Introduction

This Portfolio documents 3 Piano Lessons delivered over 3-4 weeks to a student. The student is 20 years old at a professional level, with their Strengths being Intuitive with Pieces of Various repertoire (Mostly Baroque-Romantic) and sight-reading skills at tentative focus, and Weaknesses being getting to know more 20th-century repertoire – Modern Neoclassical repertoire and a bit more on reading through Music History to provide essential context, emotional depth, stylistic understanding, and to transform the student into an authentic interpreter.

The Lessons will be split up into 4 Working Areas:

• Working on a specific piece chosen by the student (Brahms)
• Improving Sight-Reading Skills through Unknown Composers (Via Music Magazines)
• Technical Warm-up through Scales & Arpeggios
• Boosting Performance Confident Skills

The collaborative planning between Chantelle and me was proactive. We used a rotating lead-teacher model to demonstrate responsibility for different segments of the lesson. Plans were written in advance after each session based upon the Student’s Progress.

Lesson Plans

The Lesson plan in the table above shows the progression from my teaching period to Chantelle’s. Lesson 1 focuses on the Brahms Rhapsody. As noted in the lesson, Chantelle needed ‘more work on the pedal’. This benefited her from working backwards and repeating phrases to maintain focus on melody and harmony. This approach is supported by practising mental rehearsal.

Lesson 2 moves to sight-reading an unknown piece by an unknown composer. This was my choice to remove any knowledge or expectation forced upon Chantelle to rely on pattern recognition and recognising. Having Chantelle sing the melody whilst playing is essential to pure and effective strategy, as it engages aural skills and execution. The use of Pianist Magazine as a source material provides authentic, level-appropriate repertoire without the pressure of a ‘methodological book’.

Lesson 3 finally takes us to the technical work of scales and understanding the Circle of Fifths. Using the first 5 notes of the C, G, D, and A major scales reduces the load before introducing the full scales. My use of the ‘pendulum swinging motion’ as imagery for the thumb-under technique is a strong example of embodied learning. By mapping a physical image onto her movements, Chantelle is more likely to internalise the gesture.

Together, these 3 lessons pose expressive and technical goals that I have taken into consideration. The progression from Lesson 1 (interpretation), Lesson 2 (sight-reading), to Lesson 3 (technical) is logical: each lesson builds on the skills developed in the previous one. In the future, these lessons could be expanded a bit to be more explicit. For example, sight-reading a piece from the Romantic period requires both literacy and expression.

Analysis: Reflection

In Clip 1, Chantelle is playing the 3rd Movement of the Brahms Rhapsody. She is technically secure with her notes, fingerings, and rhythms. Chantelle is currently working on defining the piece’s characteristics. You can hear that Chantelle’s playing is even and accurate, but the sound is a bit thin and lacks the warmth that Brahms requires.

Chantelle is trying to bring out the Romantic Period Style. Performing Brahms needs a rich, weighted sound with subtle rubato (robbed time in tempo). In the clip shown above, you can see that Chantelle’s wrists are a bit stiff, which makes the tone brighter and more controlled than it should be for this piece.

My approach to teaching this is to ask her two very important questions: ‘What mood do you think Brahms was in when he composed this piece?’ and ‘Can you picture yourself doing this phrase cantabile?’ I also demonstrated a short phrase using more arm weight and a slightly warmer tone. This approach helps because Chantelle already has the skill set she needs. As an Overseas International Student from China, Chantelle has been trained in a system that prizes precision, dedication, and clarity. My job here isn’t to fix the wrong notes, but to help her switch into her own artistic language.

Next, Chantelle needs to experiment with arm weight and rubato. At the start of the clip, I can see a little bit of progress. Chantelle’s tone is consistent, but flat. By the end of my demonstration, she tries a heavier touch on the downbeat of bar 3. It’s a small change, but the first step towards a distinctive, expressive Romantic soundscape.

In Clip 2, we are focusing on sight-reading an unknown piece by an unknown composer who hasn’t reached their fame, which the student hasn’t seen before. At the beginning of the clip, you can see that Chantelle is a bit nervous because her fingers hover over the wrong notes before she corrects them, and, whilst not rushing, she is learning to read ahead as she plays rather than stopping.

