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.
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.
Log every practice session from today. Official tracking starts Monday, October 19, the Monday after our first group class. Logging now is how we get the kinks out.
🟩 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]
Theory
1. 🟩 Celebrate Theory, Level 1, Unit 1 (RCM), Getting Started
THIS WEEK: Complete Unit 1.
Do this one before Unit 2.
Press Done for the Week when the unit is finished.
2. 🟩 Celebrate Theory, Level 1, Unit 2 (RCM), Pitch and Notation
THIS WEEK: Complete Unit 2.
Stem direction, naming notes, and fixing what is wrong.
Teach me about sharps, flats and naturals next time. A natural cancels a sharp or a flat.
Teach me about intervals next time: a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth.
Press Done for the Week when the unit is finished.
Musicianship
3. 🟥 Basic Rhythmic Training (Starer), Nos. 52, 54, 55 and 56
THIS WEEK: Three correct in a row on each one, at ♩ = 60.
Count and clap one measure of silence first, then come in.
Nos. 55 and 56 start on an upbeat. Clap the beats in the parentheses, then come in on the downbeat.
Your mistakes are at the change from one staff to the next. Look ahead to the next staff while you are still clapping the tie.
Three tries at the lesson to pass something off.
4. 🟩 Note Reading Flashcards
THIS WEEK: Same assignment, at m.m. 44.
Pull the B and D cards out and work those two on their own first.
Second ledger line below the treble staff is C, so the one above it is D. Two ledger lines below the bass staff is C, and two above the treble staff is C.
5. 🟩 Solfège Reading (Knowles), pages 16 and 17
THIS WEEK: Three correct in a row on each line, with the metronome.
Every exercise builds on one you already know. Find the note you know, then read the next one from it.
If you make a mistake, let it go in the moment and look at what is coming next.
6. 🟪 Solfège Reading (Knowles), pages 18 and 19
THIS WEEK: Another week on these two. Bass clef.
With the metronome, three correct in a row.
We come back to them at the lesson.
7. 🟩 Piano Adventures Sightreading, Primer, pages 26 to 33
THIS WEEK: Straight through, no stopping.
Sight playing means you see it for the first time and play it without stopping.
Plan it before you touch the keys: which hand, which finger, which note.
Work through the mistakes. Let them go.
Watch for the forward wrist.
Technique
10. 🟩 Black Key Composition
THIS WEEK: Make up your own piece on the black keys, using all three movements.
Forward wrist: drop, then hold the key down while the wrist goes forward, and release.
Pop wrist: drop the same way, then come straight off the key. Don't scratch and don't pull back. Stay close to the key.
Drop pop: drop on the first key, pop on the second. Two keys.
Use the whole keyboard, the two-sets and the three-sets. Both hands, hands alone and hands together.
Make a rhythm that makes sense to you.
Have it ready to perform for me twice at the next lesson. The same piece, twice.
🎥 All three movements https://youtube.com/shorts/337R67ofof8
Next Time
11. 🟧 Your Solfège book
THIS WEEK: I am bringing your Solfège Reading book to the next lesson.
12. 🟧 Your first Celebration Series pieces
THIS WEEK: I am choosing your pieces from Celebration Series, Piano Prep A, for next week.
Look through the book this week and tell me what you like.
A few of these, then we move up a level, and then we look at the piece you sent me.
How to Read by Landmark
You learned note names with acronyms — Every Good Boy Does Fine, FACE, All Cows Eat Grass. Those work, but they slow you down permanently, because every time you read a note you have to run the whole phrase and then find the letter. So we're replacing them with landmarks.
A landmark is a place you already know that tells you where you are. The Statue of Liberty. The Great Wall. The cross street you recognize on your own block. On the staff, landmarks work the same way: you memorize a few fixed points, then read everything else by its distance from them.
The landmarks we're starting with
Bass clef F — line 4. The bass clef is the F clef, and the two dots sit around that line. "Clef" comes from the French clé, meaning key, as in a key that unlocks the names of the notes.
Treble clef G — line 2. The treble clef is the G clef, and it curls around that line.
Middle C, treble C (space 3, an octave above middle C), and bass C (space 2). Two ledger lines above the treble staff is also a C, and two below the bass staff is a C — the two clefs mirror each other, which makes them easier to remember.
Ledger lines are the extra short lines added above and below the staff. They work in both directions. This is a term I want you to know by name.
Once the landmarks are automatic, you add the note directly above and directly below each one. That's how the flashcard assignment is built — landmarks first, then their neighbors, then outward.
A note that is touching the staff from outside, like D below the treble staff, is still below the staff. Touching is not the same as being on it.