This is one of the best blog posts I’ve read on the subject of how to help and support your child, written by another piano instructor, Elissa Milne, who lives in Australia. I agree with every one of these 15 things! 🙂
Here are the absolute basics that you need to know to be able to support your family’s journey into profound musicianship.
15 Things You Need to Know About Supporting Your Child Learning to Play the Piano
Tomorrow is the Annual Spring Recital of all of my piano students, and all are welcome! Come and listen to students play pieces from Michael Jackson to Igor Stravinsky! Then hang out for juice or coffee and treats downstairs.
Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Spring Recital Saturday, June 17, 4 p.m. First Universalist Church of Essex. Free and open to the public, handicapped accessible.
For more info, call (978) 491-1658
And this year the students practiced 9,227 minutes and raised nearly $400 for the elephant orphans, so we will be fostering 8 babies, rescued and cared for by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Learn more about the vital and dedicated work that they do at their Facebook page, where you will find wonderful videos about all that the Trust does: today’s video is all about the orphan babies and what their days are like!
Last year’s Spring RecitalLittle Dupotto, she’s one of our elephant fosters.
Cape Ann Piano Studio’s AnnualPractice for the Elephants has just ended—my students practice for the month of May each year for this worthy cause.They practice to raise money to foster baby elephants, who have been orphaned due to the illegal poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks. Keep reading to find out how you can match the students’ earnings!
Last year’s Annual Spring Recital
About Practicing for the Elephants
Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, teachers and friend, aunts, uncles, anyone!
If any of you would like to be a matching donor for a student (average money raised per student is about $10-12) please contact me. Your match makes each student feel even more proud of their accomplishment. 🙂
It’s $50 a year to foster an orphaned elephant at the DSWT. Your contribution matching a student’s total earnings for practicing for a month goes to an important cause: saving the African elephant from extinction.
If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student!
Water Color by Angela Sheldrick
Why Pianos and Elephants?
As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks
Where Our Donations Go
The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.
Please also visit the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust website.
The DSWT on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedswt/
Here’s another website, iworry.org, where you can take action toward ending the ivory trade.
Elephants We Have Fostered
Barsilinga (boy)Rorogoi (girl)
Chemi Chemi (boy)
This wonderful and amazing contest was created by fellow piano instructor, Penny Lazarus.
ThePractice for the Elephants Contest has ended and my piano students have done a great job, practicing during the month of May, with lots of minutes of practicing to raise money to continue to foster our 10 elephant orphans—orphaned because of illegal poaching for their parents’ ivory tusks. We still need two more matching donors for two of the students:
Keep reading to find out how you can become a matching donor! Please see below to find out about our charity.
About the contest:
Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends of the family.
Students also have matching donors: paired with one of my students, you’ll match what that student earned practicing, most kids earn between $10–20.
So far we have matching donors for all but 2 students. Can you match what they earn? The kids are so excited that their contribution will be doubled! Our goal is to raise enough to continue to foster our 10 baby elephants. (It’s $50 a year per elephant baby.)
If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student!
Meet One of Our Elephants
The story of one of our baby elephants, Kauro.
Why Pianos and Elephants?
As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks.
Where Our Donations Go
The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.
ThePractice for the Elephants Contestis under way at the Cape Ann Piano Studio!
My piano students are practicing piano to raise money to continue to foster our baby elephants, who have been orphaned because of illegal poaching. Keep reading to find out how you can become a matching donor!
Our Elephants!
About the contest:
Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends of the family.
But new this year, students have matching donors: each matching donor is paired with a particular student and will match what that student earns.
Each student generally earns between $8–$15 for practicing. Can you match what they earn? I have 14 young students participating in the contest, and they all need matching donors. The kids are so excited that their contribution will be doubled! Our goal is to raise enough to continue to foster our 10 baby elephants. (It’s $50 a year per orphaned elephant.)
If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student!
Cape Ann Piano Studio Spring Recital, June, 2015
Why Pianos and Elephants?
