Welcome everyone! In my last post I talked about the “Mental Game” of practice, positive mental strategies to develop efficient practice habits. If you didn’t read it, I encourage you to go back and look at it because not only is it important for all musicians, but it also ties into this post quite a bit. Today I’m talking about the negative psychological factors of which we are all probably guilty....
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So, the school year is starting again, and it is a perfect time for we music teachers to remind students and parents of our goals for this upcoming year. To have another successful and artistic year with music lessons we need a bit of planning, forecasting and development to help guide us through. Ask your student about their home practice area and supplies. What do they...
Read MoreAn inevitable part of being a musician is performance anxiety. From accomplished performers and teachers to beginning students we all experience it to some degree. Even those who say they do not deal with it still have a physiological reaction when performing. It is important to have techniques ready to teach students how to deal with the anxiety they are experiencing. One of the first things...
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There comes a point in every students’ learning when practice becomes arduous and stale. This can happen to any student at any age or skill level. Often hectic work or school schedules leave little time for practice making it feel like a chore, or students plateau at times and feel as if they are not making progress. The plateau often happens at the intersect of...
Read Moreby Jennene Estes I happen to love holiday and Christmas music, and it is not just that the melodies are so classic and they conjure up wonderful old memories of enjoyable times growing up with my family and church in a rural Virginia farming community. What I’ve discovered as a piano teacher is the power of one of those old melodies to actually change a young...
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