Hello friends,
I have an announcement to share today — one that’s been a long time coming. I won’t beat around the bush. I wrote a book! It’s called Keys at Play, Book 1: 88 Progressive Pieces for Pianists of All Ages. And it’s available for order now, across the world, in hardcopy form.
Continue reading “Announcing: Keys at Play, Book 1: 88 Progressive Pieces for Pianists of All Ages”
If you’ve followed my blog for awhile now, you know that a method book I frequently use in my piano teaching is Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey. I became a fan of Irina’s work first through subscribing to her YouTube channel, which contains hundreds of teaching videos. Then, in 2015, I attended her first-ever summer workshop for teachers. (If you’d like to read my full review of Irina’s Tales of a Musical Journey method, click here.)
As Irina’s method books have continued to grow in popularity, she began touring internationally to give workshops about her method. Currently, she lives in Asia and is a faculty member at Chengdu College of Chinese and ASEAN Arts.
Today, I’m writing a review of Irina’s online course for piano teachers. If you’ve heard about her course and wondered what it was like, this review is for you. Read on!
Back in the summer of 2015, as a huge fan of Irina Gorin’s YouTube channel, I attended Irina Gorin’s first ever piano teacher workshop held near her hometown in the Indianapolis area. Here is a photo of Irina and I during the workshop.
Over the past two years, I have been using Irina’s self-published method book, “Tales of a Musical Journey”, more and more with my students. As I have become more familiar with the books and am seeing its results in my students, it has become my favorite piano method book.
If you’ve watched any of Irina’s teaching videos on YouTube, you have seen for yourself how Irina successfully develops in her students a healthy physical approach the instrument as well as expressive and sensitive playing — even in her youngest beginner students. Irina’s books are the result of combining what she feels is the best of Russian piano pedagogy and the best of American piano pedagogy. This makes Irina’s method unique and quite different from typical American piano method books.
In this article, I’d like to share an overview of Irina’s method and the reasons why I like it so much. Continue reading “Review: Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey”
Hello, readers!
I’m so excited to share with you some photos from the three-day Piano Teacher Retreat I hosted earlier this month. 
On Thursday the 17th, 12 piano teachers arrived for our retreat activities. They came from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Ontario (Canada), …and even as far as Georgia!
Including my friend Amy Chaplin (who was in charge of delicious meals for us!) and myself, this added up to 14 piano teachers in “Piano Manor” — which is what my students and I fondly call my home studio. 🙂
My chief goal with my Piano Teacher Retreat was to create a professional development experience with no single “expert” to learn from, but instead with all attendees collaborating and sharing their thoughts and experiences, toward the goal of growing together to become better teachers.
Don’t get me wrong: I love conferences, but if we really want to create an experience that results in the greatest amount of learning, we need to create learning experiences that very closely replicate the actual desired skill or behavior.
To that end, this was not a professional development experience where attendees sat in their seats and passively listened. Nope. At Piano Teacher Retreat, everybody participates. 🙂 All 14 of us kept busy through group discussion sessions, studying certain method books with a partner, and presenting our findings with the rest of the group. We were hands-on and interactive!
Hi there!
Earlier today, I went live on Facebook to take a peek inside the littlest piano method book in my collection. 🙂 It’s called “Little Players: A Piano Book For Very Young Beginners,” by Robert Nolan Kerr. The copyright year is 1941.
I found this book among a boxful of other old sheet music I received from a retiring piano teacher. It’s an interesting piece of history. Join me in taking a closer look at this book!
Here is the Facebook Live video.
https://www.facebook.com/ColorInMyPianoblog/videos/1583446878341958/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
Here is what’s covered in the video:
Thanks for exploring this old method book with me!
Questions for you: Have you ever before seen such an adorable mini-sized piano method book?! Do you teach your beginners to play with legato touch first, or do you do something else first? What other interesting observations do you have after taking a virtual peek with me inside this interesting piece of pedagogical history?
Thanks for watching!
P.S.: Why am I looking through old piano method books? It’s because I’m in the midst of preparations for Retreat at Piano Manor which I will be hosting later this summer, August 17-19, 2017! During the retreat, we will be looking through piano method books from across the decades, uncovering pedagogical wisdom relevant for us today. Be sure to watch the facebook page and here on the blog for future videos about piano methods.
Hi there!
Earlier today, I went live on Facebook to talk about one of my favorite old piano method books: the classic John Thompson’s Modern Course for the Piano. I have to admit certain bias for the “Teaching Little Fingers to Play” book. It was my first piano book when I was all of age 5. 🙂
Here is the Facebook Live video.
https://www.facebook.com/ColorInMyPianoblog/videos/1557903900896256/
Here is what’s covered in the video:
Questions for you: Have you ever used the John Thompson series? What do you appreciate about it?
Thanks for watching!
P.S.: Why am I looking through old piano method books? It’s because I’m in the midst of preparations for Retreat at Piano Manor which I will be hosting later this summer, August 17-19, 2017! During the retreat, we will be looking through piano method books from across the decades, uncovering pedagogical wisdom relevant for us today. Registration is now open and a few teachers have already registered. Be sure to watch the facebook page and here on the blog for future videos about piano methods.
As a piano teacher, you have probably been in the situation where you felt that using your favorite traditional piano method might not be the best choice for a particular new student’s situation.
For example, perhaps you have a new student who already has experience reading music from school or band. Or an older beginner with a great ear who is largely self-taught. Or an adult student who is returning to piano lessons after a number of years. Or perhaps you have an average-age beginner who isn’t thriving in their method books and would benefit from additional supplement.
