A note from Natalie: I’m excited to welcome Diego Cardini, founder of thedrumninja.com to Music Matters Blog today! His guest post below includes a wealth of easy, practical, engaging ideas to use with your piano students to help them improve their rhythm skills. I’m looking forward to trying these creative suggestions with my students! Introduction […]
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Spring Highlights in the Studio
What a whirlwind this spring has been! Full of activities and opportunities in the studio and beyond. Here are a few memorable highlights from the past couple of months: In February we were delighted to welcome composer Wendy Stevens to a Composer Connect event hosted by our local music teachers association. Each student played a […]
New Piano Camp – To Outer Space with Holst and The Planets
It’s that time of year again – time to immerse myself in every resource I can find and break out the brainstorming journal to start planning for this year’s Piano Expeditions piano camp! I’ve been reviewing all kinds of music-related kids books for the occasion and trying to find just the right one to capture […]
A New Page of Reviews of Music Books for Kids!
In my planning for piano camps each summer I spend hours upon hours searching for music-related books for kids, trying to find just the right one to accompany each theme. Invariably, I ended up borrowing from the library books that I’ve borrowed before…and then forgotten. I perform all kinds of queries for “interactive children’s books” […]
It’s Time for Christmas Tunes Bingo!
We had our November group class this week, so I decided it was time to pull out our Christmas Tunes Bingo game again! With our practice incentive theme this year (The PUZZLEMAKER), I built listening pages into the assignment books, so we’ve been using them at each of the monthly group classes this year. This […]
Rote Favorites in the Piano Studio this Fall
If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I’m a huge proponent of using rote teaching with all of my students. Here are a few favorite pieces from this fall: How do you get an energetic 8-year old boy who wants to play everything lightning fast to appreciate playing beautiful musical sounds […]
