dawn's piano

Last week was our first week of the school year session here in the studio. And it was great to see so many students back and ready to jump right into their music. I found myself asking variations of this question several times throughout the week. "If there was one song you could learn this year, what would it be?" Or "Do you have a favorite song that you think would be fun to try and learn on the piano?" And depending on the student and their goals, I got a lot of fun answers. Some asked to start learning music to play for their church, some asked for a favorite theme from a movie or video game, some chose music by popular artists, and of course I had at least one ask to learn the Wellerman (thanks TikTok for bringing that one back on trend! Fortunately, I've always loved a good sea shanty).  These conversations with students about music they love and want to learn is one of the things that gets me really energized as a teacher. Because connecting my students ...

Last week we wrapped up our Summer Session here in the studio, and with it we also completed our 9th annual Young Composers project!  What is Young Composers? In this project each summer continuing students work on creating original music, from coming up with musical ideas to typing up sheet music and eventually recording a track of the completed work.  This project is an excellent way to solidify the music theory knowledge that we learn throughout the year, while also getting to enjoy a little change of pace and focus for the summer months. Working on typing and recording the music also gives students a little experience with the digital side of creating music - an essential skill for many of today's musicians. I intentionally choose to use software that has free versions available for this project, so that if students want to continue to explore composing on their own, they've learned on software that is easily accessible to them. (We use Noteflight for notation and Garage...