Category: Young Beginners

My Top 5 Video Game Arrangements for Beginners

7/19/2020

Do your students love video game music? Do they want to play the music from their favorite games?

I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to find well-written, legally licensed arrangements of video game music--especially for beginning students. So, I've made it my mission to build a catalog of arrangements that both students and teachers will enjoy using!

Today I am sharing my 5 favorite video game arrangements for beginning students. Your students will be thrilled to get to play the music from their favorite games--and you'll love these pedagogically sound, level-appropriate arrangements! Read on for my top 5 video game picks!

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Easy Patriotic Songbook!

6/24/2020

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For those of us in the United States, Independence Day is just around the corner! This collection is a perfect way to celebrate the holiday with your elementary students.

This mini-book contains 5 famous patriotic songs, including lyrics, arranged at the elementary level. The last page of the book features historical background about each piece in the collection.

You can check out sample pages and listen to each piece HERE, or by clicking on the cover. Happy Independence Day!

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A Summer "Repertoire Challenge" Freebie!

5/13/2020

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With our virtual spring recital done, and the (online) school year wrapping up, I am looking ahead and planning a few fun challenges to keep my students busy this summer.

One challenge I will be giving my students this summer is to update their repertoire lists with all of the pieces that they currently have performance-ready. To help with this, I created this fun "o-fish-el" (ha ha!) summer repertoire challenge page for my younger students. I hope to see lots of brightly colored fish (and titles of favorite pieces) on each student's page by the time fall gets here!

Want to try the summer repertoire challenge with your students? Click HERE or on the picture above to download a free copy to share with your students!

What fun summer challenges do you have planned in your studio? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

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The First 5 Techniques Every Beginner Should Know

3/7/2020

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Teaching technique can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of different technique books out there, and nearly as many different schools of thought on teaching technical concepts. As teachers, we may be afraid of instilling bad habits in our students. Our students, overwhelmed with learning keyboard geography, note reading, and rhythm, may be resistant to practicing technical exercises and taking corrections on their technique. What is a teacher to do?

Over the last few years, I have developed an approach to teaching technique to my beginning students that has changed my teaching for the better. Today, I would like to share the first five techniques I focus on with my students, and the activities I use in my lessons to reinforce these skills. We learn these techniques away from the piano first, then we practice them at the piano using rote patterns like scales and broken chords. Finally, we incorporate these techniques into our repertoire pieces. Mastering these techniques in the first year of lessons will create a firm foundation for the more advanced technical concepts that follow.

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The Bear and the Bird: A Story-Based Improv Activity for Beginners

12/31/2019

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The new year is always a great time for incorporating a few fresh, creative activities into our lessons! With that in mind, today I am sharing one of my favorite creative activities for beginning students: a story-based improv activity.

This is a great activity for helping students become comfortable creating sounds at the piano away from the written page. I tell students that for this activity, I am the narrator and they are my "sound effect engineers." Their job is to choose a sound on the piano that they think fits the story as we read it together.

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My Top 5 Video Game Arrangements for Beginners

Easy Patriotic Songbook!

A Summer "Repertoire Challenge" Freebie!

The First 5 Techniques Every Beginner Should Know

The Bear and the Bird: A Story-Based Improv Activity for Beginners

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