Arlington MTA April Program Recap
As Arlington MTA's Vice President, part of my service includes scheduling presenters for the year. We are so lucky to live in the Metroplex where there are many amazing professors and teachers who come to share their passions and music with us! In April, we were...
Friday Favorites
Yay for Friday! The weekend is almost here. Today I wanted to share one of my favorite supplemental books of the week - Bravissimo by Timothy Brown. Particularly Book 2 seems to be catching my late elementary students' interest perfectly. You know when the title of...
Directional Bingo
Big News - We've finally added a newsletter to our blog. After having several readers request it, we worked with our web developer and got it put together! Yay! We promise it won't clog up your inbox. We plan to send it out just a few times a month to let you know...
Popular Songs Mix Up Game
Just finished our St. Patrick's Day / Spring Break Group Classes for the week. We used some of our favorite games but introduced a new one as well - Popular Songs Mix Up! Remember our Christmas Songs Mix Up? Same game, but new rhythms and pieces. And let me tell you,...
Creating Community Among Your Adult Students
Do you teach any adult students? Personally, I really enjoy teaching adult students. Adult lessons have a different atmosphere from average lessons and add nice variety to my week. I've found that it's helpful to give adult students a chance to get to know other...
Practicing… AFTER the Christmas recital
Oh the joys of last minute practicing before recitals. Doesn't every teacher have a few who wait till that last week to really buckle down and practice their performance piece(s) no matter how far in advance you tried to prepare them? And sometimes it works......
Introducing WhitneyHawker.com – Free Sheet Music!
Today I am sharing something big... Something I've been working on personally all year. Ready... set... go! I've finally started publishing my own music at a new personal domain - WhitneyHawker.com! My amazing web designer has helped me with the look I wanted and...
Christmas Song Mix Up Game
Looking for an exciting Christmas game for your next group class? Try this rhythm game at your next private lesson or group class. Print out the Christmas Song rhythm cards and Christmas Song Titles (or first lines). Each file has 3 pages, with 4 songs per page. When...
Christmas Teaching Ideas
Christmas is almost here! So much to do both in the studio and at home this time of year. At my house, we are in the final stages of preparing for our new little boy to arrive - down to less than 4 weeks! We have a few posts & a neat present for y'all for...
Pick It Up – Reviewing Pickup Notes
While it's not hard to explain or understand the concept of pickup notes/measures, it seems like many method books bring it up once and then forget about it for a while. At least my students have forgotten about it until that theory worksheet or new supplemental solo...
Halloween Improv
All of my students can't stop telling me about their Halloween costumes! I'm not sure I'm ready to even think about what I'll dress up as but if these kids are so excited about this holiday so we might as well jump on the band wagon and bring some Halloween fun into...
5 Finger Pattern Games
Students have so much more fun reviewing concepts when it's in a race against time, don't you think? Today I am sharing a new game my students have loved this semester - a matching game for 5 Finger Patterns! When you print off the downloads below, you'll have two...