dawn's piano

Students have been working on these compositions throughout the summer session, and today's the day we get to share them with you!  Young Composers is an annual summertime project in our studio that started back in 2013. All continuing students (which just means students who have taken lessons with the studio heading into that summer) work on creating an original piece of music. Then they notate it, and in the final week of lessons we have a recording session to lay down the tracks of their pieces.  Composing is such a valuable exercise for music students. It gives them a chance to take a little extra ownership of their musical journey and to put what we learn about music theory throughout the year into practice from a new angle. As a teacher, I enjoy seeing the different approaches that students take to composing, and what they draw inspiration from.  Be sure to let these young pianists know how much you appreciated their music the next time you see them. And for any pia...

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...

Drumroll please! I am proud to present our 8th annual Young Composers Project for 2021! What is Young Composers? Each summer at Dawn's Piano, continuing students get to dig into creating original music and learning about the composing process. In just a handful of lessons, students write, notate, practice and record tracks for their original music. This is a highly anticipated season by the students, and I am often asked throughout the year 'when will we get to do that thing where we write our own music again?'. For this project, I also intentionally choose to use software that is free or included with an OS ( Noteflight for notating, GarageBand for recording), so that the programs we learn can be accessible for students to continue exploring and creating on their own if they are so inclined.  For students who truly enjoy the process of creating music, this opens doors and helps them find ways into exploring that. And for all students, whether they're jazzed by creati...

Summer is a time to unwind a bit and have fun exploring music that makes us happy. And since I have been encouraging students to play through favorites, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into some of my soothing favorites that have been on my music stand lately. As we all know, the past few months have been hard, weird and overwhelming. We also know that the arts and music can be really valuable as a way of emotional relief or shelter, or to work out some of those harder feelings. I've been sharing some music on my personal instagram page to connect with friends and bring peaceful little breaks from the news cycle into their routines. These are just casual, spur of the moment videos, and they are what I've sharing with you today.  Merry Go Round of Life by Joe Hisaishi This is the main theme from one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies Howl's Moving Castle , which happens to be based on my favorite book of the same title written by Diana Wynne Jones. It's a ha...

Today's post is a wish for a very Merry (and musical!) Christmas and holiday season from our studio to your home.  And I'm sharing with you an elementary leveled piano solo of "The First Noel" that I prepared when I couldn't find exactly the right thing for one of my late elementary students who wanted to learn it this season.  My goal was to create something with movement in the bass clef and to include some intro & interlude sections that would add some sophistication to this piece as a piano solo, but still be an appropriate level for an elementary leveled student.  You can preview what the arrangement sounds like here:   The sheet music is available for purchase on Sheet Music Plus , but for you, dear reader, you can receive a copy as my holiday gift to you by entering your email below! The studio will be closed the next couple weeks so students and teacher alike can all enjoy some holiday down time with family & friends. The blog w...

This month's sheet music feature is All of Me by John Legend arranged for early intermediate piano solo.  With a clear melody and a chord based harmony, All of Me lends itself well to piano solo, especially since in the original artist recording, the accompaniment is played primarily by a piano. So it really doesn't take too much change for this piece to be pleasing to play for late beginners or early intermediates, and enjoyable to listen to for friends and family of young students. This arrangement is in the song's original key of A-flat, and will give early intermediate students some opportunity to practice a trickier key signature while playing a familiar melody. The melody is syncopated to follow the vocal line, with the harmony simplified to play the chords on the downbeats. Intermediate students who are ready for more complexity could be encouraged to use the chord progression to create an accompaniment pattern or rhythm of their own. The sheet music is publ...

I'll be honest, this is truly one of my favorite blog posts to write every year. I'm just so thrilled to unveil our student compositions! And this summer I was particularly excited to relaunch the Young Composers summer program after having to pause it last year due to the studio relocating. Having a composing focus rolled back into our regular summer curriculum reflects the value this studio places on creativity and self-expression as a crucial part of learning to play an instrument. Composing & notating music is also a terrific way to apply music theory knowledge and gain a more fluent understanding of the concepts learned in lessons. And that's definitely something we saw happening this year! So many students, from beginning through advanced levels, impressed me with their ability to take what they were playing on the piano and translate that into sheet music using the notation software with very minimal guidance. And then we went one step further and during our ...

Over the years I have had several students of different ages and levels request to learn Just the Way You are by Bruno Mars , because of that have ended up with two differently leveled arrangements, and now for the first time, both are available on SheetMusicPlus . Up until this point, I have had the early intermediate version available, and even though the song is now a few years old, it has consistently been one of the best sellers in my SMP Press store, so I decided to go ahead and make the more advanced version available as well. This piece works well as an audience-pleasing piano recital piece, background music at a wedding reception, anniversary party, or just to play for our own enjoyment. The cool thing about having a couple arrangements of one piece is we can talk a little bit more about arranging music for different pedagogical levels (for those who are interested in such things). Let me take you through a little analytical listening exercise:    First, let'...

We know that beginning pianists are motivated to practice when they play music they love, and this piece from the hit move The Greatest Showman is sure provide that incentive. Tightrope has been arranged here for beginning piano solo. But that's not all you get with this sheet music! Included with the purchase is also an optional teacher duet that helps add lots of color to this piece . Played as a solo or duet, this waltz-like song with a charming melody is sure to be a crowd-pleasing performance piece for family & friends or at a recital.  You can hear the duet played here:    And you can preview the sheet music & see the purchasing options on SheetMusicPlus.com here:   look inside Tightrope - Easy Piano By Benj Pasek, Justin Paul. Arranged by Dawn Ivers. Set of Parts, Solo Part. 11 pages. Published by Dawn Ivers (H0.433545-SC000017498).  Want more sheet ...

