An Italian Intrigue: Musical Adventures in Heart, Mind, and Strength Last month I had the amazing experience of spending three weeks in Italy! I decided to do double duty and use the trip to do reconnaissance work for this year’s theme. It was a ton of fun and now I’m excited to take my students […]
This Week in Photos
Scale Labels
One of my favorite new tools to use with students are these fabulous keyboard labels that Susan Paradis, of the Piano Teacher Resources blog, created. I’ve started sticking one or more of these labels in the student’s assignment book and having them say the whole-step half-step pattern and place X’s on the corresponding keys. In […]
Piano Camp – A Game and Final Performances!
For our final day of Piano Camp, I decided to switch things up just a little and play a game to start off the lesson. Since we were focusing on relative keys today, I printed off a copy of my Major Minor Scale Matchup Worksheet on cardstock and then cut it into rectangles with one […]
Piano Camp – Composer Spotlight!
We just finished our third morning of Piano Camp. Hard to believe we only have one day left! One of our daily activities is a Composer Spotlight. I wanted to highlight some of the lesser known composers, and also incorporate aspects of how they used their music to glorify God. I already had on my […]
Piano Camp – Ensembles!
Continuing with the Piano Camp theme for the week, here are a few pictures from another one of our daily activities – ensemble playing! I played through a whole stack of ensemble repertoire last week looking for the perfect combinations for the group of students attending Piano Camp this week. We allocoate about 15-20 minutes […]
Piano Camp – Improvising!
One of the other activities we are doing each day of Piano Camp is improvising. I start out by having all the students play the pentascale, chord progression, and arpeggio of a given key. We do this several times all together. Then, I play an accompaniment CD and they play along with the CD. After […]
