Do you have a favorite adult method series? Honestly, no. I don’t really like any of the adult method books that I’ve used. For beginning adult students, I usually use the Faber Accelerated Piano Adventures. Many of the adult methods are more chord-based in their approach and I feel like that is a disservice to […]
Teaching
Monday Mailbag – Moving Away from Method Books
At what point do you discontinue using method books with more advanced students? What does their curriculum consist of (i.e. what do you do for repertoire, technique, etc)? Wow! Like my Introducing Baroque Music post, I’m afraid this will reveal my lack of structured lesson planning when it comes to the higher levels! Just don’t […]
Monday Mailbag – Student Interviews
What do you do in your first interview with a student? Check out this Student Interviews post for an overview of what I include in Student Interviews and for free interview questionnaires that you can download and use in your studio. In a nutshell, though, here are the main things that I aim to accomplish […]
Monday Mailbag – Jazz and Pop Music
Yes, I know it’s not Monday, but I have a backlog of questions, so I thought I would take a week to try to catch up a bit! What do you think about jazz music and popular music? Do you use it in your studio? Honestly, it depends a lot on the student. I don’t […]
Intervals by Ear
Have you seen the Create Your Own Interval Examples page on the EarMaster website? What a fabulous resource! Our Music Progressions evaluations are in April each year, so I’ve been assigning several of my students to work on specific ear training exercises at different websites. This is with the hope that maybe they won’t all […]
Monday Mailbag – Duets with Students
When you do an ensemble recital, with duets, how do you work with the students in their individual lessons? Do they each practice their parts separately, then get together a few times to work together? Do you play the other duet part with each of them so they know what it sounds like? I would […]
