Feel more at ease and focused when you’re teaching by following these helpful piano accompaniment tips.

Singing teachers are expected to be masterful multi-taskers who can play the piano while carefully watching and listening to their students perform.

But simultaneously juggling these three tasks can be challenging, especially if you’re not an accomplished accompanist.

Even teachers with solid keyboard skills may struggle to focus on what they see and hear in a student’s performance while playing accompaniment.

So, what’s the solution? Amy Walton, a singing teacher and music literacy specialist, has some helpful advice for teachers.

Piano accompaniment tips for singing teachers

Improve your piano skills

Amy’s first tip is an obvious one: put in the practice hours so you become a better pianist.

“Know the piece so well that you’re almost on autopilot when you’re playing,” Amy says. “That way, you will be more able to focus on the student.”

As it takes time to improve piano proficiency, here are some other solutions to use in the meantime.

Record the performance

Record the song first (with the student singing and you on keys), and analyse the vocals together. 

“This gets you off the multitasking hook because you’re not trying to do everything at once,” Amy says. “It’s also a great way to incorporate self-assessment – an effective learning strategy – into your lessons.”

Pre-record the accompaniment

Record an accompaniment before the lesson or use a backing track so that you only have to focus on listening and watching your student.

“Explain to the student that you’ve recorded a basic accompaniment so you can focus on them,” she says. “They’ll probably like that they’re getting all the attention.”

Plan ahead

Even a gifted pianist like Amy takes the time to learn her repertoire well in advance.

“I say to students: ‘Let’s decide on three to five songs we can work on over the next few months. It’s fine if you come to a lesson inspired by a new song, but let’s just have an idea of the songs you will be doing’.”

Other reasons to improve your piano skills

With backing tracks readily available, you may wonder if it’s worth dedicating so much time to improving your piano accompaniment skills.

But take it from Amy: Boosting your musical literacy and piano proficiency is an investment that will pay off in many ways.

Here’s why she believes teachers should have good piano skills.

It’s rewarding. “It’s nice to have the beautiful, organic experience of playing with your student and leaning into the musicality with each other.”

Build trust and respect. “One of the things my students appreciate most is that they can bring in a song, and if it’s not in the right key for them, I can change it in the lesson.”

Save money. “I can transcribe accompaniment when I don’t want to pay for sheet music.”

Employability. “I’ve landed many jobs because people knew that they could just give me the sheet music, and I could show up to the gig and be able to perform.”

Empowerment. “It’s empowering to have independence over your music and artistry. If you perform as a singer, you don’t need anyone to count you in or tell you what key you should be playing. You can say, ‘This is the key that’s good for my voice. Here’s the chart’.”

Listen

For more valuable insights on building your piano accompaniment skills, listen to Amy on the Singing Teachers Talk podcast.

Learn

The BAST Training course covers all the skills you need to teach singing (including the scales and chords you need to know). Find out more here.

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