Have you seen the Welcome to… series of books by Carolyn Sloan? I used this Welcome to the Symphony story a couple years ago as part of our To Russia with Mussorgsky and His Exhibition piano camp, and the students loved it! So when I was looking for a book this year to go along […]
Music Escape Room for Group Class
As I mentioned following our last piano group class, I’ve been trying to figure out game and activity ideas that will work well for a mixture of in person and on-line piano students. I came across a Music Escape Room on Teachers Pay Teachers and decided to give it a try for one of our […]
Recording Piano Practice with Fruits
One unexpected way that I often see my students’ personalities come out is in their assignment books. We have a custom assignment book that correlates with our practice incentive theme each year, and one of the elements is that they always have to record what they practiced and on which days in order to keep […]
Providing Helpful Boundaries for Improvisation
Again drawing on inspiration from my friend Agnieszka Lasko (author of the First Class Piano method!) and her fabulous ideas regarding improvising at the piano, I set out to help one of my students become more comfortable trying his own improvisation. He has a great ear for music and some definite natural talent, but he […]
A Sneak Peek at this Year’s Piano Camp!
One of our highlights every summer is Piano Expeditions piano camp! I’ve done piano camps in my studio for years, but four years ago I decided to specifically start offering piano camps for children who weren’t taking private lessons, but still wanted a fun and educational music camp opportunity. Each Piano Expeditions curriculum features a […]
Piano Group Class Game for Online and In Person Students
One of my challenges the last couple of years has been planning group class games for my piano students that work for a combination of online and in person attendees. I primarily teach in person, but have a couple students who are mostly online and I want to include them as much as possible in […]
