Introduction to my pupil
My pupil for this teaching portfolio (Kirsty Elgin) is a second-year student at Leeds Conservatoire who studies cello on the classical course. She also plays the double bass for orchestra in a classical setting and the electric bass in a pop band. As such, she possesses a sound foundation in general music theory. Being a cellist as her principal instrument, I have no doubt she is proficient in reading music of the bass clef and even the tenor clef, but in comparison may be weaker on reading the upper range of the treble clef.
The student aims to grasp a greater understanding of the piano instrument in general as well as a desire to play some modern popular songs that she enjoys listening to. Therefore, while I have been classically trained, it may be beneficial later down the line to teach the student about standard chord progressions in popular music (whereas learning typical chord progressions in the classical realm exists, but not to the scale of popular music). I will be conducting 20 minute one on one lessons with my pupil on a weekly basis. For teaching a beginner piano student, this will suffice as there is only so much stamina that a beginner piano player will possess. In addition, a shorter lesson can help prevent the loss of focus which is commonly seen in children (Sage Music, 2018). Furthermore, my student has ADHD, which is why a shorter lesson may prove more beneficial for her especially at this level. As Kirsty progresses with her piano techniques and stamina and starts to undertake pieces that are increasingly challenging and long, it may become necessary to increase the duration of the lesson so that I can effectively guide her with her playing.
Teaching style
When I was a beginner starting piano lessons (around the age of 6), my mother would accompany me in my lesson and would take notes for when I practiced at home so she could assist me. Later in life did I learn that this was an element of the Suzuki method, where “the involvement of the parent” would be crucial for a child’s music learning progress (European Suzuki Association, n.d.) For me, this helped greatly as I would have assistance during practice at home, hastening my progress. Therefore, my personal experiences have helped me believe that elements of the Suzuki method will be useful for my student. However, since we are students at Leeds Conservatoire and are living away from home, it is impossible for my student to have a parent watching the lesson nor would it be practical giving her age and proficiency in music. However, Hendricks (2011:142) notes that Suzuki believed that the “nature of music is spiritual, and music performance expresses the nature of the composer’s and performer’s soul.” While Kirsty is clearly a skilled cellist performer (enough to be enrolled into a music college), there is music about the piano’s performance techniques that I can teach her.
The resources that are utilised when teaching pupils are also very important. For example, when teaching scales, the ABRSM scale books (usually numbered from grades 1-8) are a popular way to help the pupil achieve progress with the proficiency of performing scales. It lists all the required scales needed and even has suggested fingering patterns to help the student get the scale under their fingers. It is also because they are the compulsory scales needed to perform when a student takes the exam of that grade level hence the popular usage. However, my method of teaching scales with Kirsty is a little different because she does not intend to take the ABRSM classical music graded exams. This means the need to buy the scale books is not a necessity. Rather, I have found a very useful website I have started to use with my student from Berklee Pulse (n.d.) This online webpage lists all the major and minor scales. Attached below is a screenshot from the webpage of the C major scale. It shows a visualisation of what keys to be played in that scale as well as an audio track. I believe this is a great resource for my student to use when practicing some scales in her own time.
Lesson plan
Attached above is a lesson plan I have made which serves as a template to how each of my lessons with Kirsty will carry out. Specifically for this plan I have written out is for a lesson for my student at the very beginning of her piano journey. This is reflected through the brief lesson time of 30 minutes. As mentioned earlier, I believe that a 30-minute lesson will suffice for a beginner piano student especially for Kirsty. Extending lesson time may be considered once the difficulty of repertoire she undertakes increases and more time is needed to develop her proficiency of the music.
I have structured the lesson with a beginning, middle and end. The beginning serves as a link between the last lesson and the present where we discuss what the pupil has been doing. I also like to include a warmup during this time, where the student plays some scales to get the finger muscles going. In my personal experience as a beginner learning scales at a beginner level, I found them tedious and a bore to learn. But now after having played the piano for 13 years, I have found scales an efficient way to warm up my fingers. At this level of musicianship, it is very difficult to go straight into practicing a piece of music without the prior activity. Furthermore, I have found it strengthens one’s ability to recognise melodic colours through the repetitive listening of major and minor scales. This not only benefits a student’s general musicianship but also provides an advantage if they are doing a graded aural test.
The bulk of the lesson will be centred around the piece of music that my pupil has decided to learn. This includes guiding them through the basic knowledge needed for the piece, such as understand the time signature, key signature, tempo, structure etc. I like to go through this because while it sometimes may seem boring for the student, it is always beneficial to understand the music theory behind the music. Going through the music in chunks at a time helps the student learn more efficiently. This is a proven technique in cognitive psychology proposed by Miller (1956) who found that by “organizing the stimulus input simultaneously into several dimensions and successively into a sequence of chunks”, the “informational bottleneck” can be stretched- meaning that more information can be taken in using this method. The same applies to learning music- by turning a piece of music that may be 64 bars long into eight 8-bar chunks, the sequence of learning can be made more efficient simply by breaking down the amount of music at a time. When going through the process of learning music, it would be wise to keep the tempo well below, but if the student makes good progress within the lesson in achieving fluency, it is worth asking them to play again at a faster pace to keep them challenged.
Towards the end of the lesson, I’d like to give the student a sight-reading task which will be tailored to their appropriate level. I believe sight-reading to be a useful skill for a musician as a whole and regular practice will improve their fluency. This could mean gradually being able to learn music quicker as they are able to process the new melodies faster. At the end I would debrief my student about the lesson and give them a small homework task that could involve practicing a new scale introduced in the lesson or continue working on the piece of music.
