Duets, Trios, and More: Incorporating Piano Ensemble Music in Class Piano
With the piano education landscape being dominated by private lessons, the piano lab classroom brings the unique joy of watching students learn to play in collaboration and community with their peers. Nothing encapsulates this more than watching students puzzle out ensemble music like duets, trios, and quartets. Every time I assign a duet or trio in my classroom, I am always shocked by the sudden infusion of energy it seems to inspire in my students. Students who only begrudingly play solos are motivated by peers to do their part. Emerging students who struggle with new concepts pick things up quicker when partnered with a more advanced student. With this in mind, lets examine the potential piano ensemble configurations, where to find piano ensemble music, and how to create our own.
Considerations and Configurations
Before assigning or creating a piano ensemble piece, it’s important to think through the potential configurations that would most benefit the specific students in your class. Here are some questions you should ask yourself when choosing or creating music:
How many students do you have in your class? Is it an even or odd number? Is that number divisible by 3 or 4?
Will you let your students pick their own partners or group?
Will you assign students a part to learn, or let them negotiate parts themeselves?
Will your students share keyboards? How many keyboards will each group need?
Are your keyboards already physically positioned to encourage group work? Will you have to move any keyboards to facilitate the assignment?
Is the piece of music you want to assign best for groups with players of similar ability levels? Is one part significantly harder or easier than the others?
Once you’ve narrowed down the possible configuriations that are best for your specific class, it’s time to start choosing music.
Sourcing Music
A great starting place when looking for piano ensemble music is the traditional method book publishers. Both Hal Leonard and Alfred’s piano method have books of ensemble music that correlate with their lesson books. You can also find piano duet books in the same place. Faber and Faber have specific christmas duet books that are great if you want to program a holiday concert!
The Piano Laboratory also offers piano ensemble packs including a free pack when you sign up for our newsletter!
Adapting Solo Materials
One of the easiest ways to source piano ensemble music, is to adapt solo materials you already have. Lets take a look at two quick and easy ways to do this.
Relay Songs
Choose a song that has clear sections. I like to use music in rondo form, or theme and variations, but this can be any song with clear phrase endings or delineated sections. Assign each student one section to learn in the song. This will be their part in the relay. Once each student has learned their section, perform the song by having students take turns playing their assigned section. Sometimes I will ask all students to learn one solo section and one section everyone will play together. For example, if the song is in rondo form, I may have all students learn the A section, then one student learn the B section and one the C section, etc. Every time the A section comes up, everyone plays together.
Right Hand - Left Hand Duets
Take a solo and ask one student to learn the left hand and another to learn the right hand. Then, have students play the song together as a duet. I like to use this method when I know that if I were to assign the song as a solo, I would instruct my students to practice one hand at a time before attempting to play hands together. Often I will turn this into a three part assignment. Students each learn their assigned hand first. Then, they switch and learn the other hand. Finally, turn the song back into a solo and ask students to play both left and right hands without their partner.
Formulas for arranging
Lastly, for when you need a version of that song, you can always arrange a piece for piano ensemble yourself. I will sometimes do this if there is a current popular song my students are really invested in. Here are a few formulas to help you with this:
Duet arrangement: Player 1 plays the melody in parallel octaves. Player 2 plays chords in the LH and a bass line in the RH.
Duet arrangement: Player 1 plays the melody in the RH and blocked or broken chords in the LH. Player 2 plays blocked or broken chords in the RH and bass line in the LH.
Trio Arrangement: Player 1 plays the melody in parallel octaves. Player 2 plays a counter melody in parallel octaves. Player 3 plays chords in the LH and a bass line in the RH.
Trio Arrangement: Player 1 plays the melody in parallel octaves. Player 2 plays blocked or broken chords. Player 3 plays a walking bass line, or a simpler bass line in parallel octaves.
Quartet Arrangement: Player 1 plays a counter melody in parallel octaves. Player 2 plays the melody in parallel octaves. Player 3 plays blocked or broken chords. Player 4 plays a bass line in parallel octaves.
Quartet arrangement: Piano 1 Primo plays a melody in the RH and broken chord pattern in the LH. Piano 1 Secondo plays broken chords in the RH and a bass line in the LH. Piano 2 Primo plays a counter melody in the RH and blocked or broken chord pattern in the LH. Piano 2 Secondo plays a bass line in parallel octaves.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re primarily working with beginners or advanced students, all students can benefit from the joy of collaborating to make music together. For this reason, thinking strategically about how and when to incorporate piano ensemble music is an essential part of planning piano lab lessons.