emily's blog

Often my piano students and colleagues are surprised to learn that music is something of a hobby for me: my main area of concentration is English, and my "day job" is teaching literature at the high school level.

Hello, everyone!  I've had a busy summer and fall, but wanted to share this idea with you:

Apologies for my long absence, everyone!  I'm happy to be back.

It's a completely true cliche: teaching is learning, twice.  If you think you know something well, try teaching it to someone else.  The odds are ten to one you'll learn so much that you'll find it hard to believe you ever "knew" it before.

Every once in awhile, I run into a skeptic -- someone who just isn't sure about all this fun we're having at piano lessons:  "Isn't reading music supposed to be hard work?  And how do you know those Blue Jello words are really helping them learn rhythms?  You know, real rhythms like you see in real printed music?"

Compared with my last pair of posts, this one will be much simpler, though the material is just as useful for musicians of all types!

As stated in my original biweekly plan, I use the Staff Slates and Grand Staff Cards together.  However, I use them at almost every single lesson in the beginning, so we make p

What's the goal of learning an instrument?  Enjoyment and enrichment, yes; proficiency and technique on the instrument, of course.  But beyond that, most musicians want to acquire technical skills that will help them if they ever decide to sing in a choir, learn another instrument, or (best of all) teach someone else.

Hence, sight reading.

Teaching is hard work, but every once in awhile, you get the rare gift of a material so well-designed, it teaches itself.  This is why I love the Blue Jello cards.

As much as I appreciate the careful and beautiful design of the more complex Music Mind Games materials, the simplest ones may just be my favorite.  That would be the Alphabet Cards.