Lisa Zdechlik, is Assistant Professor of Class Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of Arizona. An active performer, educator and clinician, she has presented workshops on pedagogical topics at the state and national levels. Her research involves the interaction between music analysis and performance and the applications of current technologies to music learning. Former faculty appointments include San Diego State University, Grossmont College and San Diego Mesa College. Dr. Zdechlik holds a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, where she was recently awarded the 2002 Dissertation Prize in Education, Fine Arts and the Professions for her dissertation, Texture and Pedaling in Selected Nocturnes of Frederic Chopin.
Lisa Zdechlik
School of Music
University of Arizona
Tuscon, AZ 85721
520.626.9523
zdechlik@email.arizona.edu
In Michelle Conda's session, Teaching Popular Chording in the Group Piano Setting, participants were taken on a nostalgic journey of pop and rock classics that Michelle has adapted for use in her non-music major and music major piano classes at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. We were also treated to Michelle's joyful approach and her upbeat voice as she played and sang her way through the examples that followed. Michelle provided a handout that included fingering outlines or a basic chord chart for each selection. Michelle cited two reasons that she uses lead sheets with her students: 1) it helps students learn this classic music, and 2) it teaches students to read lead sheets. Michelle's approach to teaching these pieces was clear, direct, and attuned to precise steps that students would need to take to achieve success in their playing. As her students, we were immediately involved in making music, her approach ensuring our success.
Michelle began with the 1962 hit, Alley Cat, demonstrating how students can be immediately involved in playing Alley Cat with the use of two simple block chords, C and G Major. Michelle first asked us to play a C major chord with our right hand instructing, "notice that your fifth finger is on G; lift up your whole hand and move to the G chord." Not leaving any movements to chance, Michelle choreographed the movement from the C chord to the G chord with a large kinesthetic cue of lifting her own left hand (mirroring our right hands) and a verbal cue to "lift the hand." When we were proficient in playing the C and G Major chords, Michelle guided us to play the harmonic progression of Alley Cat : C - C - C - G - G - G - G - C -. Michelle verbally led the group through the progression as she played a vivacious rendition of Alley Cat.
We played two verses of Alley Cat, accompanying Michelle with our C and G chordal accompaniment as she played the melody and accompaniment. As we moved into the refrain, Michelle noted, "this uses the F chord and the D chord," referring to the D chord as her "anti-oreo chord." At the end, following Michelle's cue to "sting it," we brought Alley Cat to a striking close. By learning Alley Cat in this manner, students have fun, they are immediately successful in playing, and they begin to develop a sense of harmony and form.
Michelle teaches the Baby Elephant Walk to introduce students to the boogie-woogie style. A smooth transition is made from the full chords of Alley Cat to realizing the chords in the boogie-woogie pattern of Baby Elephant Walk. Perfect fifths, the variable third, and eighth notes are introduced. Michelle indicated that, while students experience playing the eighth note in this piece, she doesn't officially teach eighth notes at this point. Michelle begins by prompting students to play the Perfect 5th of the C chord, then the flat 3, then the natural 3. As Michelle led us through this musical example in the workshop session, we gradually evolved from the Mama Elephant's Walk in quarter notes to the baby elephant's walk in eighth notes, and finally to a full-blown 12-bar blues Baby Elephant Walk. Without a break in playing, Michelle refined our boogie-woogie style with quick verbal directives of "staccato" and "bounce your wrist." Suddenly, we were in stride with Michelle, playing boogie-woogie; and, we didn't know how we got there. Of course, our getting-there was the result of expert teaching, where the teacher had skillfully moved us from the known (the chords of Alley Cat) to the unknown, creating a boogie-woogie pattern. All this occurred in the time of two minutes. As soon as our left hands were fluent in the boogie-woogie style, Michelle introduced Henry Mancini's melody to our boogie-woogie bass line. It was obvious that students would thoroughly enjoy this. Michelle pointed out that in moving up to the F chord, one has to cross over one's body; hence, she prefers to have students move from the C chord down to the F chord. Another tip was that it doesn't really help to cue students to move by position, e.g., the C major position to the F major position, because the third finger ends each pattern. Michelle warned that this is a "bug" that needs to be worked out in the teaching of Baby Elephant Walk.
