LeslieUpchurch.com

Starting out my day in a bit.  I decided to post early, in case I get bogged down later and don't blog!  But, I also blogged later.

I am always looking forward to teaching my students this year.  I don't always have the most advanced students, but I have very musical students.  This is great!  We do everything from improvising to composing, reading music, and I teach them some pieces by rote.  The rote pieces will mostly have parts they can read, at least in terms of the number of patterns and such.  Reading music is vital to continuing to play.  If a student leaves lessons in high school or some time like that and cannot read relatively well, they may not play anymore.

Improvising and playing by ear also keep students playing after lessons.  Rote teaching does not do this.  It does get them to play things they enjoy and can keep the lessons going for this reason.  All of the components are so important!  I do this and that at most lessons.  I want to keep the students making music!

I have one piano mom who takes photos so well.  She is a visual artist and does amazing paintings that are almost more like installations on canvas to some degree.  She took great photos of me when I was there at her apartment teaching this evening.  I used one for a Facebook profile picture.  I will upload it to my website too - but it may not read on Mozilla Foxfire - my last photo reads on Safari and not here. I will try it though because it could be a nice addition.

My students today had different levels of lessons.  Two need to practice more and two were into it.  Sometimes practicing makes the difference of being "into it" or not.  Sometimes though, a student will love their lesson and then still not make progress.  This process has so many variables.

Will upload the photo in a bit!  Goodnight!