Teaching 6/8 time to beginners can be a challenge, with the larger number of beats in a bar, triple subdivision, and a pulse that doesn't involve quarters. Peter Liu, a undergraduate piano student at Michigan State University, gives an excellent 15-minute online demonstration on how to teach this concept.
Part I:
Part II:
(Via The Michigan State Piano Pedagogy Blog)
A few thoughts as I've watched this:
ReplyDeleteIn terms of getting the student to understand the connection between the bottom note of the time signature and the quarter/eighth notes, they might not understand that if they haven't been exposed to fractions in their school education. It's not such a big problem if they're a slightly later starter, but if they started piano before they started school, they may not have come across fractions by the time this is introduced.
What I've found is a useful method to teach students compound time is to use familiar materials. For example, I use nursary rhymes such as Row, Row, Row your Boat and Humpty Dumpty, which are in compound time. The students have more than likely heard this before, and it serves as a useful introduction to the metre.
But a lot of the other information in this video, really useful stuff. Thanks for posting it.