Spring Recital 2017

The studio’s spring recital was today. It was a fun concert! Students celebrated all their hard work practicing this year by playing some of their favorite music.  Puffy the puffin enjoyed hearing everyone’s lovely playing.  He had the front seat in the house – right on the piano! Performances included pieces for solo piano, piano… Continue reading Spring Recital 2017

MTNA 2017

I recently returned from the MTNA/CFMTA conference in Baltimore.  It was a lot of fun!  I saw a lot of great speakers, listened to some awesome music.  I am looking forward to using some of the great ideas I heard in my teaching! The first night featured a concert by comedic duo Igudesman & Joo… Continue reading MTNA 2017

Brainy’s Practicing Challenge 2016

This was the second year for Brainy the Octopus’s practicing challenge.  This ran for three weeks.  Each week, students were challenged to play one of their pieces eight times.  If they met the challenge, brainy collected a penny.  At the end of the three weeks, all pennies were tallied and the total number of pennies… Continue reading Brainy’s Practicing Challenge 2016

Winter Recital 2016

This afternoon the studio had it’s winter recital for 2016.  Students  worked hard and did a lot of practicing – thanks to everyone for sharing their music! A lot of preparation is involved in learning recital music.  Practicing pieces to learn notes, rhythm, and dynamics (and all the rest) is the first step, but as… Continue reading Winter Recital 2016

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Musical Passports

If you’re following the Studio on our Facebook Page, you’ll know we’ve been doing a new activity in the studio this year – musical passports!  We’ve been visiting different countries as a part of our musical travels this year. So far, we’ve visited: Japan, Germany and Austria, and North and South Sudan.  Most of the… Continue reading Musical Passports

Spring wrap-up

It was a fun year in the studio!  We started the year with Composer Elections, and in December, we had a practicing challenge.  Brainy the octopus collected food for the food bank for every selection played 8 times during the week.  Students have taken part in the Saskatoon Music Festival, RCM examinations, and studio events.… Continue reading Spring wrap-up

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Mike Babcock received an honourary doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan at their spring convocation ceremony last week.  This quote came from his acceptance speech.

Brainy’s Practicing Challenge

Starting in November, Students had to complete a practicing challenge.  The mascot of our challenge was Brainy the octopus.  As such, students were given one challenge a week.  During the week, they had to complete this challenge 8 times.  Challenges included: playing a piece 8 times, doing 8 pages of theory, and sight reading 8… Continue reading Brainy’s Practicing Challenge

Inside the piano

This week in the studio, we’ve been exploring inside the piano! As studio members will know, I’m currently taking care of Gustin House’s wonderful Knabe.  (I looked up its serial number on the internet, it looks like it was built in 1914.)  The piano tuner came to replace a string (C3, or the C below… Continue reading Inside the piano