Spring is in the Air

In a recent post about taking advantage of the weather, I mentioned making music outside and using the spring weather to inspire some song writing.  Today, I am sharing the quick recording my student and I made of her song “Spring is in the Air”.  All of the words and chords were written by my student with very little input or advice from myself.  Though she originally played the ukulele and sang the song, I am playing the ukulele in the recording simply because we were very short on time. I hope you enjoy this spring song written and recorded by one of my young students. Check out the track HERE!  Read More

Teaching Lessons: Taking Advantage of the Weather

Yesterday, I was sitting outside on my porch swing, doing some work, when my student was dropped off 15 minutes early for her lesson.  She walked up to the house, piano books and ukulele in hand, ready to play.  I didn’t have another lesson going on at the time so we didn’t really have an excuse to wait for the scheduled time to start. I decided to take advantage of the situation and the weather.  The student took a seat beside me on the porch swing and we decided to do our ukulele lesson outside!  It was so gorgeous out, how could I not take the opportunity to do a lesson outside??? After tuning the ukulele, practicing the new chords we had been working on, and reviewing a familiar song, we decided to take things one step further and use the glorious spring weather to write a song. With very little prompting and only a couple suggestions, my student was able to use her surroundings to inspire the lyrics to a multi-verse song with a full chorus and a set Read More

Songwriting for Review – Free Printable

Many piano teaching methods have a “test” at the end of a level to make sure students have learned all that they are meant to.  Often, my students get nervous about all of the words on the page and get too caught up in all the terminology to do well on the questions.  This also only tests their memorization of terms and concepts instead of their application. To combat this and instead work on reviewing the application of these concepts, I’ve developed a songwriting review form that be used with students at ANY level!  Simply fill in the blanks and fill the box with what words and ideas you want the student to incorporate in your student’s song!! Download Songwriting Sheet HERE!     Read More

Practice Olympics – Wrap Up

A few weeks ago I posted that my students were going to be participating in the Practice Olympics, in which they would work on different practice related events.  In order to “medal” they had to complete a certain number of events. 2 events = Bronze level prize (sheet of stickers) 3 events = Silver level prize (Stickers + Kazoo + Harmonica) 4 events = Gold level prize (Stickers + Kazoo + Harmonica + Gold Medal) I am pleased to announce that ALL of my students that participated earned at least a Bronze prize and most earned Silver or Gold.  They were THRILLED about the events and excited to work toward the different level prizes.  Parents also appreciated getting to see their kids excited about practicing.  This was also a great way for me to see what kinds of practicing motivates each individual and what specific areas (ex. note naming, note writing, identifying parts of music, sight reading, etc.) might need a little extra work.  All around, I call this event a success and plan on doing it again in 2 Read More