Instrumental Teaching: Piano

1. Introduction

This portfolio presents written and video evidence drawn from two contrasting one-to-one piano lessons taught in my home studio. The two pupils were chosen deliberately: Daisy, an adult songwriter who already writes at the keyboard and wants the theoretical vocabulary to name what she is doing, and Ellie, a younger pupil at an earlier stage whose stated goal is to play Pachelbel’s Canon. The contrast illustrates how a single pedagogical framework can be adapted to learners with very different prior experience, goals, and learning preferences.

The evidence comprises reflective commentary on both lessons, a lesson plan, musical examples drawn from the materials I used, and accompanying video clips totalling approximately sixteen minutes. Throughout I have aimed to evidence what Schon (1984) calls “reflection-in-action” alongside the slower “reflection-on-action” that informs my forward planning. Where the videos show me hesitating or making a less effective choice, I have tried to identify it openly rather than passing over it.

2. Pupil Profiles

2.1 Daisy

Daisy is an adult learner and pop songwriter who already has working keyboard skills. She writes songs at home using a small electronic keyboard and has developed an ear-led playing style: in our lesson she described her process candidly — she finds a chord, writes down the notes, then types them into Google to find out what chord she has played. Her stated goal is to acquire the theoretical vocabulary to name and manipulate the harmonic material she already produces intuitively. Her experience aligns with what Lucy Green (2002) describes as informal popular-music learning, and recognising this was central to my pedagogical decisions. She also told me that she is “a very visual learner” who finds it easier to grasp something “when I’ve got something written” — a sentence I should have acted on immediately, as I discuss in §6.

2.2 Ellie

Ellie is at an earlier stage. Her prior knowledge is limited to identifying middle C and a few neighbouring notes; her treble-clef reading is functional but slow, and she is still working through the bass clef using FACE as a mnemonic. She told me at the start that her goal is to learn Pachelbel’s Canon. Recognising this as ambitious for her current level, I selected the Prelude in C major from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (BWV 846) — which she immediately recognised as “the Ave Maria one.” The piece is technically accessible, harmonically rich, and shares with the Pachelbel a steady arpeggiated texture and a slow harmonic rhythm.

3. Teaching Philosophy

My teaching draws on three commitments. First, I treat each lesson as a diagnostic encounter. I begin by asking what the pupil already knows and what they want to achieve, and I let the answers reshape the lesson. Both video clips show this: with Daisy I asked, “What do you know already?”; with Ellie, “How much have you done before? What would your goals be?” The opening protocol is informed by Janet Mills’ (2007) argument that effective instrumental teaching begins with the learner, not the syllabus.

Second, I make pedagogical choices visible to the pupil. I tell them why we do scales — because the fingering of C major transfers to G major, so future repertoire is half-learned before they meet it. I tell them why we break a piece into block chords first — because doing so reduces cognitive load (Sweller, 1988) and lets the harmonic structure become visible before the surface texture. Making the rationale explicit invites the pupil into the pedagogy and supports independent practice between lessons.

Third, I treat technique as in service of music. Posture and hand position are corrected in the opening minutes precisely so they can recede from attention afterwards. I do not want a pupil thinking about their elbows while also trying to read, count, listen, and feel.

4. Lesson Plan

The lesson plan below is the structural framework I follow for one-to-one instrumental lessons. The phases are constant — physical setup, diagnostic conversation, technical work, repertoire study, consolidation, and recap — but the activities within each are adapted to the pupil and the repertoire. The same underlying structure is recognisable in both the Ellie and Daisy lessons described in §5 and §6.

Lesson type: one-to-one instrumental (piano)   |   Typical duration: 30–45 minutes  

Aims: establish a sustainable physical setup; use diagnostic questioning to surface prior learning; apply a scaffolded chord-reduction sequence (block chords → hands separately → hands together → as written) when introducing repertoire; embed technical work in current repertoire; end with pupil-led consolidation and a clear practice plan.

Welcome and physical setup. Brief recap of the previous week and a check of seating (stool height, feet planted, perched forward) and hand shape. With newer pupils I demonstrate the full setup using the metaphor of hands resting on a table; returning pupils need only a light correction. Assessed by observation for unnecessary tension in shoulders, wrists, or jaw.

Diagnostic conversation. I ask what the pupil has practised and what they would like to focus on, and we identify the session’s main goal collaboratively. The pupil’s stated need becomes the lesson’s primary focus, even if that means departing from what I had planned to teach.

