Piano

Are you looking for a highly skilled and experienced piano teacher? One with musicality, enthusiasm and excellent communication skills? If you are, then please read on.

Since 1981 I've taught piano to a very wide range of students. I teach mainly classical piano, but some of the young children or beginner adults play original music in rock, pop, and blues styles composed by the Bastien couple or Christopher Norton. And, often, they play my own (classical) publications.

I have studied three or four completely different styles of piano technique (you know, bent fingers, open fingers, totally straight fingers, use of weight etc etc), and have had seven piano teachers. The first two years of my university degree were in piano studies. My formal qualifications mainly relate to piano, theory, and composition, and the teaching of these.

I teach a lot of children (from about six years old and up), and many adult beginners. Some of the adults have learnt before, and have resumed piano studies after decades of neglecting it. Contact me if you would like to do that too.

Materials Used

I like new students to bring along to the first lesson any music books they already have. If possible I will use some of the books and other materials the student already has. But I find myself using many other books which I have found over many years to be of great benefit in teaching.

Some of materials I find useful for the early studies are:

• Bastien: Pop Piano Styles, Sonatinas, Notespeller, and other titles
• Christopher Norton: Micro Jazz, and other titles
• John Thomson: Note Speller, Scale Speller, Chord Speller
• Dulcie Holland: Master Your Theory
• Diller and Quail: Pedal Studies
• Last: Freedom Technique
• Piano Dexterity for Beginners (a big improvement on Hanon Finger Exercises)
• Jump Right Ins: piano starters and re-starters (fun pieces focused on co-ordination)

Students don't need to have this many books, of course. But these are the sorts of things I use most often.

Good books for the intermediate levels:

• Higher level books of Bastien, Norton, Holland, Diller and Quail, Last
• The Joy of Bach
• The Joy of Classics
• Bach: Inventions
• Clementi: Sonatinas
• Bartok: Mikrokosmos (a few selections only)
• Grieg: Lyric Pieces
• Exam repertoire
• Colourfast Piano Music (grade one)
• Scenes from Gorillahood (grades 3-5)
• Studies (Etudes) by Bertini, Heller, Le Couppey, Burgmüller, Duvernoy
• ColourKey Piano Technique
• Brahms: 51 Exercises (but not all 51!)
• Dohnanyi: Essential Finger Exercises
• Brandman: The Contemporary Aural Course (tape and workbook)

Students at the higher levels have a wide range of repertoire, depending on the student's interests. Some of the more likely:

• Bach: Preludes & Fugues, Little Preludes, suites
• Mozart and Haydn: sonata movements
• Beethoven: sonata movements
• Brahms: late piano miniatures
• Debussy: easier pieces and studies
• Ravel: minuets
• Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, other Russians
• Albeniz: Espana (a few selections)
• Matt Jones: Sonatina
• Smalley: Barcarolle (advanced); Variations on a Theme of Chopin (very advanced)
• Benfall: Hammers (very advanced)
• Chopin: Preludes, Studies
• Brahms and Dohnanyi exercises
• Exam repertoire

Actually, I don't teach the works by Roger Smalley and Stephen Benfall. I just publish them (and I love hearing other people play them).

Have a look at my one-page piano composition, The Greedy Row Snake, which is in the AMEB's Grade One piano exam book (Series 12). For my other pieces, see my page at Hovea Music Press.

Learning with a Keyboard or Electric Piano

I used to be dead-set against teaching anyone to play the piano who didn't have access to a real piano. But in recent years I have had several students do so well with electric instruments that my attitude has changed.

I took on a few people with keyboards or electric pianos because they seemed keen. In one case I correctly guessed that money was so tight that a cheap keyboard was the only answer, and the parent's dedication and the young man's interest overcame my usual reluctance. He's been one of my best students.

While we're on the subject of keyboards, have a look at Piano Howlers.

So, if YOU have an electric instrument, give me a call.

Mx Margaret Jones PO Box 227 CLAREMONT Western Australia 6910	Phone 08 www.HoveaMusicPress.com www.go.to/MJones
MusB(UWA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA. MIMT: Nationally Accredited Teacher of both Piano and Theory since ca. 1991.	Associate Composer, Australian Music Centre

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