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Love the Daily Practice Session!

“It’s all about the Practice, it’s all about the Practice” – whether you do sports or instruments, there is no substitute for practice to learn your skill. Piano practice is done alone at home, daily. Learn to love your daily practice sessions! Have a plan, so you can take your playing to places it has never been. You need to discover for yourself in the practice room what the teacher taught you in the lesson. Create your place to practice with good lighting, the piano, and music books.

1. Set a realistic practice schedule – daily consistency is what brings results. Set a timer and don’t quit until it rings. Decide the times you will practice each day, stick to it.
2. Set realistic goals for each session – work on one small section of a song or one scale or chord work, etc., that you need to improve. Be patient with yourself and slow down to understand and learn the moves correctly. Daily repetition will produce results in playing.
3. Be creative in your practice – once you master the music, change it up by changing rhythms, different touches - staccato or legato, play it your way with extra notes, etc.
4. Reward Yourself – after your practice session is done, play whatever you want for fun!

Great practice habits will result in better overall playing and take you to the next level! Fun!!
*Parents your most important job is to set daily practice times and require it from your student! www.PianoParentPodcast.com - a great resource for piano parents by Shelly Davis, piano teacher

Reading Music Process - Sunshine Piano Studio

What is an effective way to learn to Read Music to play piano, to read and to understand music? That was my search after hearing so many times over the years, “I wish I could play piano, but I quit lessons and wished I hadn’t quit”? Why had so many quit? I realized it was because of the typical reading music process used to teach an instrument with 88 keys. Very challenging! I have found that by using a process that immediately connects the student to the instrument by learning to play good sounding songs keeps the student motivated. This is done by teaching students to see and play musical patterns, found in music. Students learn by doing - playing songs, while focusing on learning instrument  navigation. From the first piano lesson, students are also relating to the written music to begin the reading music process.

As students focus on playing songs on the piano, learning the language of music (Music Theory) is systematically introduced from the first lesson to begin the reading music process. Does it take time? Yes, as it also does in school to learn to read and write the language they have been speaking since childhood. Talk first, read later. Play first, read later. Students are learning Keyboard geography on the keys, but also on the written music. They are learning note names on the keys and music staff, how to play rhythms and see beats/rhythms on the page, how to put chords together on the keys and recognize chords, scales, arpeggios, octave patterns on the page, key signatures, time signatures, & so much more! This process gives students musical tools to eventually play what is on the written page, but also to understand music so they can arrange, compose, & improvise. Each year adds more to Reading Music!