Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a Young People’s Concert put on by our Wichita Symphony Orchestra. I have been organizing a group of homeschoolers to attend for several years now and this was by far the best production I’ve ever seen! Here’s a shot from our seats in the box! After some […]
Teaching
Crafting and guiding interpretations of great beauty and expressive power
Isn’t that a beautiful aim for every musician? It comes from a column by Thomas Lanners in the recent e-newsletter put out by The 3-D Piano Method. His piece, More Virtues of Letting Go, eloquently expresses the importance of patiently working with students to help them give up control in order to achieve greater musicality. […]
Should You Be Practicing Right Now?
So, I figured out what I’m going to get all my students for Christmas this year. A framed copy of this: Anyone else with me on this?! 🙂 Visit the Odd Quartet website to print out your own pdf of the poster. (HT: LaDona’s Music Studio)
It’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas
Is everyone else knee-deep in Christmas books these days?! I confess, spending a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in the basement studio trying to select Christmas music for all of my students wasn’t at the top of my list of favorite activities for this past weekend. But I knew it needed to be done, so I made […]
Monday Mailbag – How to Teach by Rote
Natalie, how exactly do you teach these rote pieces? I am curious, as my students seem to lose what they learned at lesson before the next week. There are only a handful of students that I ever teach anything by rote. Kinesthetic/tactile learners are the best candidates for rote teaching because they tend to have […]
A Great Example of “Sticky” Teaching!
Do you ever feel like you’re teaching the same thing over and over again and the students still can’t remember exactly what you said? I love how Cathy Shepherd, of the Music for Tots blog, explains her reaction to this realization in reference to teaching her students the definition of ostinato: “I decided that it […]
