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 December 15 Lessons – Erin P
Hi everyone! Stay safe in the slush tomorrow :) In person friends, I have a small piano gift for you next week for our final lesson of 2022!
Fiona
Flute of the Andes – We learnt about the perfect 4th interval in our last piece, and this song uses almost exclusively 4ths. This piece is also entirely Cs and Gs, except for one A. Have fun playing it up high to sound like a flute.
C Major Scale one octave scale with RH. Keep practicing! You can also warm up with broken triads in both hands. That’s when you play the 1,3,5 notes of a scale. Use RH 135 fingers, and LH 531. Use strong rounded fingers and don’t let your wrist collapse.
Jingle Bells! Awesome! Try doing a game where you see how far you can get without making a mistake. Then try and beat your record! I loveeeeeee how even and steady you play this. We’ll record it next week for your show and tell!
Marita
Joy to the World. Can be found here. Please play hands together. Great reading today! You’ve got this.
Jingle Bells. This is great! You should get one of your parents or your sister to video you playing this. It’ll be awesome to remember how well you played this arrangement this Christmas.
Broken triads. Practice C, F and G major (all white keys). Remember my cat walking metaphor: how they put their back feet exactly where their front foot just stepped. This is how our fingers do broken triads, our thumb keeps chasing finger 3 in the RH for example. Here’s a video to follow along with.
Sara
Dust off your D major formula pattern. :) Picture making sunglasses shape with your hands.
In the Spirit. There’s a few measures in the middle I wrote counts in for. Tidy up those and then keep working on the ending. Great job capturing the jazz swing feel.
Lemon Sherbet Rag. This is another one I’d show off to family! Your dynamics and articulations are accurate and impressive. Check what tempo you’re at just for fun!
You did an amazing job of performing Jingle Bell Rock today!! The video can be found here. You can trim our “should I play now?” “sure!” intro if you like, or keep it for charm.
Julian
Your new piece is I Am The King. This piece both hands are in G position (lowest fingers on G). You did a great job reading it in class today. Here’s a video of it in case you need more guidance.
Rudolph. Try doing a game where you see how far you can get without making a mistake. Then try and beat your record! Hint: this will be more successful if you take a look through the piece before you play and kind of plan out what your fingers will do. (The only mistakes you make is doing steps instead of skips in certain spots) We’ll record it next week to share with your family :)
Sina
Your new piece is My Bicycle. ***It can be found here.*** It requires you to flip fingers over or under other fingers. When doing this, we don’t want to make a big movement out of it and raise our elbow all funny. It can be achieved with a level wrist by moving our individual fingers side to side. For example in the opening measures, the LH crosses finger 3 over the thumb. Using the thumb as a pivot point, just cross your finger over, like a ice skater doing a cross over. The first 15 seconds of this video will show you an example of how to cross your middle finger over EXACTLY like in this piece.
Frosty the Snowman or Jingle Bells. They’re both in the google drive so feel free to just read it off a tablet if possible. Have fun with it!
Daniel
You are now encouraged to play Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer :)
I Saw Three Ships – Ideas to make the pulse consistent hands together: Play LH while singing RH, play RH while tapping the LH/or reverse, record one hand to a click track to play along with etc. Keep in mind that with a click track, you’ll want to hear 2 clicks per bar as this is in 6/8. It’ll be, click 2 3 click 5 6.
Four Wheel Drive – quarter notes need to be really steady and on the beat. Notice how there are lots of ties over the bar line? To help us be able to perform those we must have the notes that ARE on the beat, really accurate. I encourage you play along to this video, there is full speed and then a slow version at 0:52.
Saturday November 5 Lessons – Erin P
Happy November friends! Hope everyone’s Halloween was awesome <3
Jadon
You’re working on the first little bit of Amazing Grace in your book. Practice hands separate first to “get” the LH accompaniment pattern. The triplets in the melody should be nice and even. There are also lots of 6ths in the RH to get used to.
You’re also working on the chorus of the Avengers theme. The LH chord profession is pretty consistent, so look through it and get used to it. Like I said, you can play single bass notes in the LH while you learn the RH alternating pattern. The constant alternating pattern shouldn’t be too loud or it’ll drown out the beautiful chord progression. Don’t be overwhelmed, you’re gonna rock this!
Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes a day
Grace
Your new piece is Sunset in Rio. The LH has a groovy bossa nova style line. Notice the staccato beat 4. This is a latin jazz inspired piece and latin jazz is not swung, it’s still straight 8ths. The syncopation will make it jazz and cool by itself, by playing accurate to the page. Practice hands separate to reallllllyyy secure the LH, and then you can draw lines connecting which notes line up to help with the syncopation.
Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes a day
Marco
You’re working on the first 8 bars of Top Secret. All the notes are staccato Except for the C minor chord marked legato in the opening measure, be careful with this! Keep your hand in the C 5-finger position and use the written fingering, it will make each finger strong!
How parents can support: Draw attention to the “sneaky” sound created by the legato and staccato sounds being beside each other. Ensure this is noticed.
Recommended practice time: 20 minutes a day
Daniel
You’re working on the Snake. Use beat to beat practice for the sections where the hands overlap a little. You can play all the phrases right already, now you need to get your hands in the habit of being prepared to play right as the other one ends instead of waiting their turn. Think of it as two people having an exciting conversation and slightly interrupting each other each time.
Your new song is The Spring Session – an arrangement based around Vivaldi’s Spring from “The Four Seasons”. First play LH thinking of the chord names or roman numerals until it’s very easy, then layer RH. For the repeated notes, I challenge you to not play any of them the same volume. Perhaps the first one is the quietest and the third is the loudest, or the reverse! Do what your ear likes and we’ll talk about it next week.
How parents can support: Encourage beat to beat practice in the overlapping sections. Have him stop when the other hand comes in, and repeat. Then do the next beat, then combine the two. Always stopping with the keys pressed down.
Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes a day
Isabella
You’re working on Sea Story. Next week we are going to play the duet together so play it nice and even. First the LH plays the top line, then the RH plays the next line. Keep your fingers nice and rounded and strong.
You can also use the string setting on your keyboard to play Ode to Joy on the previous page – I’m sure your family will recognize it and be impressed!
Recommended practice time: 10-15 minutes a day
Shelton
You’re working on Scenic Train Ride. We have written in the starting note for each line, then look at each note after and determine if it’s the Same, Higher or Lower. Say the note names aloud or think them as you play. D D D C , D D D E for example. Keep your hand in the same spot and use the finger that is sitting on it for each note (C=1,D=2,E=3 etc). That way you will play it the same every time and muscle memory will learn.
You’re also working on your RH C Major scale. Use fingers 123 12345. So your thumb will tuck under to play F. Imagine your hand is sliding up the keyboard on a treadmill and is moving only side to side – the thumb under shouldn’t be a big clunky movement.
Recommended practice time: 15-20 minutes a day
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
