Coldplay “Paradise” – a must-learn for piano teachers

Coldplay “Paradise” – a must-learn for piano teachers

coldplay piano teachersIf you’re not familiar with this new track by Coldplay, it’s time to get acquainted! It’s getting a huge amount of airplay in Australia, is used regularly on promos for the TV series Revenge, and everyone seems to love it.

It’s also become a piece which every kid wants to play on piano!

I find that students love being able to play the opening few bars or  chords for cool pop songs in front of their friends or family, so I jump on opportunities like this to ensure my students find their lessons  relevant to their own musical interests, current and engaging.

In fact, five out of eight students I saw yesterday came to me after the holidays either having learnt it or wanting to learn it. If this happens to you and you don’t know the song, you will miss a huge opportunity to connect with your students in a meaningful way and teach them about rhythm, melody and chord progressions using material they love.

There are chords for the song here: ultimate-guitar.

And the music can be downloaded instantly here: musicnotes.

I tend to start with the main chord progression as triads, then in inversions, and then introduce the main descending piano melody with octaves or single notes in the bass (or I sometimes do this sort of thing first because it’s the part they know). They can then mix it up. I wouldn’t give many students the music as it’s pretty challenging and students don’t want to have to count all the tricky rhythms and struggle with it for months. They just want to play cool sounding stuff quickly…. I know how they feel!

Have fun with it.

Tim Topham

Tim Topham is the founder and director of TopMusic. Tim hosts the popular Integrated Music Teaching Podcast, blogs regularly at topmusic.co and speaks at local and international conferences on topics such as integrated teaching, creativity, business, marketing and entrepreneurship. Tim has been featured in American Music Teacher, The Piano Teacher Magazine, California Music Teacher and EPTA Piano Professional. Tim holds an MBA in Educational Leadership, BMus, DipEd and AMusA.

 feeling inspired? 

coldplay piano teachers
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  1. Reblogged this on 88pianokeys and commented:
    Always looking for a heads up on the latest…

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