Steps to Technical Success in Piano Mastery

Personality

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:37:04 +0000

I’ve said this before, but I’m saying it again! I really think piano technique is based upon PERSONALITY TYPE. I notice as I teach, that different hand positions seem to correspond to different personalities. I say the same thing to every student and yet, they seem to have ‘minds’ of their own. It’s interesting.

Compromise!

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:41:09 +0000

I’ve been in the music business since 1974……..in many different roles. I’ve been a music teacher in the school systems: public and private. I’ve been a choir director: public, private and church. I’ve been a private piano teacher since 1974 with private studios as well as group………the recurring and very FRUSTRATING aspect during all of these experiences is the fact that as the music teacher – I am the one who has to compromise and lower my expectations due to the students being sooooo busy with athletics and other time issues. I wonder when and if the day will come that I can actually set high standards for my piano students and actually be able to keep those standards throughout Middle School and High School! I’m trying very hard to do what it takes to keep the kids interested in continuing piano lessons, and it just makes me upset when they start to lose that interest no matter what I do! I think I’m going to adopt the philosophy of an older colleague of mine: She said she realized that only 2 of her students should actually be studying piano and all the others she just wanted them to be ‘nice human beings’. Maybe that’s my new goal…………

Pens

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:58:33 +0000

We have started something new…..it is a pen collection! One of my piano students has been bringing me funny pens and now other piano students are doing the same thing. Since spring break, I have received 1.) a pen with a wind up fan 2.) a flower pen and 3.) a pen with a shark head on it. We’ve been enjoying the fun pens!

Spring Piano Songs

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:56:03 +0000

It has been a fun week with all of the spring piano surprises! I had told the piano students to chose any song they would like to play and have it ready for me when I returned from Spring Break. I decided to make a video of these performances so the kids could see what the other piano students chose. I would NEVER have thought to chose some of these songs for the kids! The music was a variety of musical theater, pop, classical, and songs that they found in their mothers old piano books. I’ll ask permission and then I’ll post a few of the videos so you can see what they did. The theme to JAWS was really cute!

vacation

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:51:10 +0000

We will be starting back to the spring term of piano lessons this week. It has been a few weeks ofSPRING BREAK. I gave the students the assignment to learn a piece of their choice to perfect while I was away. My original plan was to have them perform those pieces at the local nursing home, but prior to leaving I found out there were too many conflicts and had to cancel that recital. So, in it’s place, I told the piano students that I would be VIDEOTAPING them in their lessons this week. I will make DVD’s of the piano pieces they chose and share the DVD’s with each of them. I’m actually looking forward to seeing how this assignment worked for them. Our job as piano teachers is to teach them to play piano well enough in the future, that they won’t need us – right? If I did my job, then the students should be able surprise me with some songs. We’ll see!

Piano Funny 23

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:47:50 +0000

OK – here’s another funny comment……..I asked one of my kids “did you practice this wrong?” and their answer was “I must have!”

“Happy Silly Song”

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:22:11 +0000

I went through my ‘wall’ of music at home and found some pieces of piano sheet music that I’ve had for many years. I had two copies of David Carr Glovers, “Happy Silly Song” and the price on the piano music was .79 cents. That’s how OLD the music was! I gave it to two girls who were at the right age for playing this piece. This young lady surprised me by coming to her piano lesson and singing along while she played. I didn’t ask her to do that. She even sang the harmony places. (The noise in the background is a fan I have in my piano studio.)

4 Piano Concert

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:41:06 +0000

On March 2nd we had a terrible winter storm that knocked the power out for days. Now almost 11 days later people are still cleaning up the trees in their yards. I was asked to play a concert on March 4th which was not cancelled even though the church was not fully powered. Because I didn’t have power I had to figure out some way to shower and clean up for this concert. I took big buckets and filled them up with clean snow and put them on the wood stove. It took all morning to melt enough snow in order to shower. I put the water into a solar shower that we use on the boat and I was able to get dressed for the concert. The only difficulty was, with no power I couldn’t blow dry my hair, so it was just going in all directions. I don’t think anybody noticed though. I was asked to be one of 12 piano players for a piece by Abba. You can see in this photo the four pianos, and at each piano are 3 players. It was fun even though I had to be a bit of a pioneer to get ready.

Winter Storm

admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:31:29 +0000

We had a severe winter snow storm blow through last weekend. The power was out for about 4 days and still today some people are without power. It was sort of interesting that not once did I miss my computer. It was so nice to not have to ‘worry’ about who had written to me, and who did I need to contact etc. I was able to read TWO books and just relaxed, which I don’t always get to do.

“Small Fry” by Norman Dello Joio

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:16:50 +0000

I try very hard to teach proper piano technique to my students. We discuss arm/wrist relaxation with proper arm weight. Some students ‘get it’ and others do not. Some students practice it very well, and others do not. This young lady has had one and a half years of piano lessons and she practices a LOT. She worked very hard to get her left hand to do the slurs, while her right hand was staccato. Not easy! She had a slight hesitation, but after 3 attempts, she didn’t want to do it over! Can’t say I blame her!