from the series: ​Issues and Ideas: Perspectives in Pedagogy Kathleen Murray, Editor Careful readers of Keyboard Companion will realize that this is not the question presented in the Fall for "In the next issue" of this column. Scheduling conflicts made it impossible for our guest writer to respond to the question posed on Dalcroze's...

from the series: Issues and Ideas: Perspectives in Pedagogy Kathleen Murray, Editor Those of us who teach a physicalskill have to try to balance a number of issues. This question was not at or near the top of my list of worries as I began my piano teaching career in the early 1980's, but it has become a worrisome issue in m...

from the series: Issues and Ideas: Perspectives in Pedagogy Kathleen Murray, Editor I think all good teachers find it challenging to carve adequate time for practicing out of incredibly busy schedules. We know we need to do it. We know that our lives are incomplete without it. But none of that adds extra hours to the day. I find that I ne...

from the series: Issues and Ideas: Perspectives in Pedagogy Kathleen Murray, editor I first posed this question back in the summer of 2002, and Bruce Berr and Marcia Bosits shared wonderful stories about their most influential teachers. Martha Hilley and Sam Holland agreed to do the same for this column and I hope you will find their cont...

Whenever we hear a new piece of teaching music that attracts our attention, and think of exactly the student who will enjoy playing it, we are apt to wonder if it has one or more of those traps that have cost us countless, precious minutes in the middle of a lesson. What really counts, if it truly is a great piece of music, is our attitude toward t...

Although the steady pulse is fundamental to the concept of rhythm, the lilt and forward movement of rhythm is created through the variety of note values. Dotted rhythms are vital to our rhythmic experience. Folk tunes, patriotic songs, hymns, and Christmas carols are replete with dotted rhythms because of the life they give to the rhythmic flow. Th...