tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24766639969093943642024-09-22T17:33:01.308-04:00We have moved! Please visit LowePianoStudio.com!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-22975683118139364172021-03-19T13:23:00.002-04:002021-03-19T13:24:06.933-04:00

It’s a common occurrence in my studio for a beginning student to respond with a lovely scale when I ask for a chord, or a beautiful chord when I ask for a scale. We ask first and second-year piano students to learn so many new words! It’s understandable that they sometimes get them confused! I’ve made a new explainer video and published it on my youtube channel to help my students remember the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-28170541584369250212021-03-13T18:30:00.003-05:002021-03-13T18:30:27.615-05:00

 A few days ago, I was surprised to discover I had won a giveaway on Instagram! 5,000 free points on boomlearning.com! I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I thought I'd share with my piano teacher friends how I've been using Boom Decks in my piano studio since January. They did not ask me to write this post, but I thought I'd give them a shout out here in appreciation! The boom

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-89894208345012807252021-02-22T11:25:00.006-05:002021-02-22T11:27:49.604-05:00

This week starts my pentascale unit in the piano studio! I have a big crop of beginner students this year, and Spring is my time for pentascales. Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I teach these by starting with learning about half-steps, then learning the half and whole step formula. It's been one of my more popular ones, so it seems like a good time to do an update. I made the video

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-45446863775678085352021-02-14T20:08:00.000-05:002021-02-14T20:08:03.394-05:00

Are your beginners like mine? Do they add a little sneaky 4th beat when playing in 3/4 time? Here's how I deal with that in my studio!Call in the Ghostbusters!

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-50304140757772339002021-02-10T09:45:00.004-05:002021-02-10T10:06:53.885-05:00

When I first started teaching piano in the 80s, there were no blogs, webinars, or facebook groups for piano teachers. No downloadable teaching tools, no youtube videos. I started out armed with a notebook full of ideas from my pedagogy professor, a survey of the various methods on the market, and the 2-volume set of books by Denes Agay, Teaching Piano:  A Comprehensive Guide and Reference

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-27287995414831588122021-01-19T16:40:00.000-05:002021-01-19T16:40:08.322-05:00

Beginners sometimes have trouble getting started practicing their pieces at home. Here's an idea that might help!  Watch the video to see how I use a magical Hocus Focus Tool to teach students how to start their piece.  You can download a template for your own Hocus Focus tool here. (Or just draw your own on cardstock!)

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-11428415548048467102020-12-30T16:56:00.004-05:002020-12-30T17:15:37.433-05:00

I don't know about you, but I'm super happy about celebrating the arrival of 2021! It just has to be a better year than 2020, right? I even had some Happy New Year cards printed this year and mailed them instead of Christmas cards. Unfortunately, we lost our big dog, Bella, to cancer shortly after this photo was taken. We were so glad to give her one last trip to the beach, so there are very good

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-38358155875183300662020-12-03T22:29:00.003-05:002021-01-19T18:00:26.187-05:00

I have a new video up on my Youtube channel, and as promised, it's all about footrests for piano students. I consider a footrest to be essential equipment, just as I do an adjustable bench. Students whose feet don't reach the floor will tire out and succumb to frustration more quickly. They will practice longer and with a better hand position if some of their weight can be transferred to their

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-7188041553244188102020-11-16T21:10:00.003-05:002020-11-16T21:10:19.450-05:00

This week's 'splainer video is intended for older students, piano parents, and piano teachers. If you have a child studying piano, or if you have people of varying heights all using the same piano bench, you need an adjustable model! Even adults of roughly the same height can need to sit at differing levels due to their arm and torso length. I consider an adjustable bench to be necessary

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-35497551336227837212020-11-09T10:27:00.004-05:002020-11-09T10:27:47.374-05:00

 My next 'splainer video is up! This one shows all of my tricks for having a good hand position at the piano, and includes clips of me demonstrating them with students. These videos are intended to be resources for my students and yours between their lessons. You can assign them to your students to watch if you like. For this one, I've started a new thing. I included a secret word. If my

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-5796475865482914662020-10-26T09:29:00.009-04:002020-10-28T10:23:10.085-04:00

There's a new video up on my YouTube channel! This one is an explainer on how to read intervals quickly. I'm big on intervallic reading with my students, and in this video, you'll hear how I teach them to move past the stage of counting lines and spaces when identifying intervals by number, and how I apply what they learn from flashcards (or apps) to actually reading the intervals quickly in

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-56833665796353753792020-10-16T10:47:00.001-04:002020-10-16T11:09:59.303-04:00

I think I've posted before about how much I enjoy using the Sight Reading Pattern Cards at Jennifer Fink's Pianimation site. (They're free!) I use them with every beginner starting at about the 4th lesson while they're still in pre-reading notation as an introduction to how notes move on the staff, and I continue to use them throughout the first and second year. I pulled them out for a 2nd year

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-88753406358384470162020-10-02T19:41:00.000-04:002020-10-02T19:41:15.954-04:00

 I always have a yearly theme in my studio. Over the years, it's been space, dogs, detectives, and all sorts of things, but this year, it's emojis! I was inspired by a sticker collection. My students consistently asked for one of the emoji stickers when they earned stickers in their books. Everybody loves emojis - well, everybody except my high-school-aged daughter who rolled her eyes. "