Commentary on my teaching
The clip on the left is the very first lesson I have had with Kirsty. I would categorise this lesson type as foundational pedagogy as I show the student the very basics of the piano itself. Here, before playing anything, I introduce her to the structure of the piano and how she should align herself with the keyboard. I inform her about the use of the piano stool that can be adjusted to match the person to the keyboard, which impacts the arm position as well as the leg angle to the pedal. It is worth noting that throughout the video clips that will be presented, my manner of execution regarding giving instructions to the student could be significantly better but this is because I am not yet a qualified teacher. For example, in this clip, I could’ve asked Kirsty how she felt position wise.
In terms of the lesson plan, this clip about position was the first part of the lesson and the next few clips where we go through the scales would be considered the main body of the lesson.
In the next clip, I introduce my pupil to the C major scale. Considering the context of the student, it was not necessary to go through the theory behind the scale (e.g. having no sharps and flats), but rather to go through the scale practically straight away. I use call and response instruction to guide her through the motion of the scale using the right hand first. I noticed that the angle of her hand towards the keyboard was naturally flat, so I instructed her to angle the hand so that it looked like a curve. It may seem like a minor nitpick for a very first lesson, but I believe that it was necessary to rectify such problems as soon as possible before it becomes a habit.
I found that the call and response instruction was effective, where the student would observe how I played the scale and would repeat after me.
Here, the student has completed a octave of the C major scale of the right hand. As seen, I am surprised that she has managed to do it somewhat fluidly so quick. In hindsight it may have been more useful if I asked the student to complete a couple more repetitions in order to further train the muscle memory of the motion of the scale.
As the student completes the C major scale going up and down with their hands separately, I decide to challenge her by asking to proceed by playing with both hands together. By nature, it is more difficult to combine the hands together even if playing hands separately is comfortable, due to the increased hand-eye coordination. As seen in the clip, the student is unable to play to coordinate the finger cross overs as they occur at different times on both hands. Therefore, I break it down into a smaller section and ask the student to only play the first 5 notes hands together. I ask this because this way there is 1 finger for each note, so it is not required to cross over fingers. By doing this, the student experiences the movement and feeling of playing with both hands together. After this mini exercise, the student has an easier time putting the full scale with both hands. This also supports the theory of chunking that I mentioned above- by splitting the full scale into a smaller part the student can receive, process and execute my instructions to a greater effect. At the end, I gave a round of applause to lighten the mood and praise her for her efforts, keeping the learning environment positive.
In this clip is the beginning of my second lesson with Kirsty. I start off by asking if she’s worked on what was covered in the first lesson and I assess her progress since that lesson by asking her to play the C major scale. As seen in the video she could play the scale separately fluidly with the right hand and the left hand (to a lesser extent). I was pleasantly surprised to see that when challenging the student to play the scale with both hands, she was able to play it without much hesitation on her own, evidencing her practice by her progress of playing the scale hands together. However, I feel like I could’ve set the mood of the lesson with a cheerier start by not assessing the student’s twenty seconds into the lesson- if it were not an adult but a young child it may have caused undue pressure on them.
In the main part of this lesson, the student has bought in a song which she is interested in learning. As it happens, it was perfectly suited to her level of skill. In this case, I would be following the lesson plan discussed above. I go through bits of the music theory with the student, explaining which C on the keyboard correlates to the C on the music stave as well as discussing the meaning of a sign on the score, which signified the use of sustained pedal. I am quite happy with the analogy I used about the pedal being similar to the dabbing of the footbrake on a car, it seemed to help the student with her pedal control to an extent, helping bridge the gap between abstract musical concepts and physical execution. However, as mentioned before, I should improve on my teaching attitude towards the student as I feel in hindsight that I am not giving enough words of encouragement. While it is not my intention to come across as stern or negative, it may cause a young student to feel intimidated.
Summary
To conclude from the teaching videos and the lesson plan, I have primarily focused on a teacher-centred approach, as I have directed the flow of the lesson and what the student should work on. For a total beginner I believe this is a more effective way for them to attain the basic skills of the piano. However, some elements of the lesson are more relaxed, such as the student wanting to learn a certain piece of music- which I believe is fine if it is suitable to their level. Finally, a completely guided approach shows to be a sound pedagogy for teaching a beginner pianist as the student has yet to grasp the basics and would need a lot of support both technically and musically.
References
Berklee Pulse (n.d.) C Major Scale. Available online: https://pulse.berklee.edu/scales/c-major-scale.html [Accessed 02/05/2026].
European Suzuki Association, (n.d.) The SUZUKI METHOD™. Available online:
https://www.europeansuzuki.org/esa/the-suzuki-method/ [Accessed 02/05/2026].
Hendricks, K.S. (2011) The Philosophy of Shinichi Suzuki: “Music Education as Love Education”. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 149(2), 136-154. https://doi.org/10.2979/philmusieducrevi.19.2.136
Miller, G.A. (1956) The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for
Processing Information[1]. Psychological Review, 63, 81–97. Available online: https://labs.la.utexas.edu/gilden/files/2016/04/MagicNumberSeven-Miller1956.pdf [Accessed 03/05/2026].
Sage music (2018) 6 factors to choose the right music lesson length. Available online: https://www.sagemusic.co/blog/music-lesson-length/ [Accessed 02/05/2026].
