How to make piano students feel tempos and their changes? An effective exercise by Piano Comics

Changes of tempos is an important music element that students must master. Even beginners.

This is an essential part of musical interpretation and although not given often in piano pieces for beginning levels, I always add one or two changes. The reason for this is so that the student feels the rhythm better, maintaining it stable until the moment he has to gradually (or suddenly) change it. And most importantly, knowing what a tempo is and how to apply it on your playing (without necessarily using a metronome) is part of being musically educated.

On what a tempo is I will write in another blog.

Let’s move on to the exercise: choose a simple, but not so short – we need time passing – melody in one hand position so that the student doesn’t have to concentrate on fingers and coordination between both hands. Only one hand is playing. And before playing it you can practice in a sentence, a melody, or musical examples from different composers on what each change of tempo is : show an accelerando, ritardando, difference between ritenuto and ritardando ( ritenuto usually being at the end of a piece while ritardando a more long and equally gradual slowing down) . Then proceed to the short, easy melody. Ask your student to do one change at a time each time he plays this melody. On ‘a tempo’ my 6 year old student added a metronome button inside his Clavinova and although I am not a fan of students using metronome, I liked that he understood the assignment: going back to the initial tempo and keeping it stable. His favourite was of course ‘rubato’ . He improvised quite a lot of varations on it.

This way you really build musical base inside your students , you gift them with a true musical education. Most students don’t even bother to look at the tempo, let alone know how to explain what it it. And no, it’s not just the speed with which we’re playing and it’s definitely not just a metronome sign.

For more material like this especially for piano beginners get ‘Workbook Sheet Music’ by Piano Comics. It can be used even with prechoolers as young as 4!

Here is the exercise, enjoy it and have a playful practice: