What happens when students just can’t memorize (I’m one of them; I just don’t have the capacity for memorization)? Do we give up on them as musicians, or is there another way? We are all gifted in different ways, with different capacities for various skills. In my opinion, it’s more valuable to be able to […]
Recital Ideas
Monday Mailbag – Memorization Strategies
I have been pondering how to teach memorization to students who have a different learning style from me. I know exactly how I memorize, but if visualization is not working for one of my students what can I try? This is a great topic that I hope others will weigh in on as well! Most […]
KMTA Conference – Preparing Student Winners by Jack Winerock
This was a very interesting session, with lots of interaction and thoughts shared by various teachers. Here are a few random nuggets of wisdom that I picked up: Outline very clear expectations for students so that if they elect to enter a competition, they know what they are getting into. The student should be willing […]
Year of Collaborative Music
Did you know that we are in the midst of the Year of Collaborative Music? It commenced at the March MTNA conference in Albuquerque and will culminate at the MTNA conference in Milwaukee next March. I am really excited about this and am thinking about designing my practice incentive theme around this initiative for next […]
Top Ten Reasons to Participate in Student Evaluation Programs
Last weekend, our local association sponsored our annual Music Progressions evaluations. Students are evaluated in performance, keyboard facility, applied theory, rhythm and pulse, sight-reading, written theory, and listening. We call them student evaluations, but in reality we all know that it’s an evaluation for us as teachers, right? Hence, I was inspired to compile this […]
Monday Mailbag – Playing in Student Recitals
Do you ever play a piece in your student recital yourself? I was thinking about doing this in order to show students and parents the possibilities of the piano, but I am not sure if it doesn’t look like I “need” an audience. Actually, my students could attend some of my own recitals if they […]
