Teachers are often a bit scared of using sol-fa in piano lessons. Yet sol-fa is such a useful tool for piano teachers and once learnt is a real time-saver. Sol-fa is the use of singing names for vocal pitch: doh, rah, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti. doh’. As pitch cannot be seen, sol-fa helps our […]
How good are your students at recognising intervals? Are they quick to read interval shapes? Are they quick to aurally identify intervals? Are they quick to feel interval shapes (in different keys) on the piano? Are they quick to define what an interval is by telling you that it’s “the distance between two notes”? LESSON ACTIVITY […]
You know those piano lessons that feel really, really good? Where both you and your student feel completely fired up and energised by the end of the lesson? Think back to these lessons and consider about what mades them so successful. For me I have pinpointed these lessons to be the ones when I stop […]
Have you accepted any new transfer students into your teaching studio this new academic year? It can be a tricky time as everyone in the partnership works out how the others tick. Putting a few logical processes in place can really help though. Here are five smart strategies that we’ve found really helps to smooth […]
This was my first week back to teaching since the summer holidays and I’ve been using lots of rote pieces to kick-start the new term – much more so than ever before. That’s probably because – over in The Community – our monthly topic for September is Teaching by Rote. So I’ve been living and breathing […]
Are you feeling prepared yet for the new piano teaching term ahead? Are you wondering if there’s something that you’ve missed doing so far? Our wonderfully creative, open and curious piano teachers who make up The Community have all been busy getting ready. Here are their 7 top tips for starting the term ahead feeling […]
Have you ever had concerns over safeguarding & child protection issues? Been worried about the physical or mental well being of a student? Do you know what DSP stands for? Do you know who your DSP might be or how to contact them? In this week’s blog post we are continuing to consider piano teaching […]
As a piano teacher do you have worries and concerns about maintaining a steady income? I certainly did for many years. When I started to teach I was very ad-hoc about how I actually ran the business side of things. I never created a business plan for my teaching in my early days. Why should […]
‘Adam is going on a school trip next week so please could we organise a make-up? ‘ ‘I’m sorry but it’s been sports day today and Emily is exhausted. Please could I cancel her piano lesson today and arrange a make-up another day.’ What do you say? I’m sure many of you have been faced […]
Like it or not, if you teach the piano you are running your own piano teaching business. In the last blog post I asked whether piano teachers are, like other arts based subjects, open to exploitation. Just because we have a passion for what we do. This week let’s put the passion to one side […]