playing music in a Blizzard

I am on a two week vacation.  What opportunity to just play piano all day.  Yet, I have distractions just outside my studio door.  My children are home as well and they are watching movies.  I am one to be completely sucked into television.  It's an old habit from childhood.  I feel regret that they watch as much as they do.  At this age I can no longer be an influence - the media world is a much stronger influence.  We have books and radio and cooking. But that TV blares in the background.  Sigh!  So I rush through to find my piano and the pile of music on it.  There is Debussy and Prokofiev, Mendelssohn and Chopin and Schumann.  It's a lot of music and I have to also be careful not to spread myself to thin.  I am setting my goals to keeping the Mendelssohn Variation Serieuses in shape and the concerto No. 3 of Prokofiev, and I want to learn the 2nd movement of the prokofiev.  That should be enough for now.  I think I will treat myself to an hour of music exploration each day and that should keep it from spreading to every moment at the piano.  That and bake a pie and make pecan bars.

Piano drop in update

We have just completed our fifth piano drop in class. I am having a lot of fun teaching this program. Each week I compose a new reading piece. I also make sure I have a mystery reading piece. I plan on reviewing a by ear piece which I call "the pieces no one every quite gets the first time". Depending on their level I add chords or chordal accompaniment. I plan to repeat the reading pieces as dictation pieces in August. I also plan to add Christmas carols (never too early). I found real nice paper to print on (a heavier weight). I also leave copies on my bulletin board so the students can always select a reading piece to take home. We always play aural improv games. This week I opened the class by having them choose a card that included either a warm up, a chord progression or an improvisation. They had to pick a key to do it in. We also played bingo with tonal patterns. I kept the patterns in g minor because the reading/by ear piece was "When the Train Comes along" which we did in ensemble as well.

Next year I may split the group to year one and year two. However, I so far don't see any problem combining the classes. I am mostly reviewing the end of year one, which includes so many fundamentals. If they are comfortable with book 2, they can continue with the other books.

I also taught an adult to read music using the adult MG program (with adaptations of course) and we had a blast. When the adult came in she was nervous but when she left she felt empowered and was laughing and excited about her homework.