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May 22, 2025

Jazzing It Up

🎹 Jazzing It Up  and Breaking Free From Traditional Song Learning  In today’s online piano lesson, I had the joy of working with one of my Oclef students on the exciting piano duet Cool Walking Bass from the Piano Adventures Method Book 3A. This piece is more than just fun—it’s a great introduction to blues and jazz styles, offering students a first taste of swing rhythm, walking bass lines, mordents and syncopation. To deepen the learning experience, we took the lesson a step further by com...
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May 20, 2025

Unlocking Expression: Online Piano Lesson Spotlight – 'Sword Dance' from Piano Adventure Level 2A

Today I would like to showcase one of my Oclef students as we are practicing on “Sword Dance” from the Piano Adventures Method Book 2A. This piece introduces important musical concepts such as allegro tempo, fermata, and expressive dynamics including crescendo and diminuendo. This blog post also highlights the value of listening a full music score to enhance students' ear training, sense of mood, and overall musicality.
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April 29, 2025

The Missing Link in Piano Teaching — Fixed.

Oclef Notation isn't just a better way to mark music. It's a visual system that turns confusing movements into clear, teachable steps. Most beginners don’t naturally connect sheet music to what their hands need to do — and that disconnect slows everything down. In this quick video, we’ll show you how to bridge that gap by marking crossovers, pivots, and shifts on the score itself. It’s like giving your students a GPS for their fingers. Whether you're inside a Kaizen session or leading your ow...
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September 06, 2016

The piano teacher’s word cloud

The piano teacher’s word cloud
I love my job teaching kids. But I often have a feeling like I’m a broken record. The other day, one of my students came to the lesson very prepared and when I asked him what happened, he looked at me and said “I just did what you said to do.” (facepalm) So I decided yesterday to compile all the words that I say most often about practice. It was a fun exercise for myself and I wonder how my words overlap with yours. 🙂 “Practice in sections repeatedly. Hands separate and together. Each time th...
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