This is a skill that even professional pianists struggle to maintain, especially when we’ve been trained in a system that prioritises accuracy over fluency. In the clip above, Chantelle’s instinct is to stop and to fix every single note precisely, which breaks the piece’s artistic integrity.

My teaching here is to ask Chantelle to keep going, even if mistakes are made. I always ask her to look ahead to the next bar just before the previous bar, so her hands are ready to play the next melodic line. This helps because Chantelle’s problem here is not a technical issue; it’s a mental one, and that is why sight-reading can help pianists like Chantelle learn faster and more efficiently, improving musical understanding of music theory and enhancing cognitive skills such as peripheral vision and muscle memory.

Things that I think Chantelle needs to improve include practising sight-reading every 5-10 minutes every day, using lesser-known pieces by composers who haven’t reached fame. This helps because it broadens stylistic awareness, develops artistic independence, and uncovers hidden gems overlooked in the standard repertoire. Progress is evident at the beginning of the clip, at bar 3, where Chantelle stops completely, but by the end of bar 8, she keeps playing without stopping, even though she plays a few wrong notes. This is what I want from my students – Fluency over perfectionism.

In the final clip, Chantelle is working on her technical skills by playing scales revolving around the circle of fifths. For simplicity’s sake, we are only going to go from 4 keys in all majors: C, G, D and A. Chantelle can play each scale perfectly without any default, but when she moves to one key to the next, she slightly hesitates. In the first few seconds of the clip, Chantelle is slightly pausing between G major and D major, indicating that she doesn’t know how many sharps (#) there are between the two keys.

We are also using a very important tool to help Chantelle get across the keys much more easily: The Circle of Fifths. This is important because it helps Chantelle to quickly identify how many sharps (#) or flats (b) there are in each key, and it can help with transposing/modulating keys in certain pieces. In the clip above, Chantelle’s hesitation showcases that she knows the scales clearly, but she hasn’t internalised the pattern of adding one sharp each time you go up by a fifth.

My Strategy here is to test her knowledge on the circle of fifths by drawing the circle of fifths on a piece of paper and asking her ‘How many sharps are there in G major? Chantelle would then give me the answer based on the circle of fifths via the paper. This helps because Chantelle is a professional student who learns quickly once she understands the logic and the theory behind the circle of fifths. This acts like a map, so she’s not just memorising by route.

Finally, Chantelle needs to keep practising scales in other keys using the circle of fifths (clockwise with sharps) and fourths (anticlockwise with flats). Progress is being made at the beginning of the clip, where Chantelle pauses for 2-3 seconds in between keys, but by the end, she is only a brief second between keys C, G, and D. She is still hesitant on A major, but she corrects herself before playing. Progress is being made, done correctly.

Evaluation: Teaching Development

My approach to teaching is structured, but I keep it flexible. I prioritise expression over technical perfection. So, in the lessons that I’ve been teaching, I tend to ask questions rather than give answers (although sometimes I switch it around, depending on the student’s confidence level), and I use demonstration followed by imitation. I believe that students learn best when they discover solutions themselves, with me acting as a guide rather than a lecturer.

After reviewing my video clips, I have identified three areas for development. First, I sometimes over-explain the student’s playing. In Clip 2, I gave numerous verbal instructions within a few seconds, which likely overwhelmed the student. This tells me that less would’ve been more in that moment. Second, my questioning technique needs refinement. I currently ask too many closed questions. For example, do you know what this note is? What period is this piece in? Are there any rhythmic repetitions elsewhere? etc. These questions only require a yes/no or one-word answers. I need to ask more open-ended questions instead, such as “How does this piece make you feel when you’re playing?” Open-ended questions encourage deeper thinking and longer student responses. Third, I sometimes ramble and don’t clearly relate my questions back to the lessons. For example, I once asked the student: ‘Imagine you’re Brahms in the 19th-century Romantic period, and you’ve just confessed your love for Clara Schumann. How does that incorporate into your playing style?’ While creative, this question was too abstract for the student’s level. The student looked confused and didn’t answer. In future, I will save metaphorical questions for more advanced students and use simpler, more direct language.

