Ever since I started to learn to play the piano I’ve loved to improvise and compose.
With few exceptions, most of my compositions are what you would call “teaching pieces”: they were composed with piano students in mind, students of all ages and from elementary to late intermediate levels.
The pieces feature lots of patterns, and even the ones with more descriptive titles could be considered “etudes”: they focus on one particular issue, from melodies going back and forth between the hands in “Swinging Along” to broken thirds in “Etude No 1” (from 6 Etudes), to baroque counterpoint in “Bourrée in A minor”, or wide leaps in left hand accompaniment and big right hand chords in “Sentimental Waltz”.
The pieces are written to be pianistic, to fit the hand well, and to take advantage of what feels natural to pianists. For instance, left hand arpeggios and scale fragments are often ascending, the ones for right hand descending. While melodies may require the hand to contract or expand or fingers to cross over the thumb, they rarely require the thumb to cross under the fingers.
When there are few if any dynamic signs in a piece it does of course not mean that dynamics are not important. Rather, it is left to the teacher’s and student’s imagination – and to the teacher’s discretion with regard to how detailed the dynamics should be for a specific student.