Description

Date: March 11, 2025; 5:30 – 7:00 pm (online) CST

Skill Level:  Advanced Beginner and above. Students should be comfortable playing with both hands and should have a working knowledge of a few standard chords (A, D, G, C, Am, Em, etc.). Reading music is helpful but not required. No prior knowledge of music theory is necessary.

Note: This group of classes can be taken as a series, or a la carte.

Class Registration Fee:  $20

Have you ever wanted to play tunes at a dance, but have been unsure as to how to do that effectively?

Session IV of Exploring Dance Piano Styles will address the specifics of accompanying tunes in distinct genres: Irish (reels, jigs, hornpipes, slides, and polkas), Scottish (reels, jigs, strathspeys), Canadian (Cape Breton and Quebecois jigs and reels).

Students can continue from here, and learn the specifics of playing for English Country Dance.

For this session you will need to be able to set up a device to show the student at the piano, with keyboard visible.

Amy McFarland has been playing piano since she was a young child, with a focus on traditional music, dance music of many styles, song accompaniment, ragtime, swing, and more. She has played for traditional  dancing for over forty years, has taught lessons and workshops, and has composed music. She has taught Piano off the Page to nearly 100 students for over a decade.

 

Here’s Amy, playing in the Irish style with fiddler, Maria Terres:

And here’s a lively tune form Cape Breton: