PIANO
PEDAGOGY
FORUM
v. 8, No. 1/January 1, 2005
Erica Keithley is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Piano and Piano Pedagogy. She received her Bachelor of Music in piano performance at the University of Oklahoma, graduating with special distinction. At the University of Illinois in Urbana, she was a University Fellow and completed Masters degrees in both piano performance and piano pedagogy. Ms. Keithley is currently completing a Ph.D. in music education and piano pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma. Her dissertation explores the musical nuances used by advanced and intermediate level pianists in the communication of emotion. Ms. Keithley has taught on the faculties of the University of Illinois and Georgia Southwestern State University. In recognition of her teaching, she was listed as a "Teacher ranked as excellent by their students" at the University of Illinois. In addition, she was invited to give a teaching demonstration at the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy and was selected as one of three to receive the Provost's Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award at the University of Oklahoma in 2002. Ms. Keithley teaches applied piano, advanced keyboard skills, and piano pedagogy courses at the Georgia State University School of Music, and also serves as coordinator of group piano.
Erica Keithley
School of Music
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 4097
Atlanta, GA 30302
404.651.1641
musejk@gsu.edu
Technololgy Demonstration: Security Cameras Come to Piano Class - Timothy Shafer, presenter
report by Erica Keithley
While group piano teaching is an efficient, economical, and engaging way to instruct piano students, the layout of many digital piano labs limits visual connections between students and teacher. Many elements of piano technique are best taught through teacher demonstration, a technique that requires that both the teacher and the student have clear views of each other's hands. The students must see the teacher's hands to be able to imitate motions, and the teacher must be able to see students' hands to monitor their progress, make corrections, and offer suggestions. Few digital piano labs are designed to offer this type of visual communication between teacher and students. To overcome this problem Dr. Timothy Shafer designed a group piano lab at Pennsylvania State University that uses surveillance cameras to insure that all students can easily see the teacher's hands and pedaling foot. The increased visual contact between students and teacher allows the teacher to use more demonstration in teaching and provides the teacher with more opportunities to address the physical and technical aspects of piano performance in a group piano setting.
Classroom and Equipment
The classroom Dr. Shafer designed is 29 feet long and 22 feet wide. Equipment used in the room includes one teacher's digital piano and controller, 12 student digital pianos, 4 student Disklaviers, three 20-inch televisions, and four surveillance cameras. The cost of the surveillance cameras and televisions ten years ago was about $6,500. Purchase of one additional camera and a device to display all four camera views simultaneously on a split screen cost $1,700 in April 2004. A smaller system used in Dr. Shafer's home studio that is self-contained and includes four cameras and one display unit was purchased at a local Sam's Club at a cost of $1,000.
Keyboard layout: Enhancing Teacher View of Student's Hands
The digital pianos in this lab are placed in such a way that the teacher can view all students' hands while standing at the teacher's station. The teacher merely needs to move his or her head in order to scan all 320 fingers. The teacher's digital piano is placed in a corner of the classroom, facing out diagonally into the classroom. The students' instruments are placed in rows radiating out from the teacher station like the spokes of a wheel.
Surveillance Camera and Television Placement: Enhancing Student View of Teacher's Hands
The four surveillance cameras in the lab are placed to capture two different views of the teacher's hands and two views of the teacher's pedaling foot. One camera, suspended from the ceiling above the teacher's keyboard, shows a view of the top of the teacher's hands and the keyboard. This "birds' eye" view is similar to what a pianist sees when he looks down on his own hands. The other hand view is from the side of the teacher, providing a "profile" view of the hand and arm. This view shows what a pianist would see if he were watching on hand level from one extreme of the piano. A third camera is placed on the floor by the teacher's piano and shows a "profile" view of the right foot and pedal mechanism, and a fourth camera is mounted below the teacher's piano and shows a top view of the teacher's right foot.
The views of the teacher's hands and foot captured by the cameras are fed into three televisions in the room. As may be seen in the above diagram, when facing forward at their pianos, the 16 students have 6 sight lines or viewing perspectives. These are indicated on the above diagram with arrows. Using these sight lines as a guide, Dr. Shafer placed three televisions in the classroom, two in corners of the room and one against the opposite wall. To see a television, students merely look up from their piano or look up and slightly to the left or right. By glancing up at the televisions, students have instant access to several views of the teacher's hands and foot.
Teaching Applications
Dr. Shafer uses camera images to demonstrate many aspects of piano technique to students. The teacher can demonstrate hand expansions and contractions by modeling movements and directing student attention to the images captured by the camera that is focused down on the hand and keyboard. In addition, the teacher can show students hand positioning and position changes easily using this camera angle. The side-angle or hand "profile" camera can be shown to students to help them develop good hand position and to demonstrate how the wrist drops down and then lifts in the performance of a two note slur.
Demonstrating how the pianist's thumb passes under the palm in scale passages is also easily shown by this camera. Camera shots of both the right foot and the hands can help students understand better how to coordinate both in passages requiring syncopated pedaling.
© 2005 University of South Carolina School of Music