Award-winning music educator Merlin B. Thompson invites today’s teachers to link their teaching with notions of humanity and create success by building on what students naturally bring to their own musical journey. Filled with over fifty practical and inspirational teaching tips, More than Music Lessons is a must-read for every genre of music studio teacher: vocal/instrumental, academic, traditional, individual/group, Suzuki, exam-based, and online. A four-part framework gets right to the heart of the matter: Parents - understanding the complexity of parental involvement and students’ home life Practicing - an adventure in autonomy, fluency, purpose, relatedness, reflection, and listening Projects - amplifying students’ musical persona with non-performance projects. Character - engaging students’ inborn authentic character to ensure meaningful musical participation Grounded in research yet enriched with real-life experiences and frequently asked questions, More than Music Lessons offers a comprehensive view of student-centered teaching, where teachers share rather than direct students’ musical explorations. This book provides resources for teachers who work with diverse student demographics and sheds light on how teachers may thoughtfully incorporate students’ sense of self, personal and world views, culture, individuality, and spirituality as anchors for their unfolding and unique musical journeys. More than Music Lessons will help studio teachers support and inspire their students for a lifetime of genuine and joyful music making.

How can piano teachers successfully foster student participation and growth from the outset? How can teachers prepare and sustain their influential work with beginner student musicians? This book presents answers to these questions by making important connections with current music education research, masters of the performance world, music philosophers, and the author’s 30-year career as a piano pedagogy instructor in Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. It investigates the multilayered role piano teachers play right from the very beginning – the formative first four to five years during which teachers empower students to explore and expand their own emerging musical foundations. This book offers a humane, emancipatory, and generous approach to teaching by grappling with some of the most fundamental issues behind and consequences of studio music teaching. More experiential than abstract and cerebral, it demonstrates how teaching beginner piano students involves an attentiveness to musical concerns like our connection to music, learning to play by ear and by reading, caring for music, the importance of tone and technique, and helping students develop fluency through their accumulated repertoire. Teaching beginner students also draws on personal aspects like independence and authenticity, the moral and ethical dignity associated with democratic relationships, and meaningful conversations with parents. Further, another layer of teaching beginners acknowledges both sides of the coin in terms of growth and rest, teaching what is and what might be, as well as supporting and challenging student development. In this view, how teachers fuel authentic student musicians from the beginning is intimately connected to the knowledge, beliefs, and values that permeate their thoughts and actions in everyday life. Fundamentals of Piano Pedagogy stands out as a much-needed instructional resource with immense personal, practical, social, philosophical, educational, and cultural relevance for today’s studio music teachers. Its humanistic and holistic approach invites teachers to consider not only who they are and what music means to them, but also what they have yet to imagine about themselves, about music, their students, and life.

The Blue Moon Bassoon Songbook is a collection of diverse folk and classical melodies arranged for bassoon. With a wide variety of styles and familiar pieces, this book will take the beginning bassoonist from their first notes to their first orchestral excerpts. Arranged and designed by a professional bassoonist, each chapter builds essential techniques with tips and tricks throughout.

Bob Wiseman believes most things in life are universal, or, as his friend Joe once said, everything is everything. Bearing in mind this fortune cookie advice, Wiseman writes about finding the link between music and daily tasks, like teaching a five-year-old “Twinkle, Twinkle” and doing the dishes each night. Bob writes daily, the way someone else might practice scales; although his sense of the instrument and the musician has changed over the years, Bob adheres to doing exercises that have wider connections than whether the strings are in tune. Each entry is unique and compellingly written, but the themes throughout — on improvisational music, life lessons, and conflict — are ubiquitous.

History of iconic recording involving Norbert Putman

A comprehensive coverage of what the Suzuki approach embodies, this book should be considered a requirement in the home of every piano teacher and student. Eight of the 14 chapters lay the foundation for understanding Suzuki's Mother Tongue Approach, its procedures and its benefits. The authors have given their ideas of what it takes to be a Suzuki teacher, how to structure an effective lesson, what to cover in those first lessons and how to do it. Using more than 400 musical examples, the teaching points and the interpretation of the seven volumes of music are presented. In addition, some alternate fingerings are suggested and places where the Suzuki edition departs from the original edition are noted.

"Lessons from a Street-Wise Professor" sheds light on what every successful musician knows but most music schools don't teach--that a musician, regardless of instrument or specialty, is a small business and with that comes the need for entrepreneurial savvy.