Marvin Blickenstaff has been a pillar of the North American piano community for more than five decades. His dedication to outstanding teaching, learning, and performing has been honed through his work with innumerable students and their teachers. Anyone who has witnessed Marvin working with young pianists understands why his work is so powerful. He...

​In this issue of the Piano Magazine, we explore the impact of inspirational pedagogy on pianists of all ages and abilities. Teaching and learning piano requires dedication to developing skills, such as technique, voicing, balance, sight reading, and improvising, to name just a few. But, music is written to be shared with others, sometimes with pee...

I model practice with my students. Although the student sees the progress she makes in the lesson with our practice plan, she doesn't follow through at home. How can I help her use our practice plan at home so that she improves during the week?The word I most appreciate in your inquiry is "model." We should all model practice with our students duri...

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Back in the 1930s a young Venezuelan pianist wished to further her musical studies, and did exactly what many aspiring musicians from North and South America chose to do in those days: she went to Europe to study. After completing her studies in Paris, she made two life-altering decisions: she returned home to Venezuela, and she became a nun.Sister...

In my early years of teaching I clearly remember commenting about my students' playing to my husband, "All the notes and rhythms are correct, but they don't sound that good. I'm not sure how to help them make the music 'come alive'." I certainly have many more ideas and solutions than I did as a beginning teacher, and have learned a great deal from...

from the series: Let's Get Physical: Technique Pete Jutras, EditorMy wife and I have spent a lot of time lately teaching our young children how to read. I've never taught anyone to read language before, and it has been a fascinating and enlightening experience. One mild surprise was that after all the work on letters, sounds, sound combin...

 Marvin Blickenstaff, Professor of Music at Goshen College (Indiana) where he teaches applied piano and courses in piano pedagogy and music literature, was named 1990 Teacher of the Year by the Indiana Music Teachers Association. With Louise Bianchi and Lynn Freeman Olson, he co-authored the series Music Pathways (Carl Fischer Publis...

In the Winter 1994 issue of KEYBOARD COMPANION, several writers responded to a question on teaching downbeats. As if in unison, those teachers gave suggestions for feeling large groups of beats, the sense of moving from one down beat to the next instead of from one pulse to the next pulse. We swing, conduct with sweeping circles of the arms (o...

The greatest innovation in our teaching studios this past decade has been the new technology. This fact is made obvious by the topics of our teachers' association meetings, presentations at conferences, and the display areas of conventions. Each issue of KEYBOARD COMPANION has one section devoted to the new technology.The teaching of rhythm has rec...

To teach or not to teach downbeats is really not the question. We all realize that a sense of meter is dependent on the student's feeling of emphasis on the first beat of each measure. Just how one teaches downbeats varies from teacher to teacher, from method to method. Many helpful suggestions for a variety of rhythm activities aimed at feeling th...