I wish all of my students who are resistant to sight-reading would read this excellent article by Derek Polischuk, of the Michigan State Piano Pedagogy Blog: Musical Understanding through Sight Reading. At any given time, I have a handful of students who are naturally very musical and have a good ear for music, but lack […]
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Monday Mailbag – Game Idea Resources
Where do you get your ideas for your games? Here, there, and everywhere! Isn’t that helpful? 🙂 Seriously, I’ve been accumulated game ideas and books with game and activity ideas for almost 15 years. I have a huge collection of idea books that I reference if I need some inspiration for new games. Some of […]
New Music Blog and Free Download on Music Education Benefits
One of the families in my studio sent me a link to this brand new blog that has been launched by Sonlight (a curriculum for homeschoolers). The blog is primarily geared toward families pursuing music education (rather than teachers), but I think it will be a great place to get ideas! You can also download […]
Lots of Free Music!
Rebecca W. just alerted me recently to this fabulous Musopen website! Have you seen it yet? They have an enormous selection of music (audio) and sheet music that can be accessed for free, played from the site, downloaded, and embedded into other websites. In fact, as I type this, I am enjoying listening to a […]
Scale Labels
One of my favorite new tools to use with students are these fabulous keyboard labels that Susan Paradis, of the Piano Teacher Resources blog, created. I’ve started sticking one or more of these labels in the student’s assignment book and having them say the whole-step half-step pattern and place X’s on the corresponding keys. In […]
Scale Fingerings
Continuing our discussion of scales, in last week’s Monday Mailbag post Lauren mentioned how difficult it was for her to grasp scale fingerings until a teacher actually wrote it out for her. She queried, “I’m curious to know how those of you who teach scales without a book ensure that the students practice the correct […]
