A Weakness: Fun Studio Games!

Ok, here goes: I have music games for every season and almost every occasion and I love them! It's great to hear a student come in the studio and say "Can we play the _______ game today?" Ok, they're mostly saying it because they love beating the teacher, and maybe sometimes I have prizes involved, but I do think it adds variety and some extra fun learning to the last bit of a lesson. Don't you?

More Mary Poppins...

Since I played it so much recently, my daughter must have gotten Feed the Birds stuck in her head. So I wasn't surprised when she picked out the movie Mary Poppins to watch on the weekend. I was going about some housework while it was on, and couldn't help humming along to all those catchy songs (which definitely made my cleaning more fun). And when Chim Chim Cher-ee came on I thought, "I should try to make this into a duet!". So I did.

A New Composition/Happy Valentine's Day!

Well I finally made time to sit down at the piano this week and do some writing. I've been wanting to do it earlier but with such a busy start to the new year it's been almost impossible to find time. I wanted to write a piece about walking on the snow since I recently tuned in to the wonderfully musical and rhythmic squeaky sounds my boots made while walking. And since my nature walks are currently on hold (due to some major inflammation in my foot) I was glad to try and recreate a wintry walk down our snowy road through my music.  

Making Learning Fun

Lately I've been on a kick to gather some really fun supplementary materials to use in my studio.  It started out with simple worksheets to send home or complete in the last few minutes of a lesson.  Now I'm collecting a whole "tickle trunk" full of colourful games, flashcards, exercises and seasonal/themed pieces that I believe add a spark to each lesson.