Technical work. Scales, arpeggios, or a short exercise are chosen to support current repertoire, with the link made explicit (“this is the same fingering as the opening of your piece”). I assess by watching fingering, evenness, and tension; differentiation is by tempo, hands separately or together, and choice of focus.

Repertoire — introduction or revision. For new material I apply the scaffolded chord-reduction sequence: identify the chord content of each bar, then play as block chords, hands separately, hands together, and finally as written. Each stage adds a single layer of complexity, keeping cognitive load manageable (Sweller, 1988). For familiar material the structure is similar but inverted: I identify the section to refine and apply targeted strategies. Assessment is diagnostic — “What chord is that?”, “Where do your fingers go?”.

Repertoire — refinement. Once the notes are secure, attention turns to articulation, dynamics, pedalling, fingering choices, or wrist rotation for stretches. Where there is a choice I offer two or three possibilities rather than prescribing one, because the right answer often depends on the pupil’s hand size, prior experience, or musical instinct.

Consolidation. The pupil plays a complete section from the start, slowly, hands together. The purpose is the experience of continuity — building a reference performance for independent practice. Assessment shifts toward pupil self-assessment (“Are you happy with that?”); tempo is set by the pupil’s comfort.

Recap and practice planning. Brief summary plus two or three specific practice goals for the week, written into the pupil’s notebook. I ask the pupil to restate the plan in their own words: this is both an assessment and a transfer of responsibility for the practice from me to them.

5. Commentary on the Lesson with Ellie

The lesson opened with a focused minute on physical setup. I asked Ellie to imagine her hands resting naturally on a table — a metaphor I find more useful than “curve your fingers,” because it produces the right relaxed shape without inviting the clenched look that direct instruction often elicits. I also corrected her stool position, explaining that perching on the front edge with both feet on the ground gives the upper body the freedom of movement that good piano tone requires. This is shown in Video Clip 1 (“Posture and seating”, 0:00–1:30).

When I asked about her goals, Ellie identified Pachelbel’s Canon. Rather than dismiss this — it is years above her current ceiling — I selected the Bach Prelude as a stepping-stone: “I think Bach’s quite a good one.” Both pieces share a continuous quaver pulse, broken-triad textures, and a slow harmonic rhythm. Ellie’s spontaneous recognition of the Prelude (“that’s the kind of Ave Maria one”) gave the lesson a thread of familiarity to pull on.

A central pedagogical move was the reduction of the texture from arpeggiated figuration to block chords. The first bar of the Prelude — C, E, G, C, E repeated — is simply C major in second inversion, broken across both hands. I asked Ellie to identify the chord notes herself before playing them. This guided discovery (Bruner, 1961) was deliberate: chord-shape recognition will accelerate her sight-reading more than note-by-note decoding. Once she could play the block chord, I asked her to play the right hand alone, the left alone, then both together, and only then as written. Each stage adds one layer of complexity to a previously secure foundation.

When she had bars 1–4 reasonably secure, I introduced pedalling. Video Clip 3 (“Pedal mechanism and syncopated pedalling”, 4:00–7:00) captures my demonstration of the upright’s three pedals and a physical demonstration of the dampers and the soft-pedal mechanism. This was longer than I had planned (see §9), but Ellie was visibly engaged, and knowing the mechanism makes legato pedalling — pressing the pedal immediately after the bass note — easier to internalise.

The most important moment of the lesson came when Ellie noticed for herself that bars 1–2 are repeated identically in 3–4. I had been about to point this out; instead, she found it. I named the pattern explicitly — “this is just a repeat” — and praised the observation, because pattern-recognition is the cognitive skill at the heart of sight-reading and memorisation. Video Clip 4 captures the moment.

When Ellie reached the stretched chord at bar 5, her wrist visibly tightened. I responded with an unscripted mini-lesson on wrist rotation, demonstrating how to pivot around an anchor finger rather than reaching with a stiff hand. This is reflection-in-action: I had not planned to teach wrist rotation, but the pupil’s body told me it was needed now, not later.

