Creativity digest: 13th April 2024
Interesting survey results, students' emotional well-being, improvising with Gillock's "Carnival in Rio"
Thanks to everyone who has filled out the survey — you gave me some really thought-provoking responses and I’m already thinking hard about how to answer your questions. Things I’ve learnt you’re interested in:
teaching improvisation in an authentic way. I agree!
resources from all around the world. You recommended Schott's Brazilian Piano Collection so I’ve ordered several books from that series!
helping people who lack confidence or who say “I can’t!” when being asked to improvise. I’m working on a post about this.
finding out about how neurodivergence intersects with an interest or lack of interest in creativity. I am only in the very early stages of learning about neurodivergence but I know some people who are more experienced. I’ll try to find out more
Tell me more! You can email me at hello@pianocreativity.com or fill in the survey here.
What I’ve enjoyed this week
Seth Godin’s timely post about uncertainty made me think anew about how to make students (and teachers!) feel comfortable when improvising…
…and Andrew Eales’ sensitive and important post about taking care of the emotional well-being of our students gave me much more food for thought.
Amie Webster’s extremely concise demonstration video (1 minute and 20 seconds!) about how to incorporate a Spring-themed improvisation in an early beginner lesson is great
What I’ve written this week
Improvising, "Carnival in Rio" style
William Gillock’s “Carnival in Rio” is a wonderful piece and an accessible introduction to a simplified samba style, with easy-to-learn left hand accompaniments. Inspired by Andrew Eales’ excellent publication The Graded Gillock (Hal Leonard, 2022), Julian Lambert created a backing track for “Carnival in Rio” that you can play along to. It's a great opportunity to get your students improvising!
It's a short road from expectation to frustration
My best improvisations always seem to happen when I have 2 minutes to kill and I decide to noodle on the piano, without any goal in mind. If I expect it to be good, it very rarely is. If I have no expectations, it’s often so fascinating that I have to drag myself away from the piano. Something similar happens when I'm teaching…
I also wrote reviews of Michael Arbenz’s jazz-classical album Classicism: A Point of View and Simeon Walker’s Four Suffolk Sea Scenes for ACloserListen.com.
What’s in the draft folder
“The paradox of the reluctant student”
“How to get started with Forrest Kinney’s resources”
“Creative activities to introduce Gigue by Samuel Arnold”
an interview with Karen Schlimp, author of the wonderful book “Impromosaik”
Good to know
ETPA UK members can attend Suzanne Monro’s webinar “Opening the door to improvisation”, which promises to “dispel some of the common negative thoughts about improvising, and share lots of ideas to help unlock the door to this wonder.”
Graham Fitch’s Practising the Piano Online Academy is currently offering an interesting-looking course on “Creative Practising Using Keyboard Harmony”.
Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!
Thank you so much for your immense library here of resources to spark creativity! So appreciated and thanks for the kind shout out!