making warm-ups effective

Scales and

Beyond

Physically warming up the body first was one of the most popular strategies offered by teachers in our survey. The piano requires flexibility and agility in so much more than the hands, so loosening up the upper body prior to playing is an excellent recommendation, and one Lucinda Adams uses:

Stretching hands, shaking wrists and moving shoulders is a good place to start. Then scale and arpeggio playing, using different rhythms. Sometimes I use technical exercises to address specific areas of need in each student.

Lucinda Adams
Private teacher

Beyond the physical body, teachers encourage students to wake up their brains too, by finding inventive ways of playing scales and arpeggios. UK-based private teacher, Iris West, does this:

I get students to play a major scale in one hand and a minor scale in the other hand. It really makes them focus.

Iris West
Private teacher

Binoy Venkatachellum in Canada, with 46 years’ experience as a piano teacher explains that often the warm-up sets the tone for the rest of the lesson:

At the start of the lesson I ask students to play a favourite scale, Czerny exercise or Trinity exam exercise. My objective is not only to warm up but also to keep their interest in the lesson that follows and not to overwhelm the student with technical difficulties from the start.

Binoy Venkatachellum
Private teacher

Katrina Gordon agrees, highlighting the importance of a friendly, open warm-up:

Start the lesson with a nice chat and a laugh then Edna Mae’s Dozen a Day.

Katrina Gordon
Private teacher

Games and

Challenges

Games are a great way to engage students right from the start of their time with you. Rosemary Reid, a teacher based in Yorkshire, UK, finds that offering free choice gives students agency over their own learning:

I ask, 'What would you like to play first?' I believe engaging the pupil meaningfully is far more important than anything else. I’ll sometimes suggest a game or an old piece they’re fond of.

Rosemary Reid
Private teacher

Improvisation encourages students to use their imagination and bring playfulness to their practice, as Marlene Watkins explains:

Allow students to improvise and create their own warm-ups.

Marlene Watkins
Private teacher

For Amanda Ray, her focus is on increasingly complex fingerwork.

This is an enjoyable way to get students into the right frame of mind for the next lesson. Amanda moves on to more complex challenges:

Then we do finger numbers, notes up and down the piano, and sharps and flats. Finally, it’s finger-specific warm-ups playing intervals, and chords with one hand whilst improvising from the relevant scale with the other hand.

Amanda Ray
Private teacher

A lot of our teachers suggested playing the piano yourself or moving away from the piano altogether during warm-ups – this creates opportunities for interactive activities so the student and teacher work together, as Angie Tse practises:

Sometimes we will warm up with singing, percussion or rhythm work off piano.

Angie Tse
Private teacher

Nerissa Lobo encourages this same fluid approach to warm-ups:

Warm up could also be just squishing a squeezy stress ball – then free playing on the piano – whatever comes to their minds and fingers… the young students always love this!

Nerissa Lobo
Private teacher

Using Pieces of

Music

A lot of teachers choose to give freedom to students to play a piece of music they like. By working some easy duet playing into warm-ups, students who haven’t practised or who lack confidence might feel better supported for the lesson ahead. 

John Ennis, a teacher based at the Mid Ulster School of Music in Northern Ireland, gives this agency to his pupils:

Students can choose from their favourite pieces, doing duets with me or something with a backing track.

John Ennis
Private teacher

Many of our surveyed teachers start with familiar, simple tunes – we saw Ode to Joy, Amazing Grace, Christmas carols, nursery rhymes and folk tunes widely being used in effective warm-ups. It was great to see teachers, such as Wong Sze Hui, incorporating traditional music from their part of the world into students’ repertoire during warm-ups.

I use elements from pieces like folk or oriental music, or other kinds of music the student already enjoys and is familiar with.

Wong Sze Hui
Private teacher

Loyola Browne’s approach to using pieces of music during warm-ups depends on the age of her students:

For children I teach Happy Birthday, folk songs or nursery rhymes they can play at home for their families. Coming up to Christmas, I let them pick their favourite carols to learn. For adult learners, I find that folk songs or simple versions of the classics appeal. I keep a folder with a variety of non-exam pieces in – I will also play them first and let them choose which piece they’d like to learn for fun.

Loyola Browne
Private teacher

During warm-ups, many teachers focus on parts of songs that require a particular skill, rather than whole pieces. 

Adapting exercises to different

Grades

Many of our piano teachers work across a range of abilities, ages and needs. This calls for a skilful and adaptable teaching style. We found the ways teachers evolve their approaches to suit their learners fascinating – and we hope you find some of these tips helpful for your own delivery!

Irita Kutchmy, who has over 40 years of experience teaching piano in the UK, describes the different approaches she uses to warm up across age groups and abilities:

I teach two 80-year old pupils and we warm up with a C-major two-octave contrary motion scale and leave it at that. For the younger pupils I often use ‘A Dozen a Day’ as they are such fun warm-ups, and for my more advanced students we select scales from the exam syllabus that they are following.

Irita Kutchmy
Private teacher

Deborah Lynn van Zyl implements a similar approach:

For the littlies, I use ‘A Dozen a Day’, including modulations for every exercise and playing around with the metronome. For older students, I do chromatic scales and diminished sevenths using a variation of rhythms, accents and dynamics.

Deborah Lynn van Zyl
Private teacher

Recognising that different abilities need to warm up in different ways is essential to personalise your teaching and forge a good relationship with students.

Nicolette Douglas who teaches piano across schools in Kent, UK, finds her warm-up resources from a range of sources to reflect the differing abilities of her students:

For beginners, the focus is on flexibility and relaxation exercises as in David Pearl's Piano Exercises For Dummies, then on to chromatic scales (various fingering). Elementary players start with major scales, then on to five-finger exercises in all keys. With intermediate players - Hanon and Advanced players - I select the easier Dohnanyi exercises.

Nicolette Douglas
Private teacher

Treating each student as an individual with different needs is key; Clare Spencer says that she likes to think ahead to the lesson beyond the warm-ups, and plan warm-up tasks accordingly:

I begin with singing and whole body warm-ups with children, then scales and exercises for older students. Call and response activities work well across ages and abilities, as well as scales with rhythms to match the pieces we’ll later be working on.

Clare Spencer
Private teacher