Being able to hear helps us feel included in conversations and shared sounds. When we lose some of our hearing, sound is diminished or even eliminated completely, compromising the way we understand the world around us. With a good attitude and determination, one can learn to live with hearing loss and even have a successful...

The new school year marks a time of beginnings and discoveries. As lifelong learners, we launch into the fall with aspirational plans for our students and for ourselves. The opportunity to synthesize newly acquired approaches, strategies, and skills inspires us to build on our craft and bring our best to our students. Colleagues attending NCKP...

Review by Vanessa Cornett When I first held these books in my hands and leafed through their cheerful pages, the same thoughts kept running through my mind. This is how we rock the boat. It's time. Are we ready? I sincerely believe the answer is yes.  Music study can instill a lifelong appreciation of music and the arts, an...

 As educators, we hold so much power in the music we choose to teach our students. When we decide which curriculum to use, we are deciding which music is most important in the canon to help our students progress. We also hold power in the music we choose not to use with our students. Pedagogues must use that innate power to decide what is cult...

Town Hall Discussion: COVID-19 and the Student with Special Needs with Beth Bauer, Melissa Martiros, Derek Polischuk, & Scott Price Did you enjoy this webinar? Please complete our brief survey to help us improve our webinar series and continue to bring you the highest quality resources in piano teaching. 

Inclusive AND Online Lessons for Students who are Special Learners with Scott Price  Did you enjoy this webinar? Please complete our brief survey to help us improve our webinar series and continue to bring you the highest quality resources in piano teaching. 

Quality repertoire selection is crucial for helping our piano students move from the intermediate to advanced levels, and the same is true for university-level students. Yet, persuading teachers to use excellent repertoire composed by women and other minorities remains a challenge. As teachers, we often succumb to using the repertoire we know best,...

Like most of you, I am currently working from home. At the time of this writing, our city is under a stay-at- home order, and our public schools, colleges, and universities are closed. Like most of you, I have moved all my teaching online including my teaching of students who are special learners. I am missing my students terribly, and worry t...

All teachers understand that students come to us with different interests, learning styles, and learning needs. We work with all of our students to achieve the goals of learning how to play the piano and study music. However, teachers who work with students who have learning challenges or developmental delays face different challenges and lesson pl...

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"Carla, you're so enthusiastic about what you do, and you are obviously so happy doing it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Kendall could take piano lessons from you?" said Mary one morning at our church's coffee hour. "Why not?" I asked. Mary gave me one of those have-you-taken-leave-of-your-senses looks. "But, Carla, you know how bad her walking has g...

 Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a common childhood disorder that piano teachers are likely to encounter during their career. This disorder can continue through adolescence and into adulthood. Common symptoms of ADHD may include extreme difficulty maintaining focus, paying attention, and regulating emotions and behavior, ...

THE PIANO PROGRAM  ​In the spring of 2012, I began a small program for piano study at a women's correctional institution in Columbia, South Carolina. Over the past eleven years, the program has been through numerous changes. The lesson location changed from Goodman (2012–2016) to Camille Griffin Graham (2017–present), when the two women's inst...

 What do weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras, and other celebrations and rites of passage have in common? How many times does someone say they relate a particular piece of music to a specific event? What can invoke a meaningful childhood memory? For some it may be a mother's lullaby that was passed down through generations. For othe...

Many service members returning home after World War II were diagnosed with "shell shock" and "combat fatigue," which we now refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The military started an experimental music program to help ease the symptoms associated with psychological and moral injuries. Service members listened to recorded music, inte...

Do you know of piano events or festivals in which students with special needs can participate? Diversity and inclusion are becoming more important in our daily lives and I congratulate everyone in our profession for their courage and dedication in making music study available for all students.The Royal Conservatory of Music examination process...

Recorded at the 2019 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. July 25, 2019.

In Transformational Piano Teaching: Mentoring Students from All Walks of Life, Derek Kealii Polischuk provides an overview of various student populations we might encounter as piano teachers, and offers snapshots of how to work with and engage these seemingly disparate groups. "The book examines the role of mentor, a r...

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Choosing repertoire for our students is often a matter of subjectivity. A desired scenario is one in which a student and teacher both agree on the pieces and the occasion for which they are to be learned. In the case of a traditional neuro-typical student, selection of lesson repertoire typically is guided by musical depth and attractiveness and th...