As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks.
Where Our Donations Go
The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.
…About Supporting Your Child Learning to Play the Piano”
Here’s a wonderful blog post by Elissa Milne, a fellow piano teacher whom I “met” in one of my online pro piano instructors’ groups—she’s quite a teacher, and lives in New Zealand! So cool to now have input from teachers from around the world. 🙂
She has a lot of other informative posts for parents, too, on her blog.
ThePractice for the Elephants Contestis in the final stretch as my piano students begin Week 4 of practicing piano to raise money to foster baby elephants, who have been orphaned due to the illegal poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks. Keep reading to find out how you can become a matching donor!
Last year’s sign the kids made at the recital.
About the contest:
Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends of the family.
But new this year, students have matching donors: one (or more) paired with a student, who will match what each student earns.
So far we have matching donors for all students—we need 3 more then every student will have one! Each student generally earns between $10-$20 for practicing. Can you match what they earn? The kids are so excited that their contribution will be doubled! Our goal is to raise enough to continue to foster our 6 baby elephants, and, if there are extra funds we will foster another baby elephant. (It’s $50 a year per orphaned elephant.)
If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student!
Last year’s recital!
Why Pianos and Elephants?
As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks
Where Our Donations Go
The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.
Click here for more details on the contest and on the Foundation.
Please also visit the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust website.
Here’s another website, iworry.org, where you can take action toward ending the ivory trade.
Our Elephants
Barsilinga (boy)
Jasiri (boy)
Lima Lima (girl)Rorogoi (girl)
Chemi Chemi (boy)Sonje (girl, left)
This wonderful and amazing contest was created by fellow piano instructor, Penny Lazarus.
What! A post about metronomes? Ho Hum.
I gotta be honest, I’m not crazy about iPhone/iPad metronome apps only for ONE reason, they’re not loud enough unless you’re running them through speakers. That said, an 11-year-old student introduced me to a great metronome app she uses (when I make her!) on her iPad, best one I’ve seen:
And here’s a list of non-app, some perhaps are somewhat “antiquated” metronomes.
The Korg MA-30, the one I have in my studio. Still cool to kids cos it runs on batteries and has buttons to push.
The bad boy Franz (yes, you plug it in), mine lasted for years (I went through two of them I think) … in fact … sentimental packrat that I am, I still have the second one. It finally died, and I don’t have time to run around finding a clockmaker to fix and calibrate it.
The Wittner mini, had one of these in college, another great metronome, of the wind-up variety:
Call me old-fashioned but I still love these the best, the Seth Thomas wooden metronome, a throwback to the early 1800s (yup, patented by Johann Maelzel in 1815 (Hence, “M.M.” stands for “Maelzel Metronome” so when I write “m.m.” on your music you’ll know where the heck it comes from.) According to Wiki, Beethoven first used m.m. markings in his scores in 1817.
It’s nice and loud, the one I grew up with as a kid (actually, I think we had two, I broke the first one when I threw it across the room in frustration).
Feel free to share your thrilling metronome memories here too! 🙂
(Seriously, always want info, esp. on apps, or other “physical” metronomes.)
Wild Affair: The Elephant Who Found a Mom airs tomorrow night, Wednesday, July 16, on PBS, at 8 pm.
Wild Affair is a new series about the bonds between humans and their animal companions, and the premiere episode is about Daphne Sheldrick, the founder of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, with whom we help foster orphaned elephants because of illegal poaching. I can’t wait to watch it! 🙂
About The Elephant Who Found a Mom
The story of Aisha, the baby elephant orphan, and Daphne Sheldrick, the woman who became her human foster parent. Their intense bond reaches a crisis point when Daphne leaves Aisha with a babysitter for a few days to attend her daughter’s wedding. Aisha believes she has lost Daphne for good and refuses to eat, leading to her death. Heartbroken, Daphne uses the lessons learned from Aisha’s short life to help her save more than 150 orphans over the next 40 years.
Cape Ann Piano Studio 