6. Commentary on the Lesson with Daisy

Daisy’s lesson required a substantially different pedagogical posture. Her prior playing experience and her songwriter’s harmonic intuition meant the conventional opening of an early piano lesson — middle C, hand position, simple five-finger patterns — would have been condescending and unhelpful. After the same brief physical-setup routine (Video Clip 2, 0:00–1:00), I asked her what she wanted to learn. Her answer was specific: she wants to understand what chords she is already producing, and — in a later lesson — to refine her pedalling and chord changes inside her own songs.

This led to the lesson’s central activity: scales as a route to harmonic theory. I taught the C major scale across two octaves with standard fingering, then transposed the same fingering to G major, drawing her attention to the F♯ as the only “accidental.” I introduced the tone–semitone pattern (T–T–S–T–T–T–S) as the underlying generative rule and showed her A natural minor as the relative minor of C, both because the relationship is conceptually useful and because Daisy’s songwriting frequently moves between major and minor. Video Clip 5 (“Scales as theory”, 1:00–5:30) shows this work.

Two moments are worth flagging. First, when I attempted to explain “tone” and “semitone”, I became repetitive and slightly muddled — the recording shows me circling the explanation more than once, and at one point Daisy gently said, “I get what you mean. It’s easier to visualise it when you’ve got something written.” This happened because I tried to deliver the concept verbally when Daisy had already told me she is “a very visual learner.” The appropriate response would have been to reach for staff paper and draw the scale within the same minute. This is the clearest actionable lesson for my future practice: when a pupil identifies a learning preference, honour it immediately. I have added a small whiteboard and pre-printed staff paper to the studio so that mid-lesson visual aids are always within reach.

Second, Daisy redirected the lesson herself toward “building on what I’m doing now — to see what I’m doing wrong.” She asked, in effect, that future lessons begin with her own material and derive theoretical learning from it. This aligns with constructivist pedagogy (Vygotsky, 1978) and Lucy Green’s emphasis on respecting popular musicians’ existing learning practices. My forward plan for Daisy (§10) reflects this. Although less polished in surface delivery, the lesson’s underlying work was substantial: Daisy left able to play two octaves of two scales with correct fingering and articulate the formula that generates them.

7. Materials and Musical Examples

The materials used across the two lessons are listed below, with notes on the musical examples referenced. (Score extracts and worked examples are appended to the physical submission of this portfolio.)

7.1 Materials for Ellie

• J.S. Bach, Prelude in C major, BWV 846, bars 1–9 (Henle Urtext edition). The opening four bars are the central musical example referenced throughout §5. The harmonic skeleton of bars 1–4 is C major → D7 → G7 → C, with the right hand outlining the upper three notes of each chord and the left hand the root and third. Annotated fingering: LH 5–3–1; RH 1–2–4–5 for the standard hand position.
• A simplified two-stave reduction of bars 1–4 written into Ellie’s notebook, showing the chord under each beat. This was prepared during the lesson and is referenced in Video Clip 3.
• The piano itself, used as a teaching aid for the pedal demonstration. The visibility of the dampers on an upright is a real pedagogical resource that I now plan to exploit more systematically with beginners.

7.2 Materials for Daisy

• C major and G major scales over two octaves, hands separately. Ascending RH fingering: C(1) D(2) E(3) F(1) G(2) A(3) B(4) C(5) for the first octave, then 1–2–3–1–2–3–4–5 again for the second octave — with the thumb tucking under the third finger between E and F, and again between B and C. Descending RH fingering reverses the pattern, with the third finger crossing over the thumb on the way down. The G major scale uses identical fingering with F♯ substituted for F.
• A natural minor (the relative minor of C major), demonstrated to illustrate the major–minor relative-key relationship.
• The tone–semitone formula for the major scale: T–T–S–T–T–T–S. Used verbally in the lesson; will be supplied as a printed reference for the next lesson, in line with Daisy’s expressed preference for visual material.

7.3 Materials being prepared for the next lessons

For Ellie, I am preparing a one-page chart of the diatonic triads in C major (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°), with each triad notated, named, and labelled with its function. The chart will sit on the music desk as a reference while she continues with the Bach Prelude, and will support her transition into chord-led repertoire later in the term.

For Daisy, I am preparing a single A4 reference sheet that combines the major-scale formula, a clock-face cycle of fifths showing the major-key signatures, and a worked harmonic analysis of one of her own songs (chosen by her in advance of the next lesson). This honours the redirection she requested at the end of the recorded session and builds new theoretical knowledge directly on her existing creative practice.

