Teaching- Opening Concert Band To Keyboard Players

Opening up concert band classes for piano and keyboard students is a wonderful opportunity to build your program. In this post, I include several tips for how to successfully include keyboards in a band setting. Often these instruments are excluded from bands and orchestras or only have a place in jazz bands. By not making modifications to include these instruments, we may be excluding students that want to learn music in an ensemble but also do not have the desire to switch from piano to another instrument in order to join an ensemble.

Tuning

The first consideration for the group is tuning. Unlike other instruments that have tuning that can adjust, we will assume that electronic keyboards are always on the correct pitch of A=440Hz. This description says that the A above middle C on the keyboard sounds at a frequency of 440 cycles (sound waves) per second. This means that instead of tuning the band to the oboe or 1st clarinet, the band should be tuned to the keyboards.

Learning The Black Keys

Unlike beginning piano lessons, students playing keyboard in band will need to incorporate black keys into their known notes early on. The black keys are not as scary as many learners seem to think. If the player’s fingers are curved properly at the best playing position, students will have no trouble reaching these keys.

Start One Handed

Unless a student has previous experience with piano lessons, I strongly recommend that students begin reading just one staff (usually starting with treble clef unless the student has experience with bass clef) and attempting to play the lines with just one hand instead of trying to double each part with two hands or read two staves with different parts. Since many band pieces favor flat keys, it can be helpful for students to play Bb with their left hand and then C, D, Eb, F, and G with the fingers on their right hand. This will avoid students having to start playing using finger crossings. Also, just because keyboards can play chords does not mean that keyboard students should have to play chords to start. A chance to play a familiar melody can be highly motivating.

Finger Crossing

Once students gain confidence, one technique that keyboard students in band will want to learn is finger crossing so that they can play beyond a range of 5 notes. The teacher can help students to explore finger crossing by giving each student a fingering chart and putting the fingering numbers over the notes, so Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G would be labelled 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just this range and fingerings cover many approachable band pieces. Finger crossing is awkward for every student at first and you may hear many complaints. But the truth is smoother playing comes from finger crossing and not lifting the hand every few notes.

Range Can Reinforce Other Parts

One of the great things about including keyboards in your band is the range that the instrument has. Depending on your numbers and instrumentation, the keyboard can be used to reinforce other parts from the lowest notes to the highest notes. If you have a lot of keyboards, you can even split them up so that some reinforce the bassline while others play higher harmonies. If you don’t have many bass instruments, keyboards can add to the bass line. Even if the keyboard students have not learned bass clef yet, they can simply read it in treble clef and just move down the keyboard to the lower end. Likewise, if your group needs more sound on the high octaves, the keyboards can supplement that. One of the nice things about the keyboard is that every octave has the same key arrangement, so transitioning octaves is not difficult, especially if students follow the fingerings.

Dynamics

If your school has the budget, I recommend using keyboards in band classes that are touch sensitive, meaning the keyboard volume responds to how hard or soft a student presses the keys. In this sense, changing dynamics is more like percussion students than wind or brass players. Also remember too, that a keyboard cannot sustain notes for a long time without replaying a note. An organ setting for keyboards does allow for sustained notes, but without the touch sensitive dynamics. Another idea is that keyboards cannot crescendo or diminuendo on a single sustained note.
I believe if you give keyboard students the opportunity to participate in band, you will be pleasantly surprised and how they add to your ensemble.