March 2018

Why Do I Have to Practice Piano Technique?

We’re willing to bet that there has been at least one time in your child’s history of piano lessons that they have questioned the necessity of technique work (scales, arpeggios, hand-over-hand, Hanon exercises, etc.). It’s understandable; it can seem a lot more fun to practice an exciting new solo piece than to work on perfecting […]

YouTube Competition 2018 Finalists

We submitted our 2018 Piano Marvel YouTube Competition video entries a couple of weeks ago… and here are all the Piano Academy students who made it to the finals! Early Elementary (ages 5-7) Gabby Henry Joseph Larson Late Elementary (ages 8-10) Arthur Cummins Parker Woodward Middle School (ages 11-13) Dorothea Bernard Samia Bitter Kian Colman […]

Composer of the Month–Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy was born in a suburb of Paris, France. His father owned a china shop and his mother was a seamstress. Debussy’s aunt noticed his musical talent and arranged for his first piano lessons when he was 4 years old. When he was only 10 years old, he started studying at the Paris Conservatory. […]

Bringing Music Theory Home

One of the challenges of learning music theory is practicing it throughout the week. Working on it in the theory lab is great, but when you only do that for 30 minutes a week, there’s a good chance you’ll forget some things. Thanks to technology, it’s easy to review what you already know and even […]

Virtue of the Month: Patience

In his April 2010 message at general conference (titled “Continue in Patience”), Dieter F. Uchtdorf shared the following story about a Stanford professor: “[He] began a modest experiment testing the willpower of four-year-old children. He placed before them a large marshmallow and then told them they could eat it right away or, if they waited […]

The “Why” of Music–Sidsie Vaughn

Ever since I was young, I felt drawn to music and wanted to learn how to play it. Although I never really knew why, I appreciated almost every piece that I heard. To me, the songs that were minor were dubbed “scary,” while the pieces written in major keys were “happy.” As time went on, […]

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