Hello teachers, Yesterday, I hosted a Zoom walk-through session of my new book, Keys at Play, Book 1. I enjoyed being able to share my work, and appreciated the positive feedback I received afterwards!  In case you missed it, I did record the session and am passing along the replay video link for you to watch at your leisure.   As stated during the session, I hope this walk-through feels like someone sitting beside you and talking through the book with you. I hope this helps you decide whether my book will be useful to you and worthwhile to integrate into your teachin ..read more

This past weekend concluded a three-weekend run of Silent Film Recitals I hosted for my piano students, and let me tell you — it was such a fun project to organize! I really enjoyed this as an opportunity for my students and myself to try a performance event different from a typical piano recital and learn about the historic art form of silent film accompaniment. I will share much more about how to organize a Silent Film Recital in a future blog post, but for today I will share a just few highlights and photos. I received inspiration and resources for this project from SilentFilmCelebration ..read more

Hello friends, I have an announcement to share today — one that’s been a long time coming. I won’t beat around the bush. I wrote a book! It’s called Keys at Play, Book 1: 88 Progressive Pieces for Pianists of All Ages. And it’s available for order now, across the world, in hardcopy form. I’ve written articles in the past about both Music Learning Theory and audiation, so you might already know how meeting Dr. Edwin E. Gordon in 2008 influenced my piano teaching. Since then, I’ve taken three certification trainings through the Gordon Institute for Music Learning and believe more than ever that ..read more

Do you enjoy giving some kind of small gift to your piano students at Christmastime? I do! I enjoy giving something small but thoughtful to make them smile. I try to come up with something different each year. Often, it’s a music-themed ornament for their Christmas tree, but not always. Some years, it’s a homemade gift; other years, it’s store-bought. Note: This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for supporting my blog! This year, I started browsing and brainstorming early. I found quite a few nice ideas on Amazon. (Later in this post, I’ll share a link to a whole list of ideas ..read more

As promised in my last post, today I’m sharing a recent short video of my daughter, Aria, and I playing my Trick-or-Treat rhythm game. In fact, we took this video clip earlier today! I’ve been playing this game with Aria daily for the past two weeks or so. I don’t ask Aria to read the rhythms on the cards, as I might with my older students. She’s three-and-a-half years of age, and my priorities are on developing her ear and musical understanding of that which she hears (i.e., audiation). So, instead we use a variation of the game where the teacher reads and performs the rhythm pattern, and th ..read more

It’s that time of year! I have a recurring event in my calendar that reminds me at the end of September each year to get out my Trick-or-Treat Rhythm Game for my piano students. I use this game at the start of almost every lesson I teach throughout the month of October. This game has been a classic in my studio since I created it back in 2018. I made it available for purchase in my shop a year later in 2019. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on making some revisions to the game and am pleased to announce the new version now available. I’ve smoothed out the progression of diffic ..read more

Do you like to have your piano students analyze and label the chords in their pieces? I do! I recently had the idea to create this pair of worksheets specifically for a couple of my students to assist with process of analyzing a piece. The worksheet is to be completed in the same key as their piece, before commencing their analyzation. The idea is to help students think ahead of time about what chords they can expect to see/hear in their piece — which can help make the analysis process easier. This is a two-page set of worksheets: one for working in major keys and one for minor keys. The work ..read more

I just updated one of the studio business forms from my Printables page for the 2023-24 school year.  It is called the Lesson Attendance & Payment Sheet PDF.  Even though I don’t personally use this sheet myself anymore (I now charge a monthly flat tuition rate), every year I receive requests from teachers asking if I would please update it for the upcoming school year. And I’m happy to do so!  In case you haven’t seen this from before, here is how it works: Write your students’ names in the first column.  Each week, write the lesson date (in a month ..read more

The last two weekends, I hosted a piano teacher retreat at my home in southeast Michigan with two groups of teachers. I’m still reeling from all the fun we had and memories made! It’s been a full and rewarding couple of weeks to be sure. In this post, I’ll share some photos and highlights from this year’s retreat, along with a quick bit of backstory behind these events. Note: This article may contain Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for supporting my blog and my work! How It Began The first time I offered a piano teacher retreat was back in 2017. The idea came thanks to feeling inspired by the ..read more

Last week, I attended the 2023 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) held July 26-29, 2023. I have to say it felt so great to be there face-to-face with fellow piano teacher friends old and new, especially because this was the first in-person I’ve attended since the pandemic! This morning as I was completing NCKP’s after-conference survey, I realized that I have been attending every NCKP since 2011. That’s a total of seven NCKPs so far! If you’ve never attended the NCKP, I highly recommend adding it to your bucket list. It’s similar to the MTNA National Conferences in many ways, but ..read more