Occasionally I will get e-mails from parents with young children (3-5), inquiring as to what sorts of activities they can do with their child to help prepare them for piano lessons. Here’s a list of 13 basic ideas (pulled from an e-mail I sent) that even a non-musical parent can incorporate into their day to […]
Teaching
Monday Mailbag – Not Using Theory Books
[Note: Sorry for the delay this week!] You mentioned in your most recent Monday Mailbag post that you rarely use theory books with your students. Do you use other books instead? Or just do it all at the piano? Almost all of our theory work is done directly at the piano and is based on […]
New in the Music Blog World!
In the past week I’ve come across several new music blogs, so I thought I would pass the word on to everyone else, too! ComposeCreate.com – Some of you are probably familiar with Wendy’s Piano Studio website and the great resources she offers. I was thrilled to recently discover that she has started a blog […]
Monday Mailbag – Teaching Chord Patterns
How do other teachers go about teaching the I – V7 chord pattern? I use a scale book primarily. I do explain it to them and some students get it; others have no clue and cannot convert the pattern to any other key! When I introduce the I – V7 chord progression, it’s after the […]
Echoes From the Square
Recently, I received an e-mail from Elizabeth Wellburn, author of the colorful and captivating book Echoes From the Square by Elizabeth Wellburn. It is the beautiful story of cellist Vedran Smailovic, retold in this heartwarming children’s book. The video below is a recording of Ms. Wellburn reading the story, accompanied by images from the book […]
Win a Free Set of Animusic DVDs!
Have you seen these super cool music animations produced by Animusic? These highly creative animations are sure to mesmerize students, and are a fun resource for music teachers. In fact, Animusic has produced and made available free teacher guides for both of their DVDs. The guides were prepared by music teachers and correlate with items […]
