Month: May 2015

Sight Reading Tips

Sight Reading Tips and Three Activities for Improving Eye Tracking I was teaching a lesson with a 9 year-old student this week when I asked her to do some sight

Bite Sized Pieces (Woodshedding technique)

BITE SIZE PIECES – technique exercise This blog post is part of a series on woodshedding. For more ideas on how to invigorate your practicing with new and creative ideas, check

Woodshedding: Grouping Game

GROUPING GAME for your Woodshedding arsenal. Woodshedding is the process of isolating a difficult section of music and practicing it until the technical issues are resolved. In other blog posts,

Rhythm Spinner Game

The Rhythm Spinner Game is an excellent tool for woodshedding difficult passages. Like the Articulation Game, the Rhythm Spinner adds an element of chance to spice up your practicing. For

Temptation Bundling in the Practice Room

What is “temptation bundling” and how can we use it in the practice room? Temptation bundling is when we take something that we’re not excited about doing and pair it

MusicParentsGuide.Com by Mazzocchi

The Music Parents’ Guide Blog, written by Anthony (Tony) Mazzocchi, is an excellent resource. Check out MusicParentsGuide.com for interesting articles about how important music education is in the life and learning

Game for scales- major, minor, and chromatic

Scales can be mindlessly boring… or scales can be tolerable. (If I said playing scales was the most exciting thing in the world, you would know I was lying and you

How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall?

Maybe you’ve heard the joke. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.” As a punchline, this is unexpectedly cute. But as a musician, it also strikes me

Music is the Key To Success

Music is the Key To Success, at least according to Joanne Lipman, reporter for the New York Times. She makes an interesting connection between some of the most successful people and