8. Assessment Strategies

I use a layered model of assessment, drawing on Black and Wiliam’s (1998) framework. Within a single lesson three forms operate simultaneously.

Observational assessment runs continuously: hand shape, posture, fingering, evenness of tone, breathing, and the pupil’s facial response. In Ellie’s lesson, the wrist tension I noticed at bar 5 was a physical signal that produced the impromptu mini-lesson on wrist rotation captured in Video Clip 4. In Daisy’s lesson, observation told me she was tracking my verbal explanation less well than my hand-shape demonstration — a signal I should have responded to more quickly.

Diagnostic questioning probes understanding rather than recall. “What chord is that?” or “Where do your fingers go?” invite the pupil to demonstrate that they have internalised a pattern, rather than to recite a rule. With Ellie, this was particularly productive at bar 5, where she answered hesitantly but correctly that it was “an inversion of” the previous chord. The hesitation was important: she was working it out, not retrieving it.

Pupil self-assessment is something I have begun to use more deliberately. At several points in Ellie’s lesson I asked, “Are you happy with that?” rather than declaring the section complete. With Daisy, self-assessment is built into her stated learning style.

Across multiple lessons I keep brief written notes after each session. These form the summative track-record for longer-arc planning toward grade examinations or, for Daisy, toward integrating new theoretical knowledge into her songwriting. For Ellie, the medium-term checkpoint will be a video recording of the complete Bach Prelude in around six lessons’ time.

9. Reflection on the Video Evidence

Watching the clips back has been more uncomfortable, and more useful, than I expected. Three observations stand out, each producing a concrete change of practice.

First, I underestimated how often I say “kind of.” In moderation it is friendly and informal, but in aggregate it can blur the precision of an instruction, and with younger or less confident pupils more declarative language (“perch on the front of the stool with both feet on the floor”) would be clearer. I have begun to record short audio of my own lessons to track this verbal habit.

Second, my pacing in Daisy’s lesson is uneven (Video Clip 5). There are moments where I appear to lose the thread of my own explanation. This was not a content failure but a planning one: I had not anticipated that Daisy would want to engage with tones and semitones as an object of curiosity, and I was therefore unprepared to support that curiosity with a written reference. The change of practice is concrete: a small whiteboard and pre-printed staff paper now sit in the studio.

Third, the pedalling demonstration in Ellie’s lesson (Video Clip 3) is, on review, an example of effective use of physical materials. Showing her the dampers lifting and the soft-pedal mechanism shifting the keyboard made the abstract instruction “press the pedal just after the bass note” concrete and motivated. I will look for similar opportunities to use the instrument itself as a visual aid in future.

What the videos confirm is that both pupils were musically active, attentive, and engaged throughout. Both made measurable progress within the session — Ellie playing four bars of the Prelude with pedal, Daisy playing two octaves of two scales with correct fingering. The fundamental teaching contract — that the pupil leaves playing or understanding something they could not at the start — was upheld in both.

10. Conclusion and Forward Planning

This portfolio has documented how a single pedagogical framework — diagnostic opening, scaffolded skill-building, frequent formative assessment, in-the-moment adjustment — can be adapted to two pupils whose musical lives differ substantially. Adaptation is achieved not through different content but through different entry-points: for Ellie, repertoire (a piece she wants to play); for Daisy, her existing songwriting practice.

For Ellie’s next lesson I will continue the Bach Prelude (bars 9–16); introduce the diatonic triads of C major as a one-page chart linked to the chords she is already meeting; revisit pedalling once the new section is secure. For Daisy: prepare the A4 theory reference described in §7; ask her to bring one of her own songs in audio and lead-sheet form so we can analyse her existing chord choices; introduce sustaining-pedal usage in the context of her own material rather than abstractly. Both forward plans are constructed around the principle this portfolio is intended to evidence: that effective instrumental teaching begins with the pupil and the music, and only then proceeds to the technique.

References

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. London: GL Assessment.

Bruner, J.S. (1961) ‘The Act of Discovery’. Harvard Educational Review, 31, pp. 21–32.

Green, L. (2002) How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education. London, England: Ashgate Publishing.

Mills, J. (2007) Instrumental Teaching. London, England: Oxford University Press.

Schon, D.A. (1984) The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. London, England: Basic Books.

Sweller, J. (1988) ‘Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning’. Cognitive Science, 12(2), pp. 257–285.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.