For those special situations, it is useful to be familiar with some method book alternatives, which I fondly refer to as “un-methods.” Un-methods are useful for creating structure in weekly piano assignments while maintaining the flexibility to round out the student’s curriculum with other styles of music they are interested in. In my mind, an un-method must meet at least two out of these three criteria:
Below is my list of some un-methods that you might enjoy exploring!
Right From The Start, by Lynn Freeman Olson (Fischer)
As the cover states, this thin volume is a “rapid piano reader.” Teachers who appreciate a landmark (aka interval) reading approach will appreciate the way this on-staff book begins: by teaching Bass F, Middle C, and Treble G. The book provides a solid, no-nonsense approach. I think it is a great book that truly leaves the teaching up to the teacher!
By the end of this 30-page book, students are playing basic rhythms (no eighth notes, unfortunately) within quarter note meters (3/4 and 4/4 time), a variety of articulations (staccato, legato) and notes covering the entire grand staff.
View it on Amazon or SheetMusicPlus.com. Continue reading ““Un-Method” Books for Piano Students”
A couple of years ago, I reviewed some lovely sheet music by British teacher/composer Elena Cobb (read the review here). She is the author of the Higgledy Piggledy Jazz books, the “Blue River” book of solos, and more.
Elena has recently released a new book: a piano method called “My Piano Trip to London.”
“My Piano Trip to London” contains 40 pages. The pieces throughout the book are based on various landmarks and themes from London.
The first piece in the book is a black-key piece to be learned by rote.
Continue reading “Review & Giveaway: Elena Cobb’s “My Piano Trip To London””
Remember when I blogged about Jennifer Eklund’s music last Winter? Today, I want to tell you a little bit more about her self-published piano method, Piano Pronto.
I haven’t been experimenting with the Piano Pronto books for very long yet, but already I can see some reasons why Piano Pronto is unique from the piano methods available from the major publishers:
It is an all-in-one book. Lessons introducing new concepts, prep exercises to learn, and simple theory questions to answer are all included within the book. This makes it easier for the teacher to supplement with a variety of types of music. Or, the method can even serve as the supplement to a different method! If you haven’t taken a look at Piano Pronto before, you can learn more by browsing the preview pages and audio samples on Jennifer’s website.
Being self-published has its advantages, including being able to interact directly with one’s audience. Jennifer manages an active forum on Facebook where teachers can ask questions and share success stories. A few weeks ago, I posted there to ask Jennifer if there was any chance that she would be releasing teacher duets anytime soon to go with her method books. Jennifer responded almost immediately and set to work writing teacher duets for the “Prelude” book. The eBook for those teacher duets is now available here! After purchase, you can print a copy from the PDF or load it onto your favorite score reader on your iPad.
In celebration of this new release, Jennifer has offered to sponsor a giveaway. Two randomly-chosen winners will receive a FREE copy of the Piano Pronto “Prelude” book and the corresponding teacher duets (U.S. winners will receive hardcopies while international winners will receive digital copies). To enter, please leave a comment on this post describing which unique aspect of the Piano Pronto method (from the list above) intrigues you the most! Enter by Wednesday, August 6 at midnight Eastern time.
Don’t forget to visit Jennifer’s Piano Pronto Discussion Group on facebook and request to join. There, you will find many other resources relating to Piano Pronto, including a transfer assessment guide and a guide to Jennifer’s supplemental music.
Update: Jennifer is running a rare 20% off sale from August 1st through August 5! Use the promo code SCHOOL20.
Whew! I feel like I have so much to share, but not enough time to share it! 😉
Last week, I held a summer camp for my piano students called “Practice Tips & Tricks.” It was a fun week. For my birthday last month, my husband gave me a projector. (Yes, I’m a techno-geek!) It was wonderful to be able to have a large visual to use during camp! I hope to share more details about all this later.
On Friday, I held another Google Hangout this time talking about piano methods. You can watch the video here. We did encounter some technical difficulties unfortunately — I apologize about that! Thanks for bearing with us during this experiment. 🙂
I have another Google Hangout scheduled for this Friday at 11am Eastern time. Please visit the event page here to get all the details and feel free to submit questions for us to discuss in advance.
More later! 🙂
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 start a new Forum Q&A post today! Last time, we discussed duet repertoire — I hope you will go check out all of the responses so far by clicking here, and I also hope you’ll continue adding your favorites!
Today, I want to to hear from you:
What piano method books did you learn from as a child? Did you like the books? What did you like about them? What else do you remember about your first piano lessons?
I think it will be fun to hear your stories! I’ll try to post my own answer sometime this week, too.
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 you think it is necessary/required for concert pianists to play by memory? Why or why not?). I discussed this topic further in yesterday’s post, which you can view here. As always, it’s never too late to add your thoughts to this ongoing discussion. =)
Today, however, marks the introduction of a new topic for discussion:
Many popular piano methods today include (as they should) arrangements of familiar tunes for students to learn. This is great, because many students LOVE learning how to play tunes they are familiar with! (Side note: click here to view a post regarding some thoughts on what makes a great piano method.) However, these arrangements sometimes present a problem:
Oftentimes in arrangements, the rhythm of the tune is altered and “simplified” in order to accomodate the rhythmic values that the student has/hasn’t learned yet. This is all fine and dandy, but as a teacher, what do you do when a student comes back the next week playing the rhythm “wrong”?
To give one example that frequently occurs with beginner students, I’ve heard many students return playing the rhythm of “Ode to Joy” with dotted-quarter-eighth rhythms instead of playing all quarter notes (despite the fact that we sightread it together with the rhythm as written). How do you handle this situation: do you “fix” the student’s rhythm to match what is on the page even though it goes against their intuition, or do you “let it go?”
I’m sure many of us piano teachers have been in this situation before! Share your experiences in the comments below.
Photo Credit: Rick Harris | CC 2.0
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