Are you looking for fun ways to teach music history to piano students? Trying to integrate music history into games or activities so that your students get a rich well-rounded music education? I’ve got you covered. There are so many different aspects of music that we need to teach. Music history tends to be one…
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How Visual Piano Lesson Plans Can Improve Piano Student Attention
Do you ever struggle to capture piano student attention? Do students sometimes ask you how long is left, or do you find yourself getting less done in each lesson than you think you should? Visual piano lesson plans could be the answer. The benefit of having a visual piano lesson plan is that students know…
How to Use Games as a Travelling Piano Teacher
Using games as a travelling piano teacher can be a little cumbersome. You can’t exactly have a whole library of games and off-the-bench activities at your disposal on the road… Can travelling piano teachers even use games at all? I used to travel to students’ houses to teach for many years so trust me, I…
Creating Piano Practice Pros Part 4: The 3 Levels of Piano Practice
We all know that there’s practice, and then there’s practice. What many students think of as practice is actually just playing. They play each piece from start to finish, maybe a couple of times, then they call it a day. That’s not really practice. It’s basically a humongous waste of their time. Sure, they’ll eventually…
Creating Piano Practice Pros Part 3: What to do when you’ve tried it all
As we dive deep into piano practice this month, I wanted to answer the question that’s on everyone’s minds: what do we do when nothing works? What’s the magic solution when a kid just will not practice? Ha, if only right? If there actually was a magic practice wand, I’m sure the teacher who invented…
Creating Piano Practice Pros Part 2: Home Practice Instruments
Does this story sound familiar? A student is struggling with technique, they’re clearly not practising enough and for some reason, they keep getting lost looking for middle C…months into lessons! You try everything. You play games, you colour code, you connect what they’re doing to their favourite TV series and, nothing. Then you see a…
Creating Piano Practice Pros Part 1: Practice Routines and Regularity
Ah, practice. The number one topic piano teachers say is a struggle. How do we get kids into a practice routine so they’re practising consistently and effectively? What can we do that we’re not doing already? The problem with practice, is that it has many facets and we need to be able to tackle every…
How to Start a Piano Teaching Business from Scratch
This isn’t a post about pedagogy. I’m not going to debate the value of music degrees with you. What we’re talking about here is the logistics and considerations when starting a piano teaching business from scratch. If you’re overwhelmed by all the blog posts and all the debates going on in Facebook communities, then take…
How to organise your digital piano teaching resources (so that they actually get used!)
We all have it. The shameful folders, binders or Dropboxes of unused teaching resources. It weighs down on us and sneers: “Why aren’t you using all these awesome ideas? You’re clearly not as creative a teacher as you think you are.” You might even have some of my piano teaching resources sitting in that heap (be…
Battling Imposter Syndrome and Becoming a Confident Piano Teacher
Do you ever feel like you’re not a “real” piano teacher? Like somehow you’re an imposter? Are you lacking in confidence in your teaching and your business? This is certainly how I felt for the first 10 or so years of my teaching. I mean, who was I to teach this stuff? It hadn’t come…
