Piano Lessons

I love teaching piano lessons.  I think it is kind of funny because when I taught for two years in high school, I hated it.  I dreaded the two days I would teach after school... ugh!!  Don't get me wrong, sometimes it was fun, but I was just so tired by that time of the day and I wanted to hang out with my friends for a little bit after school instead of rushing home to teach lessons. 
For my major, I had to take 4 piano pedagogy classes.  They were good, but never my favorite.  I taught a community student for the lab in a couple of the classes, and that was fine because it was just 30 minutes a week.  I can handle anything for 30 minutes. 
Then, after I graduated in July of 2009, a lady I know asked me to please, please, teach her 3 kids.  "Ok, I thought... I used to babysit for them a lot and I taught one of the kids back in high school... I can just do these 3.  No big deal."  So, I began teaching them, and discovered that I had a lot more confidence in myself as a teacher than I did in high school.  My biggest problem in high school was that I was afraid I was doing it wrong, or teaching them bad technique.  But now, after 4 years of college and all the music courses I could get, my knowledge of right and wrong on the piano had grown a lot.  I began to enjoy using the different ideas and teaching techniques I learned in my pedagogy classes.  Then... my piano studio began to grow little by little.  Those first 3 students moved to Utah (I miss them!), and currently I have 9 students - 5 adults and 4 children. 
So I guess the moral of the story is: You never know what you will end up doing by how you feel about it in high school, or even in college.  (I used to tell everybody that I didn't really want to teach piano lessons.)  I'm so glad that I'm having a good time doing it, and that I am able to see the progress of my students who practice!  (To those who are taking any kind of lessons... the teacher is always happy when you do your practicing/homework because they can see the growth in you from before - and that is a really neat thing to see.)

Before the Music Dies

In my Jazz Improv class, Aaron Miller asked us to watch this documentary. It's kind of long, and I didn't have time to do it when he asked us to, but the class period after that, all the rest of my class was raving about it. Now that I'm graduated, I have time! Yippee!! I'm going to watch it now. I'll comment later.

Before the Music Dies - Hulu.com

Beginning

I just graduated with a Bachelor's degree in music.  I am starting to teach private piano lessons, and I'm really excited about it.  I have many thoughts about music, and I'm glad to share them here!  I hope that I'm not the only one who finds this interesting, and I'll be sure to post ideas I have about teaching and music and stuff.  Also, I am going to submit my application for a substitute teacher certificate tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to help out the schools in Peoria Unified School District with my piano skills.