Toward the end of last year some friends of mine who live in Germany contacted me to see if I would consider teaching their daughter piano via the Internet. Since I had a little bit of experience doing this with one of my students last fall, I decided it would be fun to go the […]
Teaching
Monday Mailbag – Student Assignment Books
I’ve enjoyed reading about all of your incentive programs. I was wondering about your assignment book. Is it separate from the incentives or a part of the incentives program? I think I’m getting confused. Most of my students are beginners or early intermediate…K-8th grade. That’s a great question! I probably need to clarify that on […]
A Game to Assess Musical Scale Skills!
You should see the way my students’ eyes light up the minute I pull out some dice and tell them that we’re going to start off the lesson with a game! In fact, this is what prompted me to compile and produce the 5 for Fun! book. Just setting aside 5 minutes a lesson to […]
Music Lessons – The Parents’ Perspective
From the Top, a non-profit organization that produces a weekly NPR radio show featuring the best young classical musicians in the country, has been posting a series of blog posts called The Parents’ Perspective that are full of inspiration and practical advice from parents of some of the country’s top classical musicians. Here are the […]
Government Funding of the Arts – To Be or Not to Be?
That is the question! 🙂 There has been a flurry of activity lately in my neck of the woods as word spread quickly that our new governor (Sam Brownback) has proposed cutting funding for the Kansas Arts Commission. Music educators across the state are being called upon to send letters of opposition to the governor […]
Monday Mailbag – Teaching Eighth Notes
How do you teach eighth note rhythm patterns to students? Any tricks? I’ve used all sorts of approaches for this over the years. In fact, I distinctly remember a phase I went through where I would use different food names for rhythm patterns. One of my students was struggling with rhythm, so we spent a […]
