CPTP089: Carol Matz on Piano Teaching and Arranging

Carol Matz is well known in the piano teaching community for her Famous and Fun series, and more recently for her Interactive Piano Method. She's also an experienced piano teacher herself and she knows what works when it comes to great pedagogical arrangements. But Carol is also on the podcast to talk about the other side of arranging: how to teach arranging skills to our students. Having this ability can connect our students to a whole variety of music styles and make them more likely to stick with their music studies. But how do we teach it? What's the process? Carol has step-by-step advice for us that's going to make teaching arranging as easy as making a sandwich. Take a listen to see what I mean.

Transcript

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In this episode, you’ll learn

• How to get a student to identify as a musician
• Ways of making music more social for students
• How to teach students about chords & arranging
• A simple way to teach chords to beginners
• How to drill chords in a way that's not boring
• Step-by-step instructions for getting kids to arrange music
• How to fill out chords when students have small hands
• What the interactive piano method is and why Carol wrote it

Links Mentioned

• Interactive Piano Method
• Famous and Fun series
• Top 10 Pop Songs to Teach Piano Students
• The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Left Hand Patterns

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Do you teach arranging in your piano teaching?

How do you go about it? Do you use a similar method to Carol? If you don't teach this skill, what's holding you back?