Songbird Piano Lessons

Hello, everyone!    Last spring we had a lot of fun with Composer Month. But this time around, I decided it would be better to do Composer Month in November, and composing in spring. (More on that ... well, in spring. ;)    So, a quick run over the rules of the game: All students are on a specific composer team. Students gather facts about the composer whose team they're on. There's no limit on how many facts they can collect each week. (While the Internet is the go-to source for a lot of school research like this, don't discount the value of checking out your local library for books or non-fiction videos.) Facts are brought to me at the student's lesson and put up on the composer's poster. The team who gathers the most facts wins the prize -- chocolate! :) Also this year I am doing an "honorable mention" for the person who collects the most points, regardless of whether or not they're on the winning team. That person also gets chocolate.  ...

Mezzo forte Medium loud

Largo Broad and Slow

Chording. It's hard to teach.    Why? For one thing, it's not something usually included in the method books. For another, it's one area where I feel I didn't receive enough input in my years as a student.    I did have one teacher who placed an importance on my learning to play hymns from the hymnal and doing my own chording/left hand improvising. And I'm very glad she did, because that wasn't something I really touched with any of my last three teachers in the higher levels! Probably because we were always too busy preparing for exams.    However, I've realized that chording is a skill needed by all musicians, not just would-be church pianists. I remember expressing to one of my former teachers how I'd enjoyed listening to him play at his brother's wedding, and he told me that he'd been playing from a lead sheet. Lead sheets are, as I understand, also used frequently by jazz musicians and other bands. (I've never played any jazz perso...

Fine (pronounced: FIN- ai) The end

Espressivo Expressively