A colleague of mine and I are planning to learn some four-handed piano music this summer, and perhaps do a whole recital together of just four-handed music in the fall semester. So I’ve been digging around on YouTube, looking for repertoire ideas. And I have couple of cool videos to share with you today: What [...]
Many of us teachers are probably currently preparing our student for spring recitals, so today I thought it might be beneficial to discuss a way of preparing for performances: recording your students playing their pieces, and then listening to the playback together. Benefits of Recording The student practices performing. Playing for a recording device can [...]
Book Review: Ammer, Christine. The A to Z of Foreign Musical Terms: From Adagio to Zierlich a Dictionary for Performers and Students. Boston: ECS Publishing, 1989. Ever try looking up a musical term, only to find that the word or phrase you are looking for is not listed in your musical dictionary? This has happened to [...]
You know, learning to play an instrument is all about making breakthroughs. There are so many things to consider and train yourself to do. It’s a complicated process! You are never done learning. There’s always room for improvement. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been realizing that when I play forte on the piano — [...]
In answer to a question a received last week, I thought I’d talk a little bit more about teaching 2 against 3, as I had mentioned in a post about teaching music through movement. To tell you the truth, I have not needed to teach 2 against 3 very often so far, and when I [...]
I’ll be the first one to admit: memorizing music does not come easily to me. I really have to work at it, and it takes a lot of time. Over the past couple of years, I have been reading and trying out everything I could find about memorizing music, and I’ve come up with a [...]
Many piano teachers subscribe to Clavier magazine, and some even subscribe their students to Clavier’s Piano Explorer, the music magazine for kids. I recently found out that their site contains some great resources for teaching about various composers and concepts in music history. This month, there have some great resources about Beethoven, including: Links to YouTube recordings, [...]
In a post last week, I mentioned Jim Brickman — composer of new age solo piano music (as well as some pop music with vocals). His music is great to play when you are stressed out and just want to play something relaxing that doesn’t require as much concentration as classical music. =D I thought [...]
I recently received a new transfer adult student. She’s an excellent sight-reader and a fun person to be around! She has a great interest in anime (for those of you not familiar with anime [AH-nee-may], it is “a style of animation developed in Japan,” according to Answers.com). Shehas been teaching me quite a bit about anime [...]
Free sheet music is always a good thing, right? :] By signing up for a free Silver membership over at pianostreet.com, you’ll have access to free pdfs of classical music scores, including: Bach – 15 Inventions Beethoven – 32 Sonatas Burgmuller – 3 pieces from 25 Easy and Progressive Studies Schumann – Traumerei Tchaikovsky – [...]
Amazon.com Widgets I just finished reading a marvelous book, called Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances, by Eloise Ristad. My piano professor recommended I read this book during a lesson when we were discussing performance anxiety (which I experience frequently, I must admit). In this easy-to-read, humorous book, Ristad shares her [...]
Joy Morin is a piano teacher in Ohio. She enjoys keeping her teaching fresh with new ideas & resources.
