Philosophy of Teaching Music:

Some of my questions to a prospective piano student is what is your goal? How good do you want to be? How involved do you want to be with music when you are an adult?

Most young children don’t know the answers to these questions and they just know they like music and want to be able to play the piano. Of course, they don’t realize the work and practice time that is involved in that. I find that very few of my students want to be the kind of pianist who will play alone on the stage in front of an audience. Rather, most of them will be church pianists, members of praise bands, teachers who will be able to play for events in their school, and some will even play for their family and friends to gather around the piano and sing on special occasions.

In every one of these instances the pianist needs to be pretty good - because none of these things can be accomplished by a pianist who stops and thinks when they get to a difficult chord or passage or by a pianist who cannot keep a steady beat and tempo. Most of what they will do on a piano will require many skills, which have to be developed, practiced and worked on until they become “automatic” when they play. Only then will they be able to play with feeling and expression.

I love taking students through the steps of becoming a successful pianist. One of my greatest joys is teaching a student to play “what’s not on the page”, so he or she will be able to play for a church service or accompany for someone to sing. I love seeing the discovery of opening a students eyes to the understanding of chords and patterns that can be applied to the chords in any key.

An understanding of music theory is a part of learning. Thankfully, I can use computer “games” to support the teaching of theory making it a more “painless” and fun way to learn.

There is so much technology available today to make piano lessons fun and interesting for any age student. I love having MIDI disks available for students to hear how their pieces are supposed to sound. Even a beginner who can only play five notes can sound WONDERFUL when he plays along with a MIDI disk with full orchestration.

Learning to keep a beat is learned almost by absorption when the student hears the beat and sees the light keeping the beat as he listens or plays along. More advanced students are helped with MIDI disks that are programmed so that the student can play one hand while they hear the other hand being played. These are wonderful teaching tools.

I have found some students who are wonderful composers at an early age. Sometimes they are able to put their own song into the computer program that will print out a copy with their name on it as the composer. I love seeing the smile that brings when they are able to take it home to show their parents.

The bottom line is that lessons have to be individually designed to help the student be successful. For beginning students, I use the Faber Piano Adventures series and take students through the learning steps as they progress through the books. Students love supplementary materials so they learn music they really enjoy playing. I find that students don’t really have to be “made” to practice if they like what they are playing and they are given the tools to be successful so they don’t struggle with a piece during their practice time at home.