Piano Parent Podcast: Helping Teachers, Parents, And Students Get The Most Of Their Piano Lessons.

The last few shows have mentioned playing chords or pop songs or getting creative at the piano in some way. Talking about it is great and your piano kid might really be interested in playing some pop tunes but getting started can feel a little overwhelming. That’s why I put together this list of 10 songs that are perfect to play along with a YouTube video and I have the videos embedded on the show notes for this episode. I chose these songs because most of them use only a few chords (most of them five chords or less) and those chords occur in a repeating pattern throughout the entire song or through a large portion of the song. The basic formula for playing each chord is to have the right hand play the chord in root position (your piano teacher can share more about this) while the left hand plays the root note only. In most cases, students are holding the chord as a whole note until it's time to play the next chord. Often, after students begin to feel the rhythm pattern and the pulse of the music they choose

A few weeks ago I got an email from Sanette Brems, a piano mom in my studio. Listen to Sanette's parent interview with me on Episode 019. In her email, Sanette said, "I saw this and immediately thought of you!" The link in the email took me to the Kickstarter page for a new music theory game called, "Lord of the Chords". Their website declares that they are the "geekiest, punniest music theory game in the world". Lord of the Chords Kickstarter Page - click here I love puns and really love games that help my students learn and use music theory so I did a little research and was able to contact the developers of the game. Jonathan Ng, one member of the development team, responded to my email and we set up our interview within days and now I am pleased to share that interview with you! Listen to the full interview here A little of Jonathan's background Jonathan started violin when he was eight years old but never felt a strong connection to the violin. By ten, Jonathan wasn't really enjoying the violin but his

In recent episodes, I've alluded to the idea of keeping a video or audio journal of your piano kid's musical progress. This is a way for them to see their growth as a musician. In today's show, we will talk in more detail about the advantage of keep a video journal as well as  the practical details like equipment and storage. Great Learning Tool The primary reason to video your child is for them to learn from the experience. When we are playing or reading music, our minds are so focused on that activity that we can stop listening to the music we're making. Having a separate recording gives students a chance to hear themselves as the audience or judge will hear them.  In their imagination, they may have had a bigger contrast in dynamics or tempo or other musical elements but the reality of the recording tells them how accurate they really were. Sometimes, in their imagination, students think the whole performance was flawed. They focus on mistakes or missteps they made while playing and think the entire perfo