Progress in piano study can be difficult to recognize because it is so gradual. This can sometimes feel discouraging for the student, because even though we make strides from week to week, it's not always easily measurable from the student's perspective. The best way to remedy this is to track and celebrate long term progress. Those who follow the studio on social media will know that I often share student videos. In addition to celebrating current success, these videos can also be a way of marking where we've been so at a later time students can look back and see how far they've come. But you can go further than this by keeping a video or audio journal of your child's piano progress.  In episode 128 of the Piano Parent Podcast Shelly gives us some tips on how to keep just such a video or audio journal of a piano student's musical journey. You can listen to the episode right here, or read the full show notes on the podcast's website :      One of ...

During my first winter in Kansas, I - like so many others in cooler climates - find myself hoping for Spring. And it is from that anticipation of the changing seasons that these compositions took shape. Bloom is a collection of 5 spring-themed compositions for piano solo. Each solo in the book is distinct, and offers unique teaching points for piano students. The variety of styles will bring new life to Springtime recitals, or provide a refreshing variety for a hobby pianist to enjoy playing at home. As has become tradition in my Seasons Series , for the creatively inclined or curious, one of the pieces includes an invitation to improvise your own passages within the piece. The music is leveled at intermediate, and would be appropriate for pianists of all ages.  This collection celebrates the newness of life as Winter fades and Spring begins to bloom again. It explores the rejuvenation we feel as the world wakes up around us, as we hear the gentle rain of a spring shower or s...

Today I'm sharing a newly updated version of my arrangement of "Let it Snow!" for late intermediate to early advanced pianists. This is a fun, lighthearted piano solo that will delight guests at holiday gatherings & bring smiles to the audience at your holiday recital.  The arrangement explores a couple different bass clef accompaniment styles to lend variety & movement to the repetition of the well-known chorus. Students have the chance to work on some dynamic, articulation & voicing changes throughout the piece as well. Sheet music is available here You can hear the track using the player below.     The sheet music is published through SMP Press, if you are interested in publishing your own compositions or arrangements and letting someone else worry about the copyrights or hosting files, use my affiliate link to get started.  Looking for more sheet music for the winter months? Here are a couple more to try.  Snowfall - pre...

Turning is a collection of 5 autumnal piano solos for early intermediate pianists. Each solo is in a different style that will bring variety to a performance, or give an individual student a chance to increase their stylistic range. And for more creatively inclined students, two of the pieces (Acorn Boogie & Twilight) have optional improvisational sections. The solos are leveled as early intermediate and would be appropriate for learners of all ages.  This collection seeks to capture the cozy joy & serenity that a lot people feel during this season as scarves & boots resurface, and pumpkin spice everything abounds. But a few pieces also have elements of the wistful mysteriousness that can accompany the changing seasons and shorter days as the summer dies, the air grows more chill, and we watch the leaves begin to fall. You can give them a listen in the music player below, and if you're interested in the sheet music, you can view purchasing options here . ...

This is an arrangement that was requested by a student several years back, and was a studio favorite among my intermediate students for a few years following that. One student would perform it at a recital, and others would ask to learn it after the performance. I even had one young lady who was asked by her priest to perform it in church after he heard her playing it in one of the Sunday School rooms because he liked the sound of it. The arrangement provides a good introduction to triplets because the tempo of the piece is very slow and the majority of the melody's rhythm is triplets. The solo also features a section of the melody played in octaves, providing good practice in right hand octaves and creating that epic, full sound  that we know our teen students love, before the song winds down. You can listen to the arrangement below, and if you're interested in trying it out for yourself or a student, the sheet music is available for purchase on Sheet Music Plus . ...

One of my favorite songs as a child was "Tale as Old as Time" from Disney's Beauty & the Beast. I'm going to date myself here, but this was the first movie I saw in theaters when I was 4 years old. And I remember it vividly. I already loved books by that age, so Belle was instantly my hero. . . Anyways, back to the music: Tale as Old as Time is a lovely piece, with a simple, timeless melody that is full of nostalgia for so many in my generation. And with the new live action movie coming out last year, it has seen a definite resurgence in popularity with kids again. What I'm sharing today is a late beginner/early intermediate piano solo that I did for a student several years ago when she had asked to learn this piece and I couldn't find just the right thing that I wanted for her level. I probably could have looked longer & harder ended up finding something that would've worked, but since I do enjoy arranging music I decided instead to sit down a...

Since we'll be taking next week off for the winter break, I wanted to use the last post of 2017 to look back at the year, and share a few of my favorite moments. So here they are! The highlights: We put on 2 fantastic recitals with over 100 performers in both the spring & fall schedules. We had another successful summer of Young Composers where 20 students participated in composing, notating & recording original pieces of music. Many of those students have received awards from the Reflections Art Competition for their compositions. Click here to see the finished results. We launched a couple practice challenges , and, I might add, several of our students are rocking it in both the 100 day & 40 Piece practice challenges - keep it up everyone! Follow @dawnspiano on Instagram for regular updates. We started a little side-hustle selling sheet some music. Click here to see our store. Dawn gave an interview with Piano Parent Podcast . Mallory published an article ...