Faculty Archives

Yoga and Music

“And on an exhalation, step backwards into a downward dog,” my favorite yoga teacher says as I step back towards the edge of my mat. My back aches from all the sitting I’ve been doing at school. It feels good to stretch out my body. As a class, we move and breathe together until we […]

The Secret Life of Practicing Music

by faculty member Camille Strahl When I was a teenager, I went to a workshop on effective practice. They told me that practicing music did not have to be something I loved or hated, it was just something that had to be done. I followed this philosophy well enough, but sometimes I would be so […]

Faculty Post: Why Music?

One of my most influential professors taught me that we should always look at education from a womb to tomb approach. What can we teach young people (younger people than me) that will be most important to them throughout their lives? Going into college I took for granted that music was of one of those […]

How Piano Students Become Historians

How do piano students become historians? Well, that answer takes a little bit of background. Since graduating from BYU almost a year ago, I have felt something of a void in my life. I miss the learning and growth that was such a part of school. I miss the challenge of understanding complex subjects. I […]

What Learning to Knit Taught Me About Teaching Piano

I recently wrote a post about learning to play the ukulele and how that has influenced my piano teaching. This post has a similar feel to it. Since graduating with my Master’s degree last April, I’ve taken up several new hobbies because I now have time for such things, and it is interesting how these […]

Bachfest: A Celebration of Bach’s 334th Birthday

The great Baroque composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, was born on March 21st, 1685, meaning that this past Thursday was his 334th birthday. For several years now, the Brigham Young University School of Music has celebrated his birthday by participating in the “Bach in the Subways” project. This movement began in 2010, when cellist Dale Henderson […]

What Learning the Ukulele Has Taught Me About Teaching Piano

A few years ago, my dad learned to play the ukulele, and he found that he absolutely loves it. It makes him extremely happy to sit down and strum that instrument. And he’s gotten pretty good at it. Some of my siblings, seeing my father’s enjoyment, asked him to teach them to play the ukulele […]

Faculty Development Meetings

At the Utah Piano Conservatory, we believe in continually improving, and that applies to our faculty as well as to our students. To that end, we hold quarterly faculty development meetings, so we can continue to grow and improve as teachers. At these meetings, we discuss issues that I or the other directors have noticed […]

Performing as a Teacher

Our Piano Academy recitals were this past Saturday, and they went so well! Even though recitals are a lot of work for me and the students, they are so fun. I absolutely love seeing my students perform. They often surprise me and surpass my expectations by how well they play. I was so proud of […]

Practicing Helps Me Be a Better Piano Teacher

As a piano major at BYU, one of my fears about graduation was that I would not practice regularly once I was no longer taking piano lessons. I was very motivated to practice all growing up and in college and grad school because I had weekly lessons, but I wondered if that motivation would drop once […]

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