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-25058771360645667642020-09-23T16:39:00.000-04:002020-09-23T16:39:00.749-04:00

I'm a month into our fall term with now 4 online students and 11 in person, and thankfully, no students have gotten sick - at least not with Covid. If you've read my previous posts about my cleaning and masking protocols, I'm happy to say that's working out well. I'm thrilled to have 6 beginners this year, the most littles I've had in a while. They're all delightful!Now that I've grown a little

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-56565621236165449062020-08-11T12:02:00.007-04:002020-10-16T11:15:01.191-04:00

In Part 1 of my returning to in-person teaching posts, I discussed my cleaning protocols for keeping students safe from germs in the studio. This post will discuss policies that I've created for students/families.First of all, I continue to offer online lessons for anyone who wants them. It's not my preferred way to teach, but I'm happy that I have this as an option to offer. There are tons of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-59052485875554831162020-08-08T18:29:00.007-04:002020-08-11T14:30:45.626-04:00

My county, as of 8/8/20 - Harvard Global Health InitiativeWell, piano friends, the schools in my county have been back in session for a week now. The elementary schools are open a full 5 days/week, and the middle and high schools are doing a hybrid of in-person and online. All of my piano students except the ones who were already home schooling are back in classes. At the same time, we're in a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-17340051031432967632019-08-19T13:41:00.000-04:002020-01-11T12:15:34.116-05:00

We piano teachers hold some negative feelings about things people say about piano lessons. One is when parents refer to lessons as "practice," like soccer practice. At soccer practice, tennis practice, basketball practice, a lot of the time is spent in drills to reinforce movements and techniques. With piano lessons, since we meet only once a week, those drills need to be done at home (

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-52286875941570703012018-10-29T20:40:00.001-04:002020-11-16T21:15:41.770-05:00

UPDATE:  I have a video about adjustable benches on my youtube channel. Check it out! Here's a photo of one of my 3rd grade students. In the right side photo, she's sitting at standard bench height with no foot stool, and in the left photo, she's at the proper height with a stool for her feet. She looks pretty uncomfortable on the right, doesn't she? It's impossible for her to use a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-88860356658381414402017-11-18T10:29:00.000-05:002019-11-01T15:09:21.923-04:00

Stock photo If you teach with any of the popular method books, you've had the following experiences. Student sits down at the piano and asks, "What position am I supposed to use?" before even looking at the notes on the page. Student comes back after a week of supposed work on a piece and says, "I couldn't figure out where to put my fingers" even though you've been drilling with flashcards

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-1679651903586350362017-09-20T14:13:00.001-04:002020-12-10T13:47:45.378-05:00

An 8-year-old student cried at her lesson with me last week, and it broke my heart. It hurt that she was sad enough to cry, but I was hurt and annoyed by the problem that precipitated the tears. Here follows a small rant that is probably a little rambling because I'm frustrated and strapped for time to write. Please indulge me and read it anyway. The child came to me as a transfer student

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-25596913854322581902017-01-02T02:00:00.001-05:002020-12-10T13:48:41.813-05:00

Sharing this post today from my other blog, Connections and Conundrums, which now features a Music on Monday category. My family knows that every Christmas, they're going to hear me rant about Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D. They steel themselves for it the same way I steel myself against hearing or playing this infernal piece one. more. time. The only thing worse than being locked in a room

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-24572202920630613202016-11-08T08:46:00.000-05:002016-11-08T08:46:12.970-05:00

As I approach another one of those birthdays that starts with the number 5, I'm shocked to realize just how long I've been teaching piano. I opened my piano studio in 1987, almost 3 decades ago. I took about 3 years off during graduate school and when my daughter was a baby, but still, it's been a long run! I'm happy that I can still say that I love it, and I don't plan to quit any time soon.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-13739366865630693322016-10-31T11:20:00.001-04:002016-10-31T11:20:22.682-04:00

Why, yes, I do realize that today is Halloween! I also know that musicians everywhere are already working on Christmas music. If you need an intermediate level Christmas arrangement for solo piano, I hope you'll check out my latest upload to Sheet Music Plus Press - "He Is Born." I did some product testing last week by playing it for all of my students and my worst critic of all, my 14-year-old

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-91691422659307530812016-09-21T16:44:00.000-04:002016-10-19T13:16:47.910-04:00

In my very small hometown, our local newspaper celebrated student achievements, even small ones, by publishing lots and lots of photos. Nice older folks in my community would clip those photos and articles and mail them to the students with congratulatory notes. These days, we do the same thing with social media and "likes." This year, I've created an Instagram account for my studio. Parents

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476663996909394364.post-9505786442684197242016-09-20T13:02:00.000-04:002016-09-20T13:02:29.934-04:00

Two of the most creative people I know are offering a webinar soon! Bradley Sowash and Leila Viss have great ideas for helping your students succeed with rhythm. I know from my experience in Denver at the 88 Creative Keys Conference that Bradley and Leila are super at creating hands-on lessons for students. Their inventive activities will help your students move from mere mental knowledge to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1