 8th notes, 1+2+3+4+ to math it out. Don’t be afraid to write in counts.
*NEW* Crazy Comics.**DOWNLOAD BY CLICKING TITLE** Due to the syncopation, and how so much of the RH goes between the LH down beats, I think it is easiest to begin HT very slowly. Alternatively, you can tap the LH rhythm on a part of your piano, leg, or bench, while playing the RH in order to hear how they go together without the pressure of notes. Listen to videos of this piece on YouTube for guidance if you like.
Db Major scale – Db, Eb, Gb, Ab, Gb. RH fingering: 231 234 12. LH: 321 4321 2.
Julian
Pirates of the *South* Sea – D minor and A minor. Love your creativity with this piece! Great transposing! Have fun with it, I’m excited to hear what you’ve done next week! Continue to pay attention to the rhythms, and articulation, even when you are varying the notes and getting creative with it. Remember the opening rhythm includes 8th notes, and play them as such with a loose wrist, knocking motion.
A Major scale. Same fingering as your other scales, 3 black keys: C#, F#, G#.
I’ll find you a Star Wars arrangement for after break.
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


