The last week of each month I hold a 1-hour group class in addition to the regular lessons for that week. This gives the students an opportunity to perform for each other, participate in ensembles, and play a variety of games to help reinforce musical concepts. Since one of our primary focuses this year is […]
Archives for September 2015
Watch Two Piano Concerts Live from Your Own Home!
Cliburn.org recently announced that they will be airing two upcoming piano concerts live on their website and on YouTube. What a fabulous opportunity for those of us who can’t make it to these performances in person! Marc-André Hamelin will be performing on Tuesday, October 6, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. CDT at Bass Performance Hall (in […]
Celebrating 10 Years of Blogging at Music Matters Blog!
In doing some back-end work on the blog today, I had a little flashback and realized that it’s been 10 years this month since I first launched Music Matters Blog! My how the world of music education has changed since then! I distinctly remember my trepidation at starting a blog and wondering if I would […]
A Simple and Fun Rhythm Activity for the Piano Lesson
Since one of my main objectives this year is to help my students master rhythm skills, we are finding a variety of ways at each lesson to help students decipher, play, and notate rhythms accurately. Here’s a fun multi-sensory rhythm activity we tried this week that was very effective! This is adapted from Have a […]
First Week of Lessons!
Some of you may remember my embarrassing confession earlier this year and my resolve to ensure that every one of my students becomes a fluent reader of music at the piano. I am happy to report that all of our hard work in the spring paid off! When I used our NoteStars game to evaluate […]
Q&A with Pierre from Flat
Pierre is a co-founder of Flat, an online music score creator that allows you to compose with friends. Please welcome Pierre as he joins me for a Q&A session! *applause* 🙂 MMB: Could you give us a summary of what Flat is? Pierre: Flat is a collaborative music score editor that offers the ability to collaborate in real […]