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 April 18 Lessons – Erin P
Sounds like you all had a great, productive time with Emmett! Here are *his* notes for the week:
Liam
technical requirements are slowing down! Talked about relative minor, C major, Am hands together 2 octaves, G maj 2 octaves. Started to slow down for the end of scales, keeping consistent and EVEN on the way down. Focus on evenness. Dmin natural Mel and harm. Hands separate and then together. Working in visualizing scales before we play them to avoid playing wrong notes the first time.
Witches and wizards – memorized, take it slow, emphasis on control! Talked about pedal control and when to pedal! Slow practise emphizes the mistakes and you can highlight them. Work on time slowly. Memorize dynamics and keep the Piece interesting, lightweight dynamic more!
Walk the talk, good sense of time! Trying not to slow!
Marita
C. Major both hands, 2 octaves! Key signature? G major, breaking hands apart and then putting back together for fingering! Remembering left hand fingering coming down.
Learned the chords and melody with rhythm to Havana (Camila Cabelo)
Katarina
Learned chord terminology!! Went over chord pattern of C-Am-F-G. Did Perpetual motioning C and G! Watching left hand fingering! Focusing on fingering!
Learned the chords for Over the Rainbow.
Sara
G major, hands together, evenness and tempo! E min, harm, B maj, G min, nat, mel, harm,
Arp, C major, Eb major, right hand,
Chromatic scale!
Ballade – Good dynamics! Take fermatas longer, transitions smoother! Overall lovely phrasing and dynamics! Metronome,
Cloud dance – pedalling! Note pedal. Swells and slurs not want to hear the pedal.
Air in B flat – Nice tempo, a little ghost notes at times. Soaring through notes! No speeding up.
Sonatina in C major – bring out the melody, no speeding up, slow practise on hard sections!
Nightime in the city – Nice swing feel, slow it down for accuracy.
Take the A train – Had a lovely chat about jazz
Marco
Morning fanfare – good use of dynamics! Staccatos and slurs! Focus on accuracy and slowing don to catch all the articulations. Fermata, practised motion for left hand staccatos while the right is not! Don’t rush the 16th notes.
Minuet in C – 3/4 waltz feel, work on your tempo while playing slowly to not speed up. Watch your ties! Dont play the note twice! Keep your eyes up to not lose your place!
Song of the dark woods – dynamics, slower to remain in control! Watch you ties again, don’t just trust your ear. Look up at the music as you go. Dont try and muscle through at a fast tempo.
Daniel
Formula patterns, C major, left hand fingering. G major, A minor, slow because its new, same pattern as C.
The wind – Pedalling, watch the time switches, take it at a reasonable tempo. Good sense of pianissimo. Working on pedalling. Practise good fingering for parts that need to have a smooth connected feeling.
Entree in A minor – take it slow and connected to understand it fully, watch the octave you play the right hand in, dynamics. Wrist position higher to let the fingers move less, it’s less punchy by a long shot.
Periwinkle twinkle – Watch for rests in the right hand, slow down and get accurate. Staccato last note! Dynamics!
Breezy – watch the eighth note lines. Find the hard parts and then play the whole thing that tempo! Consistency!
Saturday March 9 Lessons – Erin P
Have an amazing March break everyone!
*I WILL BE AWAY FOR EASTER WEEKEND. At our next lesson, PLEASE CONFIRM if you would like a lesson that day (saturday March 30) so we can line up a substitute if necessary.*
Hakim
*New* Dummy! – Notice the Bb and Eb, creating a G minor key signature. RH. Once you feel confident you can start adding in the LH walking bass line. It’s a lot like the Pumpkin Boogie one, just starting on G instead. These rhythms are more complex than we’ve studied, so use your ear, and know that the More beams (lines) there is on a note the shorter it is. (for example 16th notes have two beams, and 8th notes only have one)
Steampunk – Nice work!!! Keep practicing and counting steadily to get it fluent.
Science Blaster – play around with this using the Musescore copy if you like! You are certainly capable of reading it. I will learn some too and we can combine for a duet eventually.
Maria
Viva La Vida – Sounding awesome!! Now start thinking dynamics! Chorus should be louder than the rest. See if you can dimuendo at the end of phrases to add drama. I am happy with ANY dynamic plan you create if it feels musical to you, as long as the entire piece is not monotune :)
Shakira
Skylore – this piece is in D minor position (minor because it only uses white keys). This is what it will sound like when we play together, your part is the high part.
Noreet
*New* Kites in the Sky. This piece uses C major root position triads in both hands, then the LH crosses over to play a higher note. At the end you will use one hand after another, playing every single white key on the keyboard beginning on low C and continuing upwards to create a beautiful ending. You can listen and look here if you need help.
C Major Contrary motion scale – today you played a RH C scale with perfect fingering with your scarf as a blindfold! Great job!
C Major triads – Watch here.

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

