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 […]
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Notes First or Artistry First?
The latest Musicians Way newsletter (which is always chock full of interesting links and resources) references a post from a few years ago addressing the issue of The Problems with ‘Notes First’ Practice. The longer I teach, the more I realize the wisdom of Gerald Klickstein’s approach, which focuses on developing musical artistry first, not […]
Win a Free Flight and a Ukulele
If you’ve been a Music Matters Blog reader here for a while probably know that in addition to teaching piano, I also I love to travel (I have a travel blog that I update sporadically – hammockinthewoods.com). So it was fun to read about the recent Southwest Airlines arrangement with Guitar Center to provide ukuleles […]
New in the Studio This Fall – Video of Emma Soundtrack Piano Arrangement
When my sister got married years ago she really wanted to use the main title theme by Rachel Portman from the movie Emma (the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow) for her processional. Since we couldn’t find any arrangements at the time, I agreed to write one for her. Thanks to the ArrangeMe platform, I was […]
New Free Piano Student Interview & Evaluation Forms
The forms I’ve been using in my student interview and evaluations for probably 10+ years now were in desperate need of some updating! I wanted to include my new studio logo, and I also wanted to change some of the questions and add a few new ones, notably, finding out from parents what method of […]
September Surprise is Full of Surprises!
Our much-anticipated kickoff for the year, September Surprise!, launched us into a new year of piano lessons with lively interaction and surprising performances! We began the evening with a fun get-to-know you game where I compiled a list of interesting facts – one for each student and parent – and the families had to work […]
