ARCT • Teachers’ Diploma (RCM) in-progress
Trained Music Together Teacher
Erin Plank (they/he) is a passionate young piano teacher. For their professional development, Erin received the highest exam scores in all of Canada last year for “Teaching Elementary Piano” with the RCM.
Erin’s main goal is to turn students into lifelong music lovers, not just pianists. I seek to provide them with the tools to practice efficiently at home, sight read a song at their friend’s piano, learn the melody to a song off the radio by ear, and nurture a technical foundation that lasts a lifetime so it’s “just like riding a bike” to play the piano. And even better, they’ll want to.
Get to know Erin…Beyond the Bio!
Hobbies: Piano, weightlifting, playing with my cat, and hanging out with friends
Musical influences: Ben Folds, Brad Mehldau, Edvard Grieg
Favourite food: Fried chicken sandwich
Least favourite food: snap peas, because I ate too many as a kid one time and threw up and now I dislike the smell
Favourite music: Romantic era piano music, Beach Boys and similar era music, math rock
Favourite song: “How Dare You Want More” by Bleachers
Favourite movie: Sing Street
Favouirite movie music: main theme for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or anything Star Wars
Favourite musical theatre/opera: Wozzeck
Best quote from your teacher: “Don’t show the audience you messed up, they won’t know! Keep going!”
Favourite quote: “That’s what life is, Happy Sad”
Favourite book: Recursion by Blake Crouch
Best thing about teaching at ABC: Getting to reach and connect with so many lovely people!
Latest Homework from Erin
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Thursday May 30 Lessons – Erin P
I can’t say enough how proud I am of everyone :’)
Liam
Minuet – final answer, no trills. I think it sounds great. Eliminate any rests between sections. You don’t need to do the repeats.
Sonatina – Great dynamics and flow. Ensure you are doing all your 2 note slurs including the long ones that go for a full bar, don’t connect all the notes. Down-up
Walk the Talk – big forte on the dotted quarter note parts. You sounded so in control today, love the tempo.
Witches and Wizards – really “bring out” the LH D C Bb A descending line. Quieter for the middle section to really highlight the texture change.
Prelude VII – beautiful, watch the LH bottom notes near the end, you tend to play the C before the C#…
Sight-reading is coming along well! Perfection is not the goal, bringing a “sketch” of the piece to life is. We want the general outline and steady pulse more than anything.
You seem to find descending fingering easier for scales, perhaps try descending first, and that way you can just mimic that fingering on the way up. FINGERING CHARTS HERE
Katarina
Sandcastle Scurry pieces in Wunderkeys- on the same page as “Beach Day”. This section is red.
Zum Gali Gali – found here
Warmup with your C and G major scales, both hands seperately. You can do them both contrary motion also.
Then do your C major triads, both hands seperately.
Marita
Sunset in San Pedro – great work! Let’s keep going and continue with the part where the LH goes down to Bb and does its own descending pattern.
Zum Gali Gali – found here . You can read this all super well and steady. It and Kat’s part fit together
Sara
Air in Bb – Beautiful. You fixed memory and other things from preious weeks. Sounds l0vely.
Sonatina in C – I really like this tempo. You sound super in control.
Nighttime – Great fixes. Now make the B section where the LH has the melody legato.
Cloud Dance – Slower, check metronome. perhaps it will sound more like a peaceful cloud dance, instead of prepping for a storm.
Ballade – Great dynamics! Descending chromatic part in last measure of page 1 needs to be staccato.
Technique is great and right on tempo.
Ear and sight are coming along great. Here’s some interval practice.
Marco
Minuet – Hear 8th notes inside your head immediately before playing. Hear the second line in your brain, and then you will know how fast 8th and quarter notes will sound.
The Snake – GREAT DYNAMICS!
Song of the Dark Woods – Beautiful! Watch you play the correct amount of Ds in the final like.
Morning Fanfare – I love how confident and controlled you sound at this tempo in the part with chords. The part where both hands have melodies can be that calm too, trust your hands to play it well and don’t rush.
Technique – you really know what you’re doing now!!! Great confidence. Listen carefully to each detail the exaniner says.
Sightreading has really improved. Count steady and don’t try and get perfection, just to bring the “sketch” of the piece out.
Daniel
Entree – Big improvement! Practice playing the final measure going back to the beginning with no rest in between.
Periwinkle – Awesome! All the details are there and it sounds very controlled.
Breezy – You KILLED the overlapping ending today!!!
The Wind – Nice work! Remember you can look at the page.
Technique – Nice job!! Remember that Bb major and F major (and therefore their relative minors) have flats. But D Major (and therefore B minor) have sharps – Bb will nottttt show up in these.
Way to remember melodic = melodic mutation (different going up vs down)
harmonic Hollywood – stereotypical “middle eastern” sound
Sightreading – All you can do is your best and be so proud of your hard work! Exercise,
Greta
You did great with Mist!
*New* Moon River – first 11 bars. Get confident with both hands seperately first. I have circled the black keys. You can listen to the arrangement here.
Saturday June 1 Lessons – Erin P
Hakim
Bee – fantastic progress!!! Now add the LH notes in to the RH melody part. They are basically a drum beat.
*New* Zum Gali Gali – play this entire piece nice and steady at whatever tempo you choose, just keep it really precise like a computer would play so that I can play the duet part with you. Count carefully. They slot together super cool and take turns with the melodies.
Maria
*New* First Loss – watch the F#s. The LH only has 3 different positions, all of which go root-5th-octave. Great reading today.
Shakira
Today we sightread Bumper Cars in the RCM prep A book.
Your scale and triad skills are coming along great – as are your note identification skills. Working to identify step vs skip is your current focus.
Preferred Books for Erin Students
Click to buy them here, and they’ll come right to your house! What could be easier?
BOOK TITLE
COMING SOON
Faber Piano Adventures
The 2nd Edition Level 1 Lesson Book introduces all the notes of the grand staff, elementary chord playing, and the concept of tonic and dominant notes. Students play in varied positions, reinforcing reading skills and recognizing intervals through the 5th. Musicianship is built with the introduction of legato and staccato touches. This level continues the interval orientation to reading across the full range of the Grand Staff. The 5-finger approach is presented here in a fresh, musically appealing way.