Adult Piano Class completes Book 1

This has been a wonderful group of ladies to teach! Today was their 8th class and recital (with refreshments!) to bring book 1 to an end. Each of them prepared a solo and received a Piano Achievement Award for book 1.
Five of them have already signed up to continue with book 2!
Congratulations ladies!

Johannes Brahms ~ Composer of the Month

Johannes Brahms was born in the German city of Hamburg. His father was a musician who played several instruments, but never managed to earn much money. So when Johannes was young, he played the piano at inns and dance halls to help support his family.When Brahms was older, he toured as an accompanist, playing piano for a Hungarian violinist. That music -- and the gypsy bands Brahms heard later on when he traveled to Hungary -- inspired his Hungarian Dances, which were a hit with the public. He wrote 21 dances in all. The most famous one is the Hungarian Dance No. 5.Many people considered Brahms to be the successor to Beethoven. For a long time, he didn't want to write a symphony, because he was afraid his work would not be as good as Beethoven's. Brahms ended up writing four symphonies, plus pieces in every musical form except opera. You may know one of his most famous pieces, the Lullaby.
In fact, Brahms became so famous, he is now known as one of the 3 B's -- Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms -- of classical music. (Classicsforkids.com)

Little Lights for Jesus in Cleburne Times Review

Little Lights for Jesus performed at the Joshua Crossroads Church this morning and did a beautiful job. At the end of the service a gentleman came up to ask me if this was the same choir that was in the newspaper. What? We were in the paper? Yes! that was us! We sang at Walls Hospital last Wednesday and a reporter had asked me a few questions so I knew there was a possibility of us being mentioned.

I have not read the paper yet, but as soon as I came home I looked on the website and they have a VIDEO with snippets of our children singing away! And they sound good too!

Take a look! http://www.cleburnetimesreview.com/videos/local_story_112190510.html

The Voca People

No More Excuses!

A man named Victor is one of the wonderful people we met on our mission trip to Mexico this past week. He is an accountant, a husband, father and grandfather. I had met him and his wife on the first day in El Cercado, and had noticed his peculiar hands, but did not think anything about it. Until the last night there, when one of my adult piano students, Stephanie told me that he was going to play the piano for her. I really went up to the piano just to translate and ended up asking my own questions.

Victor was born with deformed hands. Actually when he was born his hands were completely shut and he has been able to open them as much as you see here in this picture. He told us that he had always loved music and when the opportunity arose in school to learn to read music he was the first in line. After that he started reading notes from his teacher's score and would memorize everything. Later in life when he owned a hymnal he started to memorize the hymns and has committed 88 hymns to memory.

Look at his hands. This is exactly what they look like all the time. He plays the piano with the side of his right hand and the middle finger of his left hand. That's it.

And he is happy to do it. He told me that his deformity has never been an obstacle to the things he wants to do.

He should be an inspiration to all of us. No more excuses!

Composer of the Month: Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi was famous around the world and one of the few to die rich!

You can read his story here.

And how about getting involved in an activity to learn more about his opera "Aida"? Then you must click here, and print these activity sheets from Classics for Kids.

Would you prefer to watch a video of part of his "Triumphant March?" then click here.

Bad Habits that slow down the student's progress ...#2

#2. Don’t go ahead in the student’s books without the teacher's approval.

Why not?:
Music lessons are not primarily about learning a lot of pieces. Rather, they are about learning a sequence of skills. The skill must be taught by the teacher, not just read about in the book. (That’s what you’re paying me for!) The piece is there to reinforce and apply the new skills taught by the teacher. If the student attempts to learn the piece without having learned the skills, the piece has been wasted. It is extremely difficult to add those skills after the student has practiced the piece incorrectly for a week or two.

What to do instead:
If the student wants to do something extra, he or she should ask the teacher first. There are supplementary material at the end of each book. Go there first. If the student runs out of things to practice (really?), he or she should focus on polishing previously learned pieces.