I studied Philosophy in university, and I love to dig into the deeper meanings and hidden assumptions in things we tend to take for granted. As September rolled around and I started to ramp up my marketing for the new school year, I started to notice that I’d taken for granted some approaches to piano lesson marketing that didn’t actually align with my personal values as a heart-centred piano teacher.

In my last post, I introduced a passion project that I worked on recently — designing my own beginner piano book! I took the day off work to dedicate myself to dreaming big and taking my first playful steps envisioning what this dream could look like in reality.

Here’s an update on what I was able to accomplish in an afternoon!

Yesterday I took the day to myself to work on a passion project that has been bouncing around in my head lately — to design and share my own beginner piano book!

I know there are a lot of beginner books on the market already, but every time I use them I end up making supplemental material to fill in gaps I find along my students’ learning journeys.

Why not have fun making my own?

In piano lessons, it’s common for teachers to encourage their students to “upgrade” to an 88-key acoustic piano as soon as possible. This can leave many learners feeling frustrated if they cannot afford to purchase a new instrument or maintain the one they already have!

But I actually embrace the use of digital pianos in my lessons! In fact, I love digital pianos so much that I bought an electric piano for my own use!

Today I want to share five reasons I love having an electric piano, that have nothing to do with cost, so that you can see how an electric piano might actually be a better fit for you! Enjoy!

The last time I talked about the musical staff, I showed you how we can use the pattern of line-space-line-space to start from middle C and count our way up to find the lowest note on the treble clef and the highest note on the bass clef. Today I’d like to show you two more notes on each staff and explain why these new notes are so valuable to beginner piano players.

In my previous post, I encouraged beginner piano players to choose the kind of music they wanted to play before signing up for piano lessons. It seems to have struck a chord (no pun intended!) for some viewers, because I received some comments back about it. Here’s a response from a viewer that really drives home the importance of being purposeful in your music lessons.

I've been teaching for over 20 years and I can say from my experience that the #1 factor that determines whether or not someone is going to be successful in learning is not necessarily the quality of the teaching or the material, but is the motivation of the learner.

And I can also say that motivation lasts longer when it comes from a place deep inside rather than some external motivator, like keeping your teacher happy.

So how do you tap into your internal motivation?

By playing what you love, from the very beginning.

If you're learning piano because you would like to perform one day, here's the game plan I would use to help get you on your way.

If you’re a visual learner, you may prefer to watch the video above. If you prefer to read, here’s a summary of my game plan.

If you’ve been following along with my posts, you’ve learned a little about how the music staff works and how we can use ledger lines to extend the staff to reach notes a little higher or lower on the piano. Now let's take a minute to orient yourself to the staff that you will see when you're playing piano music.