Developing creativity.(Pedagogy Friday: Exploring Evaluation and Assessment)

This presentation explored ways in which the development of creative musicianship skills can be incorporated into the "typical" piano lesson. The presenters, both classically trained musicians, share an interest in improvisation and have developed progressive exercises and assignments in their own teaching to help students become more versatile musicians.

Beginning with a mock-lesson scenario, we looked at how the standard classical repertoire offers points of departure for creative explorations. Using an elementary-level study by Duvernoy, the "student" noodled at the piano, becoming rather stuck on a certain chord progression--the same progression used in Pachelbel's ubiquitous Canon in D Major. The "teacher" helped the student name the chords in the home key of the study (C Major), and then to develop a template with Roman numeral analysis so that the progression could be transposed to any key. Once we had settled ourselves in D Major, we began to look at the left-hand accompaniment patterns, and while the student practiced a broken-chord figuration, the teacher played some of the Pachelbel melodic lines, improvising a few new ones along the way.

So many of the pieces our students play contain possibilities for similar explorations--any familiar chord progression or harmonic sequence may be extracted from a piece and become the basis for transposition exercises and/or improvisation. All the while, the student is absorbing a body of standard harmonic progressions--something that will make playing by ear much more accessible.

Another exercise that we call "pick-a-tune" is an entirely "off-road" activity--the student chooses a tune from his or her aural culture (pop tune, folk tune), figures out the melody, then harmonizes it with suitable chords and accompaniment figures. At the beginner level, simply figuring out the tune in a suitable key may be challenge enough. Popular student choices at this age tend to be "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Happy Birthday" or "Baby Beluga." While some ...