dawn's piano

Can you believe it's already December? As we head into our final month of 2020 in the piano studio, I wanted to share a bit of what December looks like for us. What students will be working on, and how we add a little celebratory touch to our lessons for the holiday season. If you're a fellow piano teacher reading this, you can also read this as a little roundup of some of my favorite holiday resources.  Performance Prep & Holiday Rep We are gearing up for our Multi-Piano Christmas Festival, and will have our recording day in just a couple weeks! So this first week or two of December our focus will be on preparing for that festival, and polishing off any other Christmas repertoire or solo selections we've learned. We'll also make a list of our Seasonal Songs to Share so students have selections all chosen and ready to go for those family celebrations or quiet winter evenings over the break.  Lots of Games We'll get our music theory review in with some fun holi...

One of my favorite things to do in lessons is to play duets with students, or better yet, have them play in ensemble with each other. We even have an entire performance centered around ensemble and collaborative piano skills with our Multi-Piano & Guitar Christmas Festival every year. So why do we make a point to play along with other musicians in our piano study? In this post we'll look at the unique benefits and musicianship skills we learn in collaborative music making.  Builds Focus Something as simple as starting a song at the same time requires young students to focus in on their music and the directions they are being given. If we are working over a specific section and their instructions are to start from a certain measure, and they start at the wrong spot, that is a great teaching moment to be sure we are practicing both listening and understanding the instructions that are given. While playing a duet, each note also becomes more important, and passages that a student ...

It's here! Our Fall Video Recital is up and available for viewing. You can watch it below, or join us over on the studio Facebook page for a 'Video Premier' at 11:00am on Saturday, November 7th where we will watch it together and students can see the applause and encouragement coming in the comments in real time during the performance.  If you would like a program of this show to follow along with or to have as a keepsake for your piano kid, you can download that here.  Thank you for joining us for this performance!