While routine can be valid and effective for piano students and teachers, sometimes a break from the usual can be refreshing. After nine months of the school-year schedule, the summer months provide an ideal time for the exploration of new approaches. The benefits of summer study include the freedom to try a different format for your teaching—if yo...

​ This century's technology provides many tools for keyboard teachers, students, and parents. Internet MIDI, Skype, blogs, YouTube, and many other innovations bring new ways of learning music at the keyboard. The University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Project on YouTube is an ambitious undertaking Dr. Alan Huckleberry and Dr. Jason Sifford initiated in ...

In this department over the past thirteen years, many authors and myself have alluded to two different meanings of the term "rhythm." Prosaic rhythm (also called counting rhythm) is the mere timing of events decoded from the printed page using counting or other methods. Poetic rhythm is much broader, encompassing virtually everything...

The natural order of learning1 , as described by Piaget and specifically applied to music learning by Frances Clark2 , begins with the child hearing, feeling, and seeing a concept before it is presented (i.e. sound-feel-sign-name). Experiencing a concept before learning its name and symbol, is meaningful learning. I like to think that teachers...

In one of the earlier issues of KEYBOARD COMPANION, a subscriber wrote to the Rhythm Post Box offering a suggestion for handling the problem of students who pause before a bar line. Her suggestion was to "white out" the bar lines, removing that visual barrier. The possible need for such an extreme solution illustrates that the issue of rhythmi...