Piano Lesson in Progress: Singing and Playing in Canon

This short video is a wonderful demonstration of how we can develop the ear in the piano lesson by singing and playing in canon. This piece is called Rose Red and can be found in PianoForte level 3. It’s an old English folk song and you will probably recognise it as the melody often accompanies several different words.

This student has been taking lessons for five years. She has progressed through PianoForte Levels 1, 2 and is at the end of Level 3. She has weekly, half-hour lessons. For the first three years of lessons she did not have a reliable piano to practice on so a lot of our lessons have been focused on singing and aural training. She has had a piano to practice on for the past year and her progress has been much quicker. Se loves music and practices every day for about 20 minutes.

I add the drum in this exercise for a few reasons: it’s fun! and it also adds an additional sound quality to her playing. The drum also contributes to our time keeping and helps her feels a natural pulse.

Working on a piece in canon like this is an extremely powerful way to develop the ear. I like to think of canons as ‘baby fugues’ - where we learn to hear and sing in more then one voice,