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 23 Lessons – Erin P
Welcome back! Great to see you guys :) A reminder to online students to meet on FARPLAY, rather than Zoom moving forward. Contact Barnaby with any questions.
Liam
*New piece in Lesson book* Reveille. This piece uses the concept of triad inversions. C, G, A minor, and E are used in this piece. For the RH, pay attention to the articulation, and for the LH, think of which chord and inversion you are playing. Notice the ABA form as well.
Reign. Get familiar with the LH of it, playing the bottom note when there are hard to reach octaves. Very strict, steady tempo is the most important thing for marches like this. Practice consistent fingering for the tricky sections, like we did in lesson today, and once you find what works – write it in!
Intervals worksheet. Go at your own pace, work to recognize the shapes the intervals are. Play them on the piano to hear them if you wish.
Marita
Pieces were sounding great today! As a whole, our goal for each of the repertoire is to be able to play them at a consistent, steady, tempo. This week, practice going as slow as you need to to have no hesistations. Snake – get the second half sounding as fluent as the first half :)
For Heavenly Blue, familiarize yourself with it more, and continue reading through the entire piece. It is almost an ABA form, meaning the material at the beginning comes back at the end.
Your new major scale is Db major. The only white notes are F and C. RH fingering is 231 234 12. LH is 321 4321 2.
Sina
Great work! Please review your C and G major scales with both hands seperately this week. If you need help with notes or fingering, refer to this.
*New Piece* Homework. This piece introduces the new symbol: the “natural”. It cancels out a sharp or a flat within the same bar. This piece includes a LH phrase that goes A-G#-A-G Natural. A natural is always a white key. Play whichever hand has the melody (the part you’d sing) louder than the other hand. Pay attention to the dynamics here, line 3 is quieter than the rest.
Saturday February 11 Lessons – Erin P
Happy weekend everyone! Enjoy Valentine’s Day this coming week :) I appreciate all your hard work.
Jadon
Saints, use any LH rhythms you want using the written chords while playing the RH melody.
Avatar, love the blocked chord practice you’re doing! Also love the one beat over and over slowly tactic we used in class. Keep using these strategies throughout the piece, as well as playing along with the youtube video slowed down.
Great sightreading! Keep thinking about getting the Faber Adult Book 2!
Shelton
Minuet, the new concept introduced here is 8th notes. They are half as long as a quarter note, meaning they take up half of 1 beat. In this piece we will say 1+2+3+. They are to be played smooth and legato here. Your RH does not move from the C 5-finger position this whole piece.
Great work on the D Major scale! Keep working on it this week to get it as fluent as the C and G ones :)
Julian
Detective Agency is awesome! Pat yourself on the back! This week we’re focusing on details, like the contrast between the staccato and the legato lines. Another thing to focus on is the groups of 3 notes where the last one you bounce off of, like the sequence at the top of page 2. Pay attention to all this stuff this week :)
Great work on the D Major scale! Keep warming up with it this week and then your new challenge is the E Major scale. It has 4 black keys = F#, G#, C#, D#.
*New Piece* 1st page Storms on Saturn. The diagram at the top of the page shows what position this piece is in = all whole tones. This means you’ll never play two notes that are right beside each other in this piece. Enjoy the cool sound the pedal creates and be sure to do the dynamics to create a lovely echoing soundscape.
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
