The Paloma Piano Story
Posted:Wed, Jan 14, 2015
Five years ago I began teaching introductory piano lessons at a special needs school. The students did not have pianos at home and could only practice during free time at school. I wanted them to learn some piano technique and some basic note reading.
The Paloma Piano Story
Posted:Wed, Jan 14, 2015
Five years ago I began teaching introductory piano lessons at a special needs school. The students did not have pianos at home and could only practice during free time at school. I wanted them to learn some piano technique and some basic note reading.
The kids however wanted to “turn the page”at every lesson and have a new piece. So armed with the Finale 2012 music notation program I began writing pieces for the students that focused on repetition. Instead of one piece that focused on treble C through G they would have four or five different pieces etc. The students were happy, they felt like they were making progress and they were! When recital time came around every one could play something.
At they same time I was running a large studio in my community. My home students all had pianos at home, and very supportive families, yet many still struggled with music reading and consistent practicing, I began supplementing my usual piano method with the pieces I was using at school. That is how Paloma Piano came about.
It made sense for me as the teacher to be able to decide how long a student needed to stay on a particular skill. I designed each lesson to contain more that one piece so that those students who needed extra practice could play more of the pieces in the lesson, while those who “got it” right away could skip to the next lesson. This not only helped my students to become better music readers but it helped them to want to continue with piano study.
So I kept going. I continued writing pieces and organizing them by skill. I started writing music and arranging songs from around the world. I created scale and arpeggio pages, sight reading, theory, technique, and other things I had wished I could find easily online. The Paloma Piano online piano method site was created to be a community. I know that I can learn from all of you, and we can all learn from each other. I am looking forward to hearing from all of you.
Musically,
Doreen