Fall was rich and full, sunny and bright. We spent time teaching and learning, experimenting and creating, dreaming and planning. We read new books, shared deep conversations, and found new inspiration in ordinary places.
This is life lately:
10 Ways to Help Your Child Practice
This is a letter to all the parents and guardians and babysitters and older siblings and neighbors and friends who support young musicians: those who encourage the pursuit of music, tote children and books and accessories back and forth to lessons each week, and help with practicing at home.
Dear parents + guardians:
Thank you for supporting your child’s musical pursuits. You play a crucial role in your child’s success in learning to play an instrument. Even if you don't play the piano yourself, your support and guidance at home during the week is extremely important to their music-learning process.
9 Pieces for the Intermediate Handbell Choir
Over the years, I’ve written several posts geared toward smaller, beginning handbell choirs:
“But what about those of us with more established groups?” you might be saying. “What about intermediate-level repertoire?”
That’s where today’s post comes in.
How to Create a Repertoire Plan Using the RCM Piano Syllabus
A few summers ago, I attended the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) for the first time (read my recaps here, here, and here).
In addition to a wealth of new teaching ideas, I learned about new methods and curriculum materials, some of which I’ve been using in my teaching ever since.
Perhaps the most influential and valuable resource I discovered at NCKP was the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM—Canadian division) and Music Development Program (MDP - US division).
Founded with a commitment to developing strong musicianship skills from the very beginning, the program includes level-by-level guides to repertoire, technique, and musicianship skills (plus supplemental materials for music history and theory) for a variety of different instruments.
Editorial: What If We Did This Every Day?
"What's the best thing that happened to you today?" I asked over coffee last week. He thinks for a moment before answering.
The reply is usually as simple as the question itself:
A moment of creative inspiration
A feeling of accomplishment
A kind word
It's a simple question and a meaningful daily practice. One that tilts our perspective toward the positive. It's an invitation to recognize those small moments that may be too easily forgotten, dismissed as too small or insignificant, lost in the shadow of something bigger and more dramatic.
(Because we all have those moments in our days.)
But what's really important? What do you want to remember?
How to Accompany Hymns with Piano 4-Hand
A few months ago, I received an email from a friend:
“Hi Ashley! I am looking for hymn accompaniments for four hands at the piano. Not arrangements, but the actual hymn. We will be without our organ for some months and I want to beef up the piano sound by adding hands. Do you know of any books with this? Or websites? I guess we could just play in octaves, but maybe there is something interesting out there."
Can anyone relate?
Whether the organ is undergoing repairs, that F# is in need of a good tuning, or you show up one morning and the power is out…
Sometimes, you need to use the piano to accompany the hymns.
But if you’re in a large space, the piano may not be enough on its own to really support and lead the congregation in song. What’s a church musician to do?
15 More Singing Games for Children's Choir
In the book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and How It Happens, Benedict Carey stated, “Games are the best learning tool.”
It’s true, isn’t it? Games often have a way of teaching us something new without us realizing we are learning. We’re concentrating on the rules, listening, observing, interacting, and in the end, playing.
Learning is simply embedded in the process.
The Dos and Don'ts of Directing a Church Choir
It’s true with anything in life: There are some things you should do and some things you probably shouldn’t do.
It’s like the Goofus and Gallant comic strip that appeared in my monthly Highlights magazine growing up (classic Enneagram no. 1 here—I’ve always had a strong sense of right vs. wrong).
In the comic, two panels compare and contrast the actions of two brothers: Gallant's actions were kind and morally good while Goofus’s actions were thoughtless and disrespectful. It’s a classic example of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, dos and don’ts.
We can relate, can’t we?
How I Save Time by Batching Tasks (and How You Can, Too!)
It’s an age-old paradox:
How to get more done in less time.
We buy new planners. We sign up for new digital task organizers. We keep a notepad handy at all times and have a running to-do list on our phones, in our inboxes, and in our heads pretty much all the time.
And yet, we’re still trying to find ways to be more productive. To stay on top of everything and keep all the plates spinning.
One thing I’ve found to be helpful in the past few years is batching.
Editorial: Lost and Found
A few weeks ago, I pulled out one of my old piano scores:
”The Italian Concerto” by J.S. Bach
It's a piece I played for my Eastman audition, a piece I knew almost backward and forward at the time. I've come back to it at various points in my career when I want to reconnect to the art or remember why I started.
I was thumbing through the pages one night after dinner, admiring all the markings my teacher added into the score—a different colored pen for every lesson. I stumbled through the first reading, my fingers stiff, struggling to remember how the notes go.
But then, something surprising happened.
