One of my students, Julia, wrote lyrics for a song. To make things fun, I took the lyrics and set them to music. This way, Julia's song comes to life, and she can learn how to play it on the piano. In order to make a great learning environment, it is definitely important that you know your students. Learn what they enjoy, and make things fun!
It is essential to find material that your students will enjoy. Since the Disney movie "Frozen" came out, the music is popular with kids. I have started using songs from the movie in my piano lessons for teaching Trinity, and she really enjoys it. As for one of my older students, Abbi, she really takes a liking to "Phantom of the Opera." What kind of music do your kids enjoy?
My youngest students are 4 and 5 years old. Making the lessons fun for them has been a learning experience for me. Most recently, we have danced and learned melodies from popular Disney movies such as "Mulan" and "Pocahontas." Disney never gets old. Let's get down to business!
I am excited to give voice lessons starting tomorrow! A mother and her daughter came to me, interested in learning more about singing. Looking forward to a day filled with music lessons!
Justin Crenshaw, The Clever Composer Clever Composer will offer its second free music workshop on November 5th. The Location is the same - Woodland Christian Church (530 E High Street). The hour long workshop will begin at 7:00 pm, featuring brief lessons on aural theory (learning how to listen to and notate music) and singing.
Clever Composer will be offering its first ever music workshop. This is a free event, open to the public, taking place at the Woodland Christian Church a week from today, October 21st, at 7:00 pm.
The workshop will last for an hour and will focus on three separate lessons - one for piano, for voice, and aural theory. Please feel free to invite your friends, because the event should be a lot of fun! I am so excited because things are really looking up these days. I have another new student that I will be starting with next Tuesday, I will begin working on a commission for a high school show choir arrangement, I am leading music at my church, and I will soon be giving free music workshops. God really does provide! I can't wait to see what is going to happen next.
Eric Jurgens and I will be hosting a concert this coming October, The Perfect Cheesecake! We are both masters composition students at the University of Kentucky, and we've also become good friends...so why not put a concert together?! The concert is set for October 28, 2012 and will be in the Singletary Center for the Arts at the University of Kentucky - 7:30 pm in the concert hall. There will be a variety of music in the program. Music that is playful, melancholy, spirited, jazzy, and emotional. There are also quite a few ensembles - solo piano, piano quintet, woodwind quintet, chamber choir, string quartet, trombone choir, clarinet choir...the list goes on. There will be more details to come.
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Justin CrenshawThese posts are journal entries from the teacher himself! Archives
April 2015
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