Have you heard about International Week of the Piano Geek, yet? Starting next week on Monday, the folks behind TeachPianoToday.com are holding a fun week of emails, giveaways, and more. Visit pianogeekweek.com to learn more and to subscribe to the email list to get the updates. Color In My Piano will be making an appearance, [...]
Greetings! I know I’ve been MIA around the blog lately — it’s been a busy couple of weeks. This time of year always requires lots of planning time, for upcoming festivals and recitals. I’ve been helping students pick out repertoire and keeping track of forms and registration dates, etc. :) Anyway, I though I would [...]
This post is a sequel to the post, 9 First Classical Anthologies for Piano Students. As mentioned before, anthologies are great for exposing students to a variety of composers and styles of literature at a great value. After the student’s first introduction to classical pieces, there are many, MANY of different options for classical anthologies [...]
Our previous Forum Q&A post was about Christmas gifts for piano students. We received a LOT of responses — thank you! I will definitely be consulting that post again next year when Christmas rolls around! Our new Forum Q&A is a topic suggested by a reader. She says: “My New Years resolution in my studio [...]
With my piano students, I love to introduce classical music as soon as possible. It gives them a head-start in getting used to the contrapuntal reading that classical music requires, as well as the kinds of technical and musical challenges that classical music requires. Early exposure also means that they in most cases they grow [...]
Australian composer Daniel McFarlane has composed a number of student-level repertoire books which are available on his website. Daniel was kind enough to send me digital copies of his books so I could review them here. In appearance, all of Daniel’s books have easy-to-read scores with no illustrations. The titles of each piece are in [...]
As big of a fan as I am of Nancy & Randall Faber’s materials for piano students, somehow I’ve never had a chance to try out their “My First Piano Adventure” books — until now. After trying out this book with a new 5-year-old student last week, I am wondering why in the world didn’t [...]
Greetings! Today I have two important announcements: I have finished all the requirements for my Master’s degree! HOORAY! =D Today we have a new GIVEAWAY! Here are the details: Andrea & Trevor Dow from yesterday’s interview have kindly agreed to sponsor a giveaway of Episode 1 of The Adventures of Fearless Fortissimo! This pdf is [...]
Today I have a fabulous interview for you, from a husband & wife team who runs a 350-student music school in Canada! Meet Andrea & Trevor Dow. Andrea & Trevor run a blog at teachpianotoday.com The website for their music school, Wildflower Music Studio, can be viewed here. Their latest project has been to write [...]
I forgot to put up the week’s new Forum Q&A post yesterday, so here it is a day late! Sorry about that…I think the term paper for my music history class is draining all my brain cells. =D It was so fun to read the variety of approaches teachers use when it comes to summer [...]
Have you heard the news about the new 2nd Editions of the Faber Piano Adventures? They’ve completed a revision of the Primer and Level 1 books, and will be doing Level 2 (and beyond?) at a later date. At the MTNA conference, I had the opportunity to look at the new books at the Hal Leonard [...]
For last week’s Forum Q&A, I broached a few questions about memorization and many of you left comments regarding whether or not to require memorization for performances within your studio — but not many of you addressed my initial question about whether you consider the skill of memorization is essential to piano playing (i.e., do [...]
Joy is a pianist and teacher in Ohio with great passion for helping students experience the wonders of music making!
