http://musicmattersblog.com creative, practical and up-to-date resources for the independent music teacher Mon, 12 May 2008 11:42:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It took me a while to get through it, but wow was it a lot of fun reviewing this Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum by Michael Griffin. Even though I am an independent music teacher and this curriculum is designed to be used in a Middle School general ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/05/12/review-of-music-and-keyboard-in-the-classroom/ The Van Cliburn Foundation is giving everyone the opportunity to cast a vote in this piano competition! The winner of this YouTube contest will receive automatic entry in the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. Here's how to cast your vote: 1. Sign the Guestbook to receive a ballot by ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/05/01/vote-in-the-van-cliburn-youtube-amateurs-contest/ Is everyone else equally crazy this time of year?! We just finished our Music Progressions evaluations this weekend - hooray! (So that's my excuse for a dearth of posts this week.) I told my students I would even give them one week off of playing scales as a reward for ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/19/random-ramblings/ When I taught Character First! Education classes in some of our local elementary schools, there was a Kindergarten teacher who had moved her piano into her classroom. All throughout the day she would take a seat at the piano and play little songs to help reinforce various grammatical rules, ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/10/songs-for-teaching/ Megan has set up a wonderful Web Assignments page on her website where she posts a new web assignment for her students each week. The page is set up like a traditional blog, so you can subscribe to the RSS feed or, better yet, have your students subscribe to the ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/08/web-assignments-for-students/ Trent of The Simple Dollar Blog has an excellent post, outlining Ten Killer Tactics for Developing a New Skill. I know many teachers want to develop skills related to other areas of interest, but find themselves so busy with the responsibilities of the many hats that they wear that it's ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/07/ten-killer-tactics-for-developing-a-new-skill/ Check out this new Technique Achievement Poster that D'Net designed! This would be a great alternative to placing individual Scale Charts in each student's assignment book. I think it would be especially motivating to see the progress posted on the studio wall! http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/03/technique-achievement-poster/ In my Get Organized! and Storing Music posts, I alluded to a system I use to help stay organized when teaching lessons to 30+ students each week. It's nothing fancy, but it helps me keep track of what materials need to go to what student and keeps my most frequently ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/04/01/weekly-lesson-organizer/ Last Thursday evening we held our fifth Olympic Event of the year (The Olympic Events are part of my practice incentive this year, which is titled "Go For the Gold." After the year is over, I'll compile all the materials and add it to my selection of practice incentive programs ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/03/24/helping-students-learn-musical-terms/ Following is the third installment of the Survey Question idea I'm using in my studio this Spring. If you could automatically improve one area of your piano skills, what would it be? * Increasing my piano level. * Learning hard pieces. * Sight-reading. * Lesson work. * Romantic sounding pieces. * Sight-reading. * Sight-reading. * Sight-reading (understanding chord structures, ... http://musicmattersblog.com/2008/03/24/survey-question-3/