My “piano party” group lesson this month was a lot of fun. We began with the Rhythm Name game — always a favorite. :) The Rhythm Name game is described in this post. Next, I played a variety of short classical pieces and asked students to aurally identify the piece as AB form or ABA. [...]
Last Saturday, I held another Piano Party for my students! These group classes are so much fun. My students really look forward to them! We started out with what I call the Rhythm Name game — it’s one of my favorites. Students should be seated in a circle. Each student must create a short rhythm that [...]
Last Saturday, I held another Piano Party for my students. I had record attendance: 14 students! Here’s a run-down of what we did: We introduced ourselves, and shared our favorite Christmas present this year. Christmas Recital and Name-That Tune game. Yes, I know Christmas is over! Because of how busy December often can be, I [...]
A week from last Saturday, I held another piano party with my students. Unfortunately, I neglected to take photos AGAIN, despite the fact that my camera was ready within reach. Bummer! :) Here is a list of the activities we did during our hour-and-a-half together: Music Jenga (as students arrive) BANG rhythm game - as I [...]
Last week, I blogged a little about my first “Piano Party” – the first of hopefully many more group classes I hold for my students! On Friday, I held our 2nd Piano Party for October. I was so glad to observe my students greeting each other by name as they arrived. They recognized each other from [...]
Now that I have enough students to do so, I have begun holding monthly group lessons with my students. I tried it a few times last year, but ended up with a poor turnout both times. Fortunately, now I have enough students to make it worth the effort. I call them “Piano Parties.” Right now, [...]
When I shared about my method of lesson planning for groups classes a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a Hello Song and Goodbye Song that I use with my young students. Someone asked which ones I use, so I thought I would let you hear them in this quick video: HELLO SONG Hello, it’s time, [...]
I’ve had a few requests lately from readers regarding more info about what kind of activities I do with my Homeschool Music Classes and Piano Readiness classes, so I thought it might first be a good idea to first give you a peek into how I lesson plan for group classes. Although I don’t lesson [...]
The next session was given by the fabulous Marvin Blickenstaff: Performance Practice Made Easy: Rules of Thumb for the Piano Student As teachers, we are always interested in fostering independence in our students — perhaps most importantly in the aspect of interpretation (making music musical and artistic). This is an elusive thing to teach. It’s [...]
Joy is a pianist and teacher in Ohio with great passion for helping students experience the wonders of music making!
