Many of you know that I hold a September Surprise! kickoff event for my students each year. Since I take off the whole month of August, this gives them a chance to work on whatever they want in order to “surprise” me at the kickoff. We held the September Surprise! last Thursday evening and it […]
Teaching
Ready or Not, Here They Come!
Today is the day! My fall semester officially begins this morning. It’s been nice to have a month to plan and prepare, and now I’m very ready to start. Not because I’m organized-ready, mind you, but because I’m so excited to see all my students again. 🙂 Last week, I was still feeling pretty overwhelmed […]
New (School) Year Resolutions
Although I have thoroughly enjoyed my month off and benefited greatly from the time to re-organize and plan another year, I am looking forward to seeing all my students again! We have our September Surprise! kickoff tomorrow and then lessons resume next week. I’ve been doing lots of thinking, evaluating, and mapping out goals for […]
Monday Mailbag – Special Student Awards
I love your Music Matters Blog. So inspirational!! But I have a question regarding your practice incentives. How can a teacher pull out all the bells and whistles to make this what I’d want it to be when I teach in my home – in the living room to be exact? I’d love to have […]
Comment of the Week – Memorizing
I require memorization as a yearly goal – 20 2-3 page pieces over the course of the year. But, I never require them to perform from memory for the same reasons as you. I believe trying to work on memory skills is a worthy goal I think for their own satisfaction of having a repertoire […]
Monday Mailbag – 5 Tips for Helping Students Fix Persistent Mistakes
How do you help your students when they keep playing the same mistakes? I tried different method and section or so-called “smart practice” with him, but somehow, he still makes the same mistakes even though I have said that a thousand times! What a relevant question for all of us music teachers! This is such […]
