2026-2027 Events
October 17-18, 2026 — Group Classes
December 5-6, 2026 — Group Classes
January 24, 2027 — Performance Class & Guest Artist Workshop
February 27-28, 2027 — Group Classes
April 10-11, 2027 — Group Classes
May 22, 2027 — Student Final Recital
How to Practice
Use the Practice Guide below. It writes your practice down for you, no comments needed.
Tap the first assignment on your list.
The timer starts by itself. Read it and practice.
When you are finished, press Done. It saves your time and opens the next one.
Need to stop for a minute? Press Pause.
Lost? Press My Assignment List at the top to go back.
Log only what you actually did, on the day you did it. Five minutes is a real entry.
Something wrong with the guide? Open the video tool, record yourself explaining it, and press Send to Dustin. It emails me a link straight away.
Some assignments finish. Those carry a Done for the Week button. Press it when the job is done and the assignment comes off your list.
Need the metronome, a recorder or the Section-Work colors? They are in Practice Tools. Tap one and it opens inside your assignment. Tap Close to put it away.
Official tracking started Monday, October 19.
🟩 on track · 🟨 needs extra attention · 🟪 didn't get to it at the lesson · 🟥 priority · ⬛️ on hold, don't practice this one · 🟧 mine, not yours
[PRACTICE TOOLS]
Technique
1. 🟩 Technical Requirements for Piano, Level 5 (RCM), pages 10 and 11
THIS WEEK: Pages 10 and 11. Chromatic scales and tonic triads.
⏱ Max 8 minutes per practice session.
Page 9 is passed off. A-flat major, the A major formula pattern and the chromatic are all done.
Chromatic one octave, and two octaves apart.
Left hand wrist is still the one to watch. It drops on the thumb.
Keep the start of each note tiny, especially when you speed it up.
Theory
2. ⬛️ Celebrate Theory, Level 4, Unit 8 (RCM)
On hold. Don't practice this one.
Musicianship
3. ⬛️ Basic Rhythmic Training, No. 115 (Starer)
On hold. Don't practice this one.
4. ⬛️ Sight-Reading: Czerny, Op. 599, from No. 64
On hold. Don't practice this one.
Repertoire
5. 🟩 Invention No. 4 in D minor, BWV 775 (Bach), m. 29, trill training
THIS WEEK: Trill training on the measure 29 trill, left hand.
Fingers 1 and 3 first. Then do the whole thing again with fingers 2 and 3.
Start slowly and find your balance. Keep the fingers on the keys, don't come off.
Then as fast as you can for five seconds. Three times, slowing back down to find the balance between each one.
Right hand too if you want it, but the left hand is the job.
6. 🟩 Invention No. 4 in D minor, BWV 775 (Bach)
THIS WEEK: The whole piece, very slowly, in chunks of your choosing.
The brick building assignment is gone. This one replaces all of it.
Pick your own chunk sizes. Four measures is a reasonable default, but break where the music breaks, not where the count says.
Notes and fingering only. Slow enough that you do not make mistakes.
The thing to avoid is stopping and starting over.
When one note keeps going wrong, stop and ask what scale you are in and what the interval is.
7. 🟪 Sonatina in F major, Anh. 5 No. 2 (Beethoven)
THIS WEEK: From the top with the metronome at m.m. 88 per eighth note.
⏱ Max 7 minutes per practice session.
Practice type: Review.
Same assignment as last week.
Metronome m.m. 88 per eighth note.
When the timer goes off, mark where you stopped and pick up there next time.
Any note or fingering error, go back one measure and fix it, then carry on. Don't start over.
We will put the speed up again next time.
8. 🟩 L'Indifférente, from Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin (Rameau), mm. 1-16
THIS WEEK: Measures 1 to 16, slowly, with deliberate wrist movements on the slurs.
Same assignment as last week, with one thing added.
Drop into the first note of a two note slur, and come off the second note.
Drop into the trill from the air rather than starting it flat.
Slow practice. This is the one to prioritize this week.
9. 🟩 L'Indifférente, from Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin (Rameau), mm. 17-24
THIS WEEK: Measures 17 to 24, hands alone.
New section.
Hands alone first. Hands together only if you have the time, and then very slowly.
Correct notes and fingering is the whole focus.
10. ⬛️ Prelude, Op. 39 No. 19 (Kabalevsky)
On hold. Don't practice this one.
Review List
Review these with your music. You don't need to get through all of them in one session.
RCM Level 5
Deux rigaudons, from Suite in E Minor, RCT 2, by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) (List A)
Fantasia in E-flat Major, TWV 33:35, 2nd Section, by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) (List A)
Sonatina in F Major, Anh. 5, No. 2, attr. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) (List B)
Lyric Pieces, Book I, Op. 12, No. 2, Waltz, by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) (List C)
RCM Level 4
Air in B-flat Major, HWV 471, by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (List A)
Sonatina in F Major, Op. 168, No. 1, I. Moderato cantabile, by Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) (List B)
Sonatina in G Major, Op. 36, No. 2, III. Allegro, by Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) (List B)
Etude in E Minor, Op. 65, No. 42, by Carl Albert Loeschhorn (1819-1905) (Etude)
Masquerade, by Linda Niamath (Etude)
RCM Level 3
Musette in D Major, BWV Anh. 126, Anonymous, from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (1725) (List A)
Minuet in G Major, BWV Anh. 114, attr. Christian Petzold (1677-1733) (List A)
Minuet in G Minor, BWV Anh. 115, attr. Christian Petzold (1677-1733) (List A)
Sonatina in A Minor, Op. 94, No. 4, by Albert Biehl (List B)
Clowns, Op. 39, No. 20, from 24 Pieces for Children, by Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987) (List C)
Arabesque, Op. 100, No. 2, by Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller (1806-1874) (Etude)
RCM Level 2
Impertinence, HWV 494, by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (List A)
Etude in D Minor, Op. 82, No. 65, by Cornelius Gurlitt (1820-1901) (Etude)
Other
Yesterday, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney