Slots Update w/c 14th June
Category Archives: Teaching music
Music matters, and it really doesn’t matter at all
Like many aspects of our lives, music is difficult to define because any attempt to pin it down seems fraught with caveats and contradictions. Music is organised sound.. and so is speech. Music doesn’t require words but very often uses them. Music is often described as a universal language, but pieces from one place, time or culture can seem irrelevant… Read more »
Half Term Week Slots
Just a brief blog today to give you the list of slots available for the coming week. I’m taking annual leave for the first few days, but there’s slots available towards the end of the week: Thursday 3rd June 11:00 13:30 17:30 Friday 4th June 10:00 14:30 If you would like to book any of the above, drop me a… Read more »
Update & Scale Evenness
Practise scales the right way Over the years I’ve found the students expect to start each lesson with a series of exercises – more often than not, scales. This is especially true of people who have previously been taught by someone else. My view is this: that not every lesson / practise has to start in the same way, and… Read more »
Update & Music to Focus
Music is Mindfulness The Sunday supplements these days are full of articles about how to let go of stress, anxiety and depression; how to move forward and find your way to truly ‘live in the moment’ experiencing life as it happens rather than being physically in one place but mentally elsewhere. I know that I’ve struggled with this over the… Read more »
Update & Nostalgic School Assembly Songs
YouTube Recording Project Partly as a bit of fun (but also to help increase my web presence), I have recently started a little project recording songs that we used to sing at assembly at school. There are loads that people will be familiar with from the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s. I’ve been playing them on piano and uploading to YouTube… Read more »
Update: Resumption of Music Exams
Many of my students have been confused and perplexed by the various and changing arrangements for graded instrumental exams over the past year or so. For clarity, I have trawled through the info for the three main boards that my students enter and provide a little info for each below: ABRSM Face to face exams resume in June. From the… Read more »
Update: YouTube Channel
Over lockdown, I’ve found new uses for my YouTube channel: it’s an ideal place to post content for my students. Some videos are backing tracks for singers to perform along to, some are demonstration videos of techniques or sections of pieces that my students are learning, and others are full performances of my students’ study pieces to act as a… Read more »
Remote Lessons for Home Workers
‘Working from Home’ is the new ‘Going to the Office’ What I’ve found most surprising about the past year hasn’t so much been that people have missed their daily routine of going to an office to work, but that so many have quickly adapted to working from home. This has meant lots of people sitting in their spare bedrooms, at… Read more »
Update: Easter Holidays
This year I will be closing up my service completely for the whole of the school Easter holidays (in Skipton that’s from Monday 29th March until Monday 12th April inclusive). There’ll be no lessons at all during this period. The good news is, though, that when we return on Tuesday 13th April, face-to-face lessons should be able to resume. I… Read more »