Adventures in Piano Teaching!

I teach piano lessons and absolutely love it. All of the students I have had have been very cute. Sometimes, not recently, they have tried my patience, but most of the time I love it. I have had my students do some really cute things and thought that I would share them.

On Monday nights I have 5 students. My last two students are boys and they work very hard. Well, this week I went and their mom said that Sawyer (9 or 10) had a surprise for me. They are very busy and like to have their songs perfect so we only do two new songs and then do an old song to build up repertoire. Well, we went over his new songs for the week and then he pulls out his performance book and opens to "Home on the Range." He then goes on to not only play the piece, but sing with it! It was the cutest thing I think that any of my students have ever done. His mom said that it was all his idea and that he had never sung it before. He picked the song and told her he was going to sing it for me. It was adorable. After I finished teaching his brother Elliot, they always send me home with some fruit. As I was leaving, Sawyer asked his mom if he could go home with me. Kids are cute.

One of my students a while back, (5 year old girl) came to a lesson and told me she could play a song without the music. I was like, Good job! You memorized it! The next week she came and said that she didn't rememberize any of her music that week. So funny!

I also had a student name Kate who was 6. She was very cute. When playing piano there are many different positions that new pianist learn in. One is called middle C position where your thumbs share middle C. Kate hated this position and one week she came and told me her thumbs got in a fight and they could not share Middle C.:) She called sharps, sharks. I asked her why and she said that she imagined a shark trying to get her finger on the not sharp note, and she had to play it sharp so the shark would not get her. (I hope that makes sense). She was a very cute little girl.

I have a student named Joey. He gets distracted and he needs breaks a lot. So, during one of his breaks we somehow got talking about composers and I decided to tell him about John Cage and his piece 4 min. 33 sec. In this piece John Cage came out on stage and sat at the piano. Then 4 min. and 33 sec. later he stood up and bowed and went off stage. He never played a note, and this is a very famous piece. (I wish I had come up with it, it's very easy). Well, Joey thought this was hilarious and afterwards whenever he was going to play a new song he would say "Wait a second." Then he would stand up and go to the door and then come to the piano, sit down for a second, stand up, bow and walk off. He really liked that story.
Also, whenever he is about to play any of his songs he says "ready go" and then he plays.

I could share more and more really cute stories, but I need to go to bed. I will definitely post more "Adventures in Piano Teaching" posts periodically. I love working with children and teaching them music. I love music and it is so rewarding to help others feel the same way I do.