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 [...]
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 [...]
Read about what readers posted concerning their thoughts about various piano methods, and also check out the list of questions to ask yourself when evaluating piano methods to use with your students. This post serves as the summary of the July 2010 Monthly Forum topic: Discussing Method Books.
This month’s discussion topic is about using method books (i.e., Alfred, Faber, Bastien, etc.) in the piano studio: What do you look for in a method book? What features are most important to you? Do you use the same method series for all your students, or do you use a variety? If you use a [...]
Check out this announcement at the ComposeCreate.com blog: Wendy Stevens has written a new adult piano book entitled: Returning to the Piano: A Refresher Book for Adults. I often have a hard time deciding what adult method to use with my adult students. Especially when they aren’t true beginners and have had previous experience with [...]
Susan Paradis from the Piano Teacher Resources blog has written has excellent review of the The Perfect Start for Piano by Kevin & Julia Olson, a series of books intended for reinforcing note-reading on the staff for beginners and elementary level students. They look great – I love that fact that they are designed to [...]
The FJH Music Company website is introducing a new method series, available March 2010: Helen Marlais’ Succeeding at the Piano. I have heard some good things about the method, and am looking forward to trying it with a student once it comes out! Click here to view the page about it and to pre-register for [...]
I recently heard about a brand new piano method series, called Piano Safari, written by Katherine Fisher and Julie Knerr, both grads from University of Oklahoma’s excellent Piano Pedagogy program. The series looks very intriguing. I would like to try out the series the next time I get a new beginner student! The element that I find most [...]
I found a very interesting chart at musicedmarket.com today, comparing what are probably the top 5 most popular piano methods: Alfred’s Basic Library Bastien Piano Basics The Music Tree Piano Adventures Hal Leonard Student Piano Library Although this chart is probably somewhat outdated (for example, Alfred has recently introducted their new Premier series), there is still valuable [...]
Found this on the homepage of the Faber Piano Adventures website (sorry, it’s no longer there now). Guess who’s using Piano Adventures to study piano! This picture was originally appeared in Hello Magazine in Canada and Star Magazine in the U.S. :) I’m a huge fan of the Piano Adventures series. The pieces in their books [...]
Joy Morin is a piano teacher in Ohio. She enjoys keeping her teaching fresh with new ideas & resources.
