How and where does your best thinking happen? Are you able to sustain your concentration for quite long periods? Or do you find that after a while, you need to get up, move around and have a short break before resuming what you were doing? Young children in particular tend to learn best through action […]
Lots of teachers ask Sharon and me why singing is so important when we are teaching the piano. Well, as Professor Gary McPherson stresses: ‘singing should be a common and natural part of all early [instrumental] lessons’.[1] Singing matters because it helps children to build up important mental models. For example, without a mental model […]
I wish there had been somebody who I could have asked for advice when I was a new teacher. I can remember feeling very bewildered and confused sometimes about what to teach and how to teach it. I say this because last week in the Curiosity Lounge (our private Facebook group for paid up subscribers […]
Sally writes… As I begin to write this, the last blog of the year, I am flying over the Irish Sea in what has become a familiar route for our quarterly Curious Piano Teachers business meetings. 2016 has been quite a year in one way or another, hasn’t it? As I have struggled to make […]
How does music make you feel? How does teaching make you feel? How does teaching music make you feel? Just take a moment to reflect on these questions in your own experience before going on and reading further. I have a meditation app called Headspace that I love to use for my short, daily meditations. […]
It exists: the preconception that teaching beginners is ‘easier’ compared to teaching higher level pupils. Consider just how many fledgling piano teachers start their teaching careers – by teaching beginners. (I know I did). It can be easy to assume that teaching the basics is an obvious place to start. Yet how does one design a series of effective lessons […]
For another year, the Music Education Expo (this year at London Olympia) has come and gone. What a cracking couple of days it’s been! So today you’re getting the round-up. Photos, videos and recorded Periscope broadcasts. CAFFE NERO, LONDON HEATHROW Wednesday, 24 February – 9.30am. Because all good things start with coffee. Remember this?! The rest […]
Last Friday I spent the day singing playground songs and canons in the company of some very willing and enthusiastic class and instrumental teachers. This was Day 2 of The Voices Foundations Essential Musicianship for Teachers course. As I travelled back home on the train I thought to myself how very lucky I was to […]