Stay-at-Home Piano Activities

Piano-Related Activities to Add Interest to a Day at Home


My state's response to the covid-19 virus has me mostly staying home for the next few weeks. Our state's schools are closed for the next three weeks. Public meetings of more than 25 people have been banned. Restaurants are limited to sending people away with take-out orders, and no-one will be allowed to sell open beverages. Band and choir rehearsals have been canceled. My piano lessons are either being postponed or taking place over an online platform. We are not in lock-down, but we are clearly being encouraged to isolate ourselves.

My keyboard labels are made from vase weights.

Three weeks can seem like a long time, and finding some new activities can help pass the time. Here are a few piano-related possibilities that I hope to try over the next few weeks. I attempted to organize them from easiest to most difficult, and I hope to report back once I have tried the ones that are new to me.







Easiest:

• Play your scales and finger exercises backwards.
• Make yourself two sets of keyboard labels out of small strips of cardstock (index cards might work well). Don't forget the flats and sharps! Shuffle them well. Now race with a family member to see who can label an octave faster. (It is fine to practice on your own, if you prefer.)
• Make some music flashcards for yourself. If you make two sets, you can use them to play Memory.
• What is your favorite animal? Vehicle? Flower? Game? Make up and play a brief song or musical phrase that represents the thing you chose.
• Make up a weather song.
• Come up with your own way to write down your music. What makes sense to you?
• Tap the rhythm of your favorite song on the fall board of your piano. See if you can play the melody. Can you get it to the point where the rhythm and the melody come together to sound like the right song? (It's okay if putting together the melody and the rhythm is tricky. Work on it off and on for several days.)
• Now tap the rhythm of your current repertoire piece before you practice it.

 Moderate:

Make yourself a practice counter out of something small that you like. Mine is a candy dish and a glass bud vase. I have vase weights, marbles, and beads in the candy dish. I am currently memorizing a song for a recital. When I practice any part of this piece, I move one of my objects from the candy dish to the bud vase. I like this practice counter because it is pretty. When it is full, I plan to treat myself to something that I love--maybe a hike around a local lake or an afternoon in the mountains. You could use Legos, jingle bells, dried beans, acorns--anything small that you have a suitable container for.

Everything from this point on is a valid activity for your practice counter, at least for most of us. Beginners should consider every musical thing they do to be valid practice. This includes rhythm and improvisational activities. Just don't use improv as an excuse to avoid your assignments. Remember, practice makes permanent, so you need to work on things that someone will be checking on.

• Sing eight to ten notes and then try to play them back on your piano. Or make it a game with a family member--sing something short and challenge each other to play it back.
• Make up a melody, then harmonize. You can either play both or sing the melody and play the harmony (or vice versa).
• Make up some chord progressions. Can you turn them into a song? (You could play a melody to go with the chords or you could sing along.)
• Go to tonedear.com and take one of their tests. Now go to your piano and make up a song that uses the thing you missed the most.
• Play the most difficult passage (three to five measures) in the piece you are currently learning really slowly five times through. Each time you play it gets an object in your practice counter.
• Then play the same passage using a different rhythm.
• Choose a key. Play the scale in that key, then improvise a song using both hands.

Hardest:

• Find two pieces in the same key and splice them together.
• Choose an easy song and transpose it to a different key. You can write it out first if you like, but you don't have to.
• Choose a favorite folk song and play it in two different keys with a modulation to join them. (Any song would do, really, but folk songs are not copyrighted.)
• Find two pieces in different keys, and figure out a modulation that makes sense to you. You don't need to join the entirety of both songs unless you really want to. Just choose a few passages.
• Play a folk song or other piece that you know well in the style of a famous composer. (I look forward to trying this. I suspect the results are going to be equal parts frustrating and hilarious.)
• Now play it in the style of a modern pop or rock artist
• Play one composer's tune in the style of another composer.

That's all I have for now. It's time to go get started!