The most significant learning from this Portfolio Process has been the teaching it has provided her. Her style is more direct than mine. Initially, I assumed this was less effective, but the video evidence shows that the student responded well to her specific techniques. For example, longer silences and repeated modelling without explanation. I have since adopted rewarding participation into my own teaching (for instance, praising the student for attempting a difficult passage, even if it wasn’t perfect). I have also learned that collaborative teaching requires explicit role negotiation – something we didn’t do well at the start but improved by Lesson 3.

Looking ahead, I want to continue developing my use of silence, my open questioning, and my ability to step back and let my student process productively. This Portfolio has shown me that good teaching is not about how much I say, but about how well the student learns.

Progress Reflection

Looking back across the 3 lessons in this portfolio, I can see a clear lens in Chantelle’s learning curve. In Lesson 1, Chantelle plays accurately but relies on me for approval after every bar. By Lesson 3, Chantelle was moving between scales without overthinking about the thumb-under technique and playing through mistakes without stopping or looking for reassurance.

If I could teach this sequence again, I would make two changes. Firstly, I would introduce the circle of fifths in Lesson 1, not in Lesson 3. Having that map earlier would have supported Chantelle’s scales from the start and given her more time to internalise the pattern. Secondly, I would change roles with Chantelle before the first lesson. It was time-consuming in Lessons 1 and 2 to figure out who was doing what. A five-minute conversation before Chantelle arrived.

I have also learned something about my own habits. My instinct to fill silence with words was not always reliable. Watching Chantelle teach reminded me that silence gives me the space to think. In the sight-reading clip, Chantelle corrected herself during a pause that I had left, something she might not have done if I had jumped in immediately. In future lessons, I will give time to speak before Chantelle plays. It feels unnatural, but the video evidence shows it works.

Finally, this portfolio has confirmed something I suspected but hadn’t yet proven: that my job is not to make Chantelle play perfectly, but to make her less reliant on me. By the end of the third lesson, Chantelle was taking risks, trusting herself, and playing through mistakes. In the sight-reading task (where we learnt different pieces by unknown composers who haven’t reached fame), I felt like I was passing the torch to Chantelle, so it would remind her that discovering these hidden gems of music will no longer be forgotten in decades to come. For example, I introduced her to Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, female composers who have yet to receive their due, but no one hears or plays their music anymore. That is what I want my students, like Chantelle, to do. To shine a light in the darkness of unknown composers just waiting to get their music out in the world, and to preserve and archive it for the rest of the generations yet to come.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this Portfolio documents a series of piano lessons delivered over 3 weeks. The student, a professional pianist, demonstrated measurable progress in rhythmic accuracy and self-correction, as evidenced in the video clips and lesson observations.

The lesson plan structure proved effective in balancing technical work, repertoire, and theory. However, in the future, my lessons would benefit from more explicit, self-assessed students and longer periods of teaching silence after each playing attempt. The video analysis showed that the most significant learning occurs not during my demonstration, but during the student’s own error-correction attempts.

Collaborating with my partner presented challenges due to our pedagogical differences, but ultimately strengthened my own teaching. Chantelle’s own direct, demonstration-heavy approach showed me that silent modelling can be just as effective as verbal explanation. Moving forward, I will talk less, listen more, and trust the student to find their own way into the music. This has been the most valuable learning experience of my teaching practice so far.

Bibliography

Brahms Rhapsody (Student edition):

Pianist Magazine: https://www.pianistmagazine.com/store/back-issues/pianist/pianist-144-jun25-issue-176-1/

ABRSM Scales, Arpeggios, and Broken Chords (2009 edition): https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/scales-arpeggios-and-broken-chords-book-abrsm-9781854727589?sku=GOR001160826&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17416831122&gbraid=0AAAAADZzAICdx0_DHvHOBoqQnitVDeVMY&gclid=CjwKCAjw-8vPBhBbEiwAoA39Wt7GeOLJRfYQtF2jwH2AfwsZdieju-LlP6voFIst0a4uaNTlJ8pG1BoC76kQAvD_BwE