calling all piano teachers

Yesterday in the car I was listening to the radio, and Classical 89 was celebrating Chopin's 200th birthday by playing a lot of his pieces. On came his Polonaise-Fantasie, the piece I ended my senior piano recital with. I seriously almost got a little teary - I SO miss practicing for hours at a time! I just love the piano, and teaching piano. As a mom it can be so hard sometimes to fit practicing in when you are already pulled in so many directions. But I keep on resolving to try harder to practice more regularly. (I figure if I say that on my blog, there is more pressure to follow through, right? ;)) It is something that I definitely need to keep in my life!

Lately I have had piano on the mind a lot. I have been working on becoming certified as a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music, which is pretty cool. I have been teaching a bit and trying to get more students, and trying to become a better teacher.

One thing that I miss about college is being with other pianists all the time and having the chance to talk to them and perform for each other and learn together. Now that my "piano friends" and I are all off in the world, starting studios of our own and putting to practice all the things we learned while working on our degrees, we have often emailed each other or had little discussions online about different aspects of teaching, and it has been wonderful to hear different ideas and get different perspectives on things. Which is why I am excited to announce...

my new blog!

My friend Janina and I have started a new blog, The Teaching Studio, which is all about piano teaching. We want it to be a fun place where we can share experiences and ideas with other piano teachers, and hopefully help inspire each other to become better teachers. Along with the posts that we write, we have a few other piano teachers as regular contributors who will share their insights. We are excited to get piano teachers from all over to visit our blog and make comments and share their ideas.

We want this to be helpful and inspiring for all types of piano teachers - the teachers who have taught for years and have college music degrees, as well as teachers who are just starting out and may not have a ton of formal training in piano pedagogy. I know I have lots of friends who fit into either of these categories, so come check out our new blog!