Piano Tutorial of a Beginner Arrangement of Happy Birthday

This was inspired by one of my beginner students. His mom's birthday is coming up, so I thought it would be neat to have him work on this. However, I was stumped to find a really easy version of the song for beginner piano students who are still at the pre-reading level. Then I remembered: folk songs and popular songs like this are best learned by ear. Beginners already know the rhythm, they just need help with positioning:

Music Practicing 101 - Fill in the Blanks Drill

This is a handy practice drill to use when you keep pausing in your song. It's best done with a small section and then you expand your work area. The video was taken last winter (hence, the Christmas hat). It goes through how to use the Fill in the Blanks Drill.

Happy practicing!

Make a Playlist for Music Teachers and Students

When I was preparing for my ARCT examination in Piano Performance through the Royal Conservatory of Music, I had a "normal" office job. Often, I brought my practice binder to work to squeeze in a few minutes of score study at lunch time. However, the one thing that really helped me practice away from the piano was listening to my RCM CD's as I worked. Now it's so easy for music students and music teachers to listen to various performances of the repertoire they are working on. In fact, I created music playlists on my Youtube Channel so that I can listen to what my students are working on. I've shared the link with their families so that they too can listen/watch. It's a win-win situation. Now only do they get to listen to a variety of performances that I've screened for them (saving them search time), but they get exposed to a wider range of music as they listen to what their peers are working on. It's all about squeezing in music appreciation any chance you can get.

As for me, I get to listen to them as I get some office work done. Somedays, I'll catch something I've never noticed before and make a note to focus on a particular section during a lesson. Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud and all the other media sharing sites are wonderful music teaching resources. Here's what I'm listening to right this minute: It's a great way to practice piano (or to practice any musical instrument) - away from the practice room.

Website Migration and Cross-Posting

Maintaining and updating your music studio website is one thing that should be done regularly. After all, search engines, love dynamic pages. However, how many music teachers have a lot of time to spend on their website? Not I, and although I learned Dreamweaver at my last "regular" job, I feel that website design technology has advanced far beyond what I was taught at my basic "Introduction to Dreamweaver" class. Although, I do know some HTML code, I cannot, for the life of me, get my brain around CSS. I'm sure, with time, I'd get it, but back to my original question, "How many music teachers have a lot of time to spend on their website?" That's when I started blogging. At least, that way, some pages on my site would get updated. However, I am challenged to update even my blogs regularly. My latest experiment is to ask several fellow word-savvy music teachers to contribute to my Musings at Musespeak and Busted Piano String blogs. We'll do some cross-posting on each other's blogs, thereby injecting new life to each other's sites, and share new ideas with a larger audience. Stay tuned for some guest posts. Back to my website. I will be migrating my website to Wordpress with the hopes that simplicity with lead to website optimization. Well I will be, once I'm done watching all Wordpress tutorials published by fellow music teacher and web guru Robert Vimer.

Music Practicing Podcasts

This week, I've taught "The Art of Practicing" at a few music group classes at my studio and my brother's. We have such a wide variety of learners. I promised the aural learners that I would find some music lesson podcasts for them. Here are some: Conklin Studios - Video Blog and podcasts The Piano Podcast - with Mario Ajero BBC's Music Workshop Podcasts e-learning Music Podcasts  These are full of tips on how to practice as well as how parents can the music student in their family.

Happy listening and learning.