Anna We started with the Chromatic Scales warm-up in her performance book. She was playing very lightly at first, so I emphasized the importance of strong fingers and she played the warm-up with more strength afterwards. I suggested she also try the exercises hands separately and together, as she sometimes would have more trouble when she played hands together straight [...]
Anna We began the lesson with a warm-up using the chromatic scale page in her lesson book. I asked Anna to play one hand at a time and pay close attention to her pinky. She often has it point upwards as she plays. Once Anna was made aware of it, she was able to keep her finger down on the [...]
Anna We began the lesson by doing a quick warm-up with the C major scale. Anna has a tendency to twist her wrist while she's doing the full scale, so we worked on moving the thumb under without moving the whole hand/wrist. We also did the 5-finger C major scale (going from C to G then back down again) to [...]
This week, I was away and had David sub for me. Here are his notes! Rachel We first did Twinkle Twinkle, but I tried to get her to play it on a different octave (where there are no stars). I showed her that C is the first note in the song, and how to find C on the piano without [...]
Hello all! I will be away on February 1st, but there will be a substitute teacher in my place. David has worked with most of my students before, so they will be familiar with his teaching style. He knows what to work on and how everybody's lessons are structured, so it will be very similar to a lesson with me. [...]
Rachel This week we began by doing some stretches and playing Twinkle Twinkle as a warm-up. We then took a look at Little Lost Kitty. Rachel did a great job reading all the note names and playing the correct ones on the keyboard! I asked Rachel to try and play the song using the suggested fingerings in the book, and [...]
Anna We began the lesson with C major scale. I noticed Anna's pinky finger has a tendency to raise when it's not playing, so I asked her to try doing a five-finger C scale (playing up the G, then back down), with the focus being on keeping her fingers on the keys. I told her to imagine she was holding [...]
Anna This week, we began by doing a quick warm-up with the C major scale. We then started to look at Stars and Stripes Forever. Anna found the beginning to be very comfortable to play, but she was still having trouble playing the last three lines of the piece. As I know Anna has limited time to practice, I suggested [...]
Rachel Rachel did really awesome in this week's lesson! After doing some quick stretches and warm-ups, I started the lesson by reviewing the last song we looked at: Dinosaur Music Night. Rachel remembered a lot about how to read the music and the diagram in her book. I helped her play the song by reading out the finger numbers she [...]
Anna This week, we began our lesson by doing a quick warm-up with C major. Anna is able to play the scale quite comfortably and with strong fingers! We then looked at Alberti Etude, since it was one she found the most challenging before the break. We started by playing the "Alberti Bass Warm-Up" in C major, and then transposed [...]