While perusing the Piano Safari website late this summer, I came across a couple of books in their Musicianship category. Ready to Play books 1 (Off We Go!) and 2 (Moving Up!) by Sally Cathcart. Forever on a quest to improve how I teach my students musicianship, I was intrigued and added a copy of each to my order.
The more I learned as I studied the books, the more it seemed like the perfect complement to my new Trio Class this fall. An email to Ms. Cathcart with a few questions brought a personable and helpful reply, with links to her YouTube channel, a Facebook group for teachers of her books, and a digital copy of her complete Teacher’s Guide for book 1 (now available in the Files section of the FB group)!
On her YouTube channel you can find recordings from two training workshops Sally gave recently. I watched Off We Go: Inspiration and Ideas for Beginner Piano Lessons and it was very helpful! Her training session for book 2 is on my list to watch as soon as we’re far enough along in the first book to start planning for what comes next.
A couple of thoughts from Sally especially stood out to me from her Off We Go session:
“Modeling is very important.”
“Learning emerges from play.”
“My goal is to help the student learn, not show them how much I know.”
I’m thoroughly enjoying these books thus far and will keep you posted on how it goes incorporating them into our Trio Class! Below is a brief introductory video from Ms. Cathcart. Her emphasis on teaching musicianship is right along the lines of the article from Gerald Klicksten, “The Problem with Notes First Practice.” You can find out more about Ms. Cathcart and her teaching on her website: http://sallycathcart.org.
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