Songbird Piano Lessons

Allargando Becoming slower    And for the newest "Listen!" challenge!  Review the rules here.    Can you hear the part where this music is becoming slower? ;)

As a 19-year-old, I was already on my way to completing my Grade 10 Piano exam when circumstances abruptly forced me to change piano teachers. (Which happened to be the best thing that ever happened to me as far as my musical education went, but that's not my point.) No more than three lessons in, my new teacher handed me a sheet with a list of assignments. The first ten started with the word, "Sing..."    Inwardly, I cringed. Singing?! I loved to sing -- when no one else was listening. I just never sang in public scenarios. Not any one of my other teachers had asked me individually to sing in class, and believe me, I had never volunteered it either.    Now here I was, with one of the best-respected teachers in Edmonton, whom I barely knew. And he was saying, "Go ahead. Do number 1."    Why? Why was he forcing me to sing when I had come to him for piano lessons?    If you're one of my students' parents, you are probably either laughing or shak

Fortepiano Loud, then suddenly soft

We all know that, to be successful at anything, we have to have the right tools. Right? Right.    Believe it or not, learning piano also has its own tool set. And I'm going to briefly cover the most essential tools (excluding books, because music books are a topic in itself) that your child needs at home to succeed in piano. Your support! No matter what your child does, this is the most valuable tool you can give them. If they know you're behind them, you care about what they're doing, and you actively take a role in their learning experiences, that's powerful.  A piano or keyboard. How to choose, how to choose? Basically, a keyboard or digital piano is fine for a beginner. If your child is in their first year, and you're mostly trying it out to see how they like it, or you're doing it because it's a rule that everybody in your house has to take three years of piano before learning another instrument, a keyboard/digital is just fine. However, I would

Largo Very slow and broad.

Wow! Already we're into the second month of lessons. Everyone having fun yet? ;)    Some of you may have noticed . . . there's a lot of brown in my studio. Brown piano. Brown desk. Brown walls. Brown floor. Now, brown may be a trendy colour, but it's not exactly my choice of colour. Especially not for a room where children come in and out a lot.     So, inspired by various teacher friends who actively decorate their classrooms, I decided it was time to start introducint colour into the studio.     Like it? It's a start. Now I'm going to keep an eye out for happy, colourful things I can place on top of the piano. Because somehow I had the feeling putting sticky things on my piano was not a good idea!     Anyways. You probably were more interested in what's happening in lessons rather than studio decor.     A lot of time has been spent actually playing the piano. This is no doubt largely due to my own teacher's influence, as every week I

Forte Loud and strong.