Fingering and articulation
- Recognise and use consistent fingering, beginning to suggest fingering for short, simple phrases that is suitable for their hand shape
- Use appropriate fingering in closed and extended hand positions, including for scales and arpeggios
- Connect hand positions with fluency
- Use appropriate fingerings for left-hand full-fingered chords
- Play a range of chords including major and minor triads and (dominant) seventh chords, both in root position and using suitable inversions
- Play with legato and non-legato articulation, including slurring and staccato
- Begin to explore how touch response can enable phrases to be shaped with dynamic variety
Teach learners to play short phrases using alternative fingerings. Encourage them to listen to the effects on phrasing, comparing the effectiveness of each fingering pattern. Ask learners to suggest fingering for short phrases, explaining their choices.
Teach learners to play scales and arpeggios with a range of two octaves in a wider range of keys, e.g. G, D, A and F majors, A, D, and E minors, related modal and major/minor pentatonic scales.
Scale work should relate to developing awareness of key and tonality in pieces being studied. Learners should begin to differentiate aurally between major, minor, pentatonic and some modal and blues patterns.
Play a simple chord progression and ask learners to play scales in time with the auto-accompaniment. In group lessons, learners can start on different beats of the bar to create scales in thirds, etc.
Teach learners exercises and pieces that use the finger patterns and thumb-under techniques previously encountered in scales/arpeggios in related keys.
Ask learners to compare fingering used in arpeggio and broken-chord patterns with that used for left-hand, full-fingered chords. Discuss reasons why some chord fingerings are more comfortable than others. Help learners to develop consistency in their choice of chord positions and fingerings.
Learners should understand the formation of common triads in their root positions so as to make accurate and musical connections between what is played and what is actually heard.
Play three chords – one major, one minor, and one a seventh chord. Ask learners to identify each one aurally.
Learners often use the keyboard screen to confirm that they have played the correct chord (if this is displayed), but they should be encouraged to develop their aural recognition first and foremost.
Introduce and explain chord charts, emphasising the correct theoretical construction of chords and their inversions. Ask learners to work out new chords (major and minor triads) by applying their aural recognition, knowledge gained from chord charts and theoretical understanding.
Ask learners to play chord progressions (one per bar) using full-fingered chords in a variety of keys at a regular pulse, counting aloud at first, and then using the auto-accompaniment.
Explain possible single-finger shortcuts as alternatives to full-fingered chords, e.g. minors, sevenths. Ask learners to experiment.
Some keyboards allow players to use a mixture of single-finger and full-fingered chords without changing settings. This can be a useful performance tool.
Ask learners to experiment with a variety of articulations within pieces they are playing, giving reasons for their final choices in relation to the notation, registration and character of the music.
Play a recording of a popular song, if possible providing a simple written score. Ask learners to note how the lyrics and music together define the phrasing; then ask them to copy the phrasing heard on to the sung version.
Where appropriate, it can be beneficial to encourage the player or the rest of the group to sing the song as it is played.
Through experimenting with alternatives, ask learners to suggest and add phrasing to notation, e.g. defining two- or four-bar phrasing.
Phrasing of the right-hand melody should be underpinned by the use of fills to define phrasing within the auto-accompaniment.
Ask learners to engage and explore the touch response. Initially, ask them to play exercises in a five-note position. Explain the connection between finger action and velocity control. Demonstrate how touch responsiveness sometimes affects changes of timbre as well as dynamics.
Touch response on electronic keyboards requires a different technical approach from the weighted keys of an acoustic piano. It is usually based solely on velocity, requiring a firm finger technique rather than arm or elbow movement.
Ask learners to use touch response when playing scales, listening to evenness and discussing the relative strength of fingers, finger patterns and fluency.
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