Tag Archives: teaching

69/100 – Jig-saw Learning

Posted on November 10, 2016 by

What do you do when a pupil turns up at a lesson, declaring that she hadn’t done any work on the piece from last week because “it is too difficult”…. Let’s pretend she was a violin pupil learning to play … Continue reading →

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52/100 Brushing up on Sight Reading

Posted on July 25, 2016 by

  I’ve just bought some of the new syllabus ABRSM piano teaching books to have a look at what’s coming up for next term. So I open them up, and start playing through – and AAARGH! where have my sight-reading … Continue reading →

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Issue 144: Timing/Pulse/Rhythm in Performance

Posted on November 16, 2014 by

I’ve been ranting for several weeks now about the difficulty of accompanying children who do not play their pieces with a good sense of pulse. In the past I have accompanied Gershwin while the clarinettist (Grade 2, was it?) played … Continue reading →

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Issue 121: Ted talk; “The Transformative Power of Classical Music”

Posted on February 2, 2014 by

many thanks to the Kodaly and Orff Music teacher’s blog http://herdingcatsgeorge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-transformative-power-of-music-ben.html for this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LCwI5iErE which is a “TED talk” by Benjamin Zander. It is twenty minutes long – and well worth watching every minute. I was inspired by his … Continue reading →

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Issue 120: Elephants and kangaroos – the tricky bits

Posted on January 27, 2014 by

No, nothing to do with “Carnival of the Animals”, but that’s probably why I chose these animals to teach some tricky moments in a Grade 2 piano piece. The problems started in bar 3 and continued into bar 4: In … Continue reading →

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Christmas Issue 116: Friday 27th December – teachpianotoday

Posted on December 27, 2013 by

I picked up a link to this post from the www.teachpianotoday.com site from one of the people I follow on twitter; (thanks, @trebletrio !) http://www.teachpianotoday.com/2013/12/26/the-top-5-piano-teaching-posts-in-2013/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-top-5-piano-teaching-posts-in-2013 Browsing through the site should while away an hour or so… I’m now about to follow … Continue reading →

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Issue 113: Lessons from my piano teacher (2)

Posted on November 24, 2013 by

Here’s another instalment from the lessons I had from my old piano teacher (hey – not so much of the “old” – there are actually only about ten years difference in age between us, as I was round nine years … Continue reading →

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Issue 94: Let’s start from the beginning

Posted on July 10, 2013 by

MusicTeacher     ‏@DailyMusicQuote 12 Oct 10 “If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.” ~ L. Pavarotti MusicTeacher     ‏@DailyMusicQuote 24 May  “I can only think of music as … Continue reading →

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