dawn's piano

Earlier this month, my grandma Britta passed away. From her I get my stubborn Swedish streak, my love for the ocean and piano (and my piano itself!) along with boxes and boxes of sheet music.

I am booked almost beyond capacity, and still receiving calls for more students on a weekly basis. Due to this high demand I have been receiving, I am looking to hire a second instructor to take on my waitlisted students. If you know anyone who would be qualified to do this, or if you are a potential instructor, please contact me !

Starting in February 2012, all of my monthly invoices will be sent using Google Checkout. I will be more than happy to continue collecting payment in person at the lessons -OR- You may choose to follow the links and pay online with any major credit card.

I hope you all had a wonderful and restful vacation! Now that we are getting back into the swing of things, I wanted to give you a few ideas to shake up your new year, and help us get off to a running start. Many of you have asked me about good music apps to enhance your practice time at home. With so many iPhone/iPod/iPads around, and I've seen that many of you have them, I thought I'd make a list of my favorite music apps:

As the holiday season draws near, I can already feel the pace of life picking up. While Southern California is one of the only places you can have your heater on with a sweater one day, and your AC with a t-shirt the next in winter, the seasons are nonetheless changing. Grateful that I don't have to drive through snow to reach my students, I still feel winter approaching.

One of the resources that I use for games, videos and theory tutorials in piano lessons is this website with a huge collection of resources created and made available by a piano teacher in Canada. Most of the games my students always ask me to play are from this site. "Funny Farm" ring a bell anyone? One of her newer additions that has really intrigued me is her series of lessons, games and even an app for the iPad.

Thank you everyone for a great Recital! I was very proud of everyone's performances, and grateful for all the help I received in coordinating it. This month's post will be inspired by my song choice from the recital. As my piano teacher from high school will attest, I always hated to play Bach. His music is very intellectual, but it is not as overtly passionate as other periods and composers. I told myself it was unninovative and not interesting enough to play. However, in the years since then, I began to hear the brilliance in Bach’s music.