Songbird Piano Lessons

 I probably should be writing a New Year's post. However, I'm not. On the flip side, I will quickly say that 2022 has been a very good year, professionally and personally, a year in which I've seen God's blessings in a very tangible way. Praise Him, the Giver of every good and perfect gift! ( James 1:17 ) God is good, all the time -- whether it's 2020, 2022, or 2052.     However, the thing on my mind for blogging right now is actually  Parkland Music Festival . For those who may not be familiar with music festivals in general, a music festival is an educational opportunity, a performance opportunity, and a competition, rolled into one. Performers, ranging from 5-year-olds to college students, register to enter into an age-and-level appropriate class. One by one, all the members of the class will perform their pieces for an adjudicator, basically a highly skilled, professional musician. After everyone has played, the adjudicator works with each child, giving them...

 I hope you all have a blessed Christmas! May Jesus' light fill you with peace and hope.     (Much more important than piano lessons:  Please click this link . The content on the page that links to is way more important than any gift under the tree, because it's all about God's gift -- the entire reason for Christmas and celebrating -- to you.)    Enjoy this music video!

 Hi, everyone,    One more student to go till Christmas break!!!    Yes, I love teaching. Yes, I also love my breaks. I come out of them with renewed enthusiasm for what I do, so these breaks are a win-win.     Anyways. I didn't know what to blog about. So I'm going to share with you some of my favourite Christmas song videos on YouTube. Enjoy! Joy to the World, Fountainview Academy Mary, Did you Know? Fountainview Academy How Should a King Come? (This was the song my brother played on his guitar at our joint recital!) Angels From the Realms of Glory -- I'm not sure who organized this, but you'll see several distinguished musicians in here, including The Piano Guys Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Canon. I normally don't care for Pachelbel's Canon, because it's way too overplayed. (Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," however, I can't get enough of.) But these guys did a good job with their version. 

 Diminuendo Gradually getting quieter

 Yes... another piano recital has come and gone!     It was my biggest recital ever. This is not only because my student count is higher than it's ever been (yay and praise the Lord!), but also because I was also coordinating with three other local teachers: Dori Whyte ( check out her PMTA profile here ) and two of my friends from  The Fehr Family Band.  It was a full church. It was fantastic!        I got to accompany again for Dori's students. The best part was Rossini's Duetto Buffo di due Gatta. That piece is such a riot! So much fun. Especially since the vocalists asked me to be a bit of a show-off and throw in my own "improvisational" run in during a longer pause. 😁    The piano, we knew from experience, was too loud for some of the younger vocalists. Hence the quilt (and the pillows that you can't see stuffed into the back of the piano).     As for my students, while there were some interesting momen...

 Every year, November is Composer Month.    Every year, I forget to build excitement for Composer Month by blogging about it before it starts.    However, I haven't forgotten yet about blogging who won!    For those of you who don't know, Composer Month is a semi-competitive activity where students are assigned to three different composer teams. Throughout the month, they bring in facts about their composer, with the goal of being the team that collects the most facts and wins the chocolate.     Judging by the Beethoven poster, clearly "semi" is the key part of the word "semi-competitive."     Although, in all fairness, there were quite a few online lessons this month. While I still wrote down who brought in how many facts for each online lesson... I didn't actually put those facts on the poster. Which made scoring more difficult.     So, now the part you're all dying to hear.... *drumroll*    The ...

 Prestissimo As fast as possible