Announcements

2 Pieces of News

Hi there! Just a quick post today to share two bits of news.

FIRST:

Starting tomorrow, I’m holding a 20% off sale for everything in my digital shop! The reason for the sale? We’re going to be partying all February long to celebrate ColorInMyPiano.com’s upcoming 10 year blogiversary. Woohoo!

To receive 20% off, use the promo code 10YEARS between now (January 31, 2019) and February 28, 2019.

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that I rarely hold sales. If you’ve been eyeing my favorite Ice Cream Intervals game, my rhythm cards, or are thinking ahead to music camp curriculums for this summer, now’s a great time to buy! Visit the shop now by clicking here.

SECOND:

I pleased to announce the upcoming 2019 session of my online piano pedagogy course called Excellence in Piano Teaching! The dates will be April 1st through May 5th.

Have you always wanted to take a piano pedagogy college course, but haven’t had the opportunity? Or are you looking for a refresher of the pedagogy instruction you received during college, to put new energy into your teaching?

If you’d like to receive the details about this course, please join the separate email list by clicking here. I’ll be sending out more details by email in the upcoming weeks. For now, I thought I’d send out this save-the-date note in case you are interested in making plans to participate!

Stay tuned — there’s more coming soon to celebrate ColorInMyPiano.com’s ten years of existence. 🙂

Announcements

Upcoming 2019 Appearances

Hello, readers!

At the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to fly to Charlotte, NC to speak for the Charlotte Piano Teachers Forum. I spoke on the topic of rhythm — specifically, how we can approach teaching rhythm from an ear training or MLT perspective. I had SUCH a fun trip! I posted some photo highlights from my two-day adventure on my instagram here.

I’d love to tell you about some other speaking appearances coming up this year.

First of all, in March, I will be participating in a few sessions during MTNA’s 2019 National Conference in Spokane, Washington, occurring March 16-20, 2019.

  • Saturday, March 16: “Games & Activities for Groups“, a 20-minute presentation during Pedagogy Saturday’s Recreational Music Making (RMM) track.
  • Wednesday, March 20 @ 8:00am: “Teaching the Way We Learn: Applications of Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT)” with co-presenter Amy Chaplin.
  • Wednesday, March 20 @ 9:15am: “Creativity Throughout: A Panel Discussion on the Business Side of Teaching“, appearing as a panelist.
Continue reading “Upcoming 2019 Appearances”
Reviews

Book Review – Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, by Barry M. Prizant, PhD

I recently finished reading the book Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, written by Dr. Barry M. Prizant. It took me only a few days to “read” (I listened to the audiobook version) the whole thing, because I was enjoying it so much.

My motivation for searching out this book arose from a desire to better understand my current piano students who have autism. This was the book I settled on after searching on Amazon.com for a book on the topic that had excellent reviews.

This book did not disappoint.

The author, Dr. Barry Prizant, has decades of experience working with individuals with autism and is a leading expert in the field. He is a scholar, researcher, consultant, and an adjunct faculty at Brown University.

As Dr. Prizant explains in the book, autism therapy typically tends to focus on behavioral therapy — which means, getting rid of behaviors such as difficulties interacting socially, sensory challenges, and repetitive behavior patterns. Dr. Prizant points the way to a different approach instead. His book promotes the seeking of understanding individuals and what might be underlying their behaviors.

Rather than seeking to eliminate so-called “autistic behaviors”, Dr. Prizant advocates asking “why”. WHY is the person behaving this way? How can I better understand what might be causing the individual’s behavior, and how can I change MY behavior to help him or her?

Continue reading “Book Review – Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, by Barry M. Prizant, PhD”
General

Happy 2019!

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you’ve been enjoying the holidays.

The new year always causes for me a time of reflection — refection upon the previous year as well as upon what the next year might hold.

As far as my blogging goes, I certainly published fewer blog posts in the last couple of years than I did in previous years. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing — I think the blogosphere and the online community is different now than it once was. Currently, I’m finding myself more active on Instagram than my blog. I would love to invite you to follow me there for those kinds of smaller, quick, fun updates and stay right where you are for the longer-form content here on the blog.

I’ve been thinking about how my teaching has changed over the years as well. (I began teaching piano around this time of year back in 2005.) There have been a number of important influences that have helped me improve my teaching, and I can see that my students are seeing the benefits. What will the next year hold? Ever more improvements, I hope!

Thanks so much for being a follower of my blog, and I wish you all a happy and healthy 2019.

P.S.: Anybody in Charlotte, NC? I’ll be in your area tomorrow (Friday) for a piano teacher presentation! Email or facebook me if you are interested in the details. 🙂