Once students have experienced moving around the keyboard with chords, Michelle introduces Heart and Soul. Most humans have learned Heart and Soul from their best friends, but at the workshop session we had the benefit of learning Michelle's new spin on this old favorite. Michelle demonstrated a rhythmic variation, based on boom-di-a-ta. Prepping our left-hand thumb on C, Michelle outlined the infamous bass line, cuing our fingers 1(C)- 3(A)Ð 5(F) -4(G). When participants were familiar with the bass line, Michelle added the right-hand chords in a two-hand accompaniment, using the rhythm of boom-di-a-ta (boom being the left hand, di-a-ta, the right hand). After we were comfortable with the coordination of this two-hand rhythmic pattern, Michelle introduced the familiar arpeggiated variation. We alternated between the two patterns, taking our cue from Michelle's indications to "chunk" it (block it) or break it up (arpeggiate it). Varying the accompaniment style in this way develops flexibility and rhythmic coordination in students.
From Heart and Soul we progressed to Fiddler on the Roof, Michelle guiding us to simply convert the two-hand boom-di-a-ta accompaniment of Heart and Soul to a straightforward boom-chick between the hands (boom in the left hand; chick in the right hand). After we practiced "boom-chicking" the opening C and Db Major chords and chunking the Eb and Db major chords, we enjoyed a verse of Fiddler on the Roof. C - C - Db - C - C - C - Db Eb Db (block) - C - C .
Moving on to the Beetles' style with Let it Be, we played a more complex version of a two-hand, broken chord accompaniment style. Here the left hand played the root note of each chord while the right hand realized the full chord in an eighth note rhythm. Again Michelle's directives were impeccably clear. She explained, "Play the chord in the right hand. Now we are going to break the chord in half; play the top two notes; roll down to the tonic note with the thumb." Even though she does not officially teach eighth notes to her students at this point, Michelle shows the eighth notes of the right hand on the board to stress their rhythmic movement. Hence, students experience eighth notes through playing Let it Be and Michelle has embedded readiness for the time when students begin to read eighth notes. Once our right hands were comfortable with the rocking eighth notes, we added the root note of each chord with the left hand. When teaching beginning students how to coordinate this accompaniment between the hands, Michelle emphasizes that whatever way your left hand goes, the right hand, in position, follows. As we got into the groove of this Beetle's hit, Michelle broke into singing, "speaking words of wisdom, let it be."
The ballad style of Love is Blue followed with a variation of the two-hand accompaniment of Let it Be. Here, the left hand plays and holds on the strong beats one and three, while the right hand complements this with a broken chord on &-2&-3&-4&. Michelle also uses this ballad to introduce seventh chords.
Make Me Smile uses a double thumb technique in the left hand (LRRLLRRLL) to create a typical rock style accompaniment in dotted rhythms. The right hand uses root position and sus chords, playing on &2& and &4& while the left hand is heard on 1--&3--&1, etc.
Michelle concluded the session with John Lennon's Imagine, referring to this as the "ultimate" Beetles. The progression uses inverted chords and seventh chords: C Cmaj7 - F/C - C Cmaj7 - F (repeat for 5 total) - C/E - Dm7 Dm7/C - G7 - G7 (block) . Although Michelle hasn't formally taught inversions at this point, she introduces the inverted/slash chords to her students by saying C/G is a C chord "with-a" G in the bass. This two-hand accompaniment is similar to Let it Be, the right hand rocking the chord in eighth notes, the LH playing the bass line. Michelle also taught us the familiar chromatic run (A-Bb-B-C) heard at the end of each two-measure segment of the opening four measures.
This was a fun, joyous, captivating session! Michelle's upbeat spirit and talent in imparting the style and capturing the essence of each of these pieces left each of us with a fresh approach to introducing chords, practicing chord progressions, teaching accompaniment styles, and making music with our students with these truly "classic" pieces.
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