Congratulations to 35 year-old gastroenterologist Christopher Shih, winner of the first Cliburn YouTube contest. Check out all the latest news here.
News
Vote in the Van Cliburn YouTube Amateurs Contest
The Van Cliburn Foundation is giving everyone the opportunity to cast a vote in this piano competition! The winner of this YouTube contest will receive automatic entry in the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. Here’s how to cast your vote: 1. Sign the Guestbook to receive a ballot by e-mail. 2. Watch the […]
Random Ramblings…
Is everyone else equally crazy this time of year?! We just finished our Music Progressions evaluations this weekend – hooray! (So that’s my excuse for a dearth of posts this week.) I told my students I would even give them one week off of playing scales as a reward for all their hard work. 🙂 […]
Songs for Teaching
When I taught Character First! Education classes in some of our local elementary schools, there was a Kindergarten teacher who had moved her piano into her classroom. All throughout the day she would take a seat at the piano and play little songs to help reinforce various grammatical rules, spelling, math facts, etc. The students […]
Survey Question #3
Following is the third installment of the Survey Question idea I’m using in my studio this Spring. If you could automatically improve one area of your piano skills, what would it be? * Increasing my piano level. * Learning hard pieces. * Sight-reading. * Lesson work. * Romantic sounding pieces. * Sight-reading. * Sight-reading. * […]
Survey Question #2
My students seem to really be enjoying the survey questions! Here’s the second question I asked, followed by all the responses I received: What’s the most helpful technique you’ve learned in piano lessons? * Playing one hand at a time. * Putting your weight into the keys instead of playing all with your fingers. * […]