One of the perks in our studio is a monthly group class for all the students. When I hold Year-End Evaluations in the spring each year, group classes often make their way onto the Student Questionnaires as one of the activities students enjoy the most. Since I have a combination of in-person students and virtual […]
Teaching
“Is She Getting Any Better?” – A Guest Post by Harrison Lavins
Sooner or later a parent catches you in the doorway, car keys already in hand, and asks whether their child is getting any better. The answer is, of course, yes. The hard part is naming one thing, on the spot, that would actually mean something to them, and I have fumbled that more times than […]
New Piano Practice Incentive Unveiled!
A new year of piano lessons is off to a lively start following our annual September Surprise! kickoff event. The evening began with the announcement of our new practice incentive theme: Glacial Meltdown: an endurance trek for pianists. Throughout the year students will be learning all about musical keys and earning Endurance Steps as they […]
Best Piano and Guitar Chord Resource!
Ingvaras Galinskas, the founder of Melodician (a word the developer coined to mean, “a person who makes melodies”), contacted me several weeks ago to let me know about this amazing resource he has created. If you’ve ever wanted a quick place to go or to send a student to look up the notes of a […]
MasterPiano App – A Review
It seems that piano sightreading apps are a hot development project right now! When the developer of the new MasterPiano app contacted me at the beginning of summer after learning about our Cracking the Crystal Code practice incentive theme last year, I was eager to check out this new and promising app focused on developing […]
What Do I Give the Intermediate Student Who’s Outgrown their Method Book? – A Guest Post by Harrison Lavins
Every teacher I know has one of these on their student list. The student is itching to expand beyond their method book series, reads well enough, wants to play the piece from their favorite movie (or video game), and is quietly about two months from quitting. Maybe for others, it’s the intermediate transfer student who […]
