Robert didn’t want to take piano lessons.   His brother had been with me for three years and it took Robert a month to decide the mystique was off.  Two years and eleven months to go.  The boys’ mother had decreed that her sons would each have three years of piano lessons as part of their  Read the Rest…

I taught pre-school for four years when I was in my 20’s and had the energy. I love those ages, but it’s been a while since I worked with a child under the age of five in private lessons. Luciana is 4.  At her first lesson, she exploded into the house at the end of  Read the Rest…

My friend Jenni, a student who single-handedly improved my sight-reading abilities by 75% by showing up with new music every week, recently accomplished something admirable: She went without words for a week.  Part of an Artist’s Way class, she called it her Reading Deprivation week.  She went without books, television and computer, explaining in part  Read the Rest…

It’s Pajama Week at the Local Dilettante studio.  When I get up in the morning, I exchange my sleeping pajamas for my bright red pajamas with the Scotty dogs. This is my teaching attire for the week.  My students come to their lessons in their pajamas.  I have hot cocoa, and marshmallows for roasting in  Read the Rest…

Okay, we’re back. I use the third person royally because I actually live alone, not counting the three cats to whom I pay rent.  However I am more introverted than not and I feel like I almost died of people this past week.  I ate lunches, dinners, and high teas such as I don’t believe  Read the Rest…

I’ve had a pig at my table for two weeks.Actually a boar, not a pig.And only the head.A boar’s head.OK, it’s paper maché.I wanted one so the OK Chorale could process singing “The Boar’s Head Carol.”One of our altos, Gail, who teaches kindergarten at North Beach Elementary, volunteered her class to create a boar’s head.  Read the Rest…

It’s Christmas time in Bartell Drugs, the only non-grocery store I will set foot in after Thanksgiving.  I know this because all the Russell Stover chocolates have been re-packaged in green and red colors and the motion sensor Santas accost me when I walk by them. In addition, someone is whining a Christmas song through  Read the Rest…

I started the OK Chorale as a University of Washington Experimental College class in 1992.  I remember the year because one rehearsal fell on Election night.  My best friend had instructions to call and let the phone ring twice when Bill Clinton went over the top of the Electoral College vote. Back then, the class  Read the Rest…

I heard an all Bach concert yesterday.  Bach always feels like a date with the Divine.  I adore his music from start to finish.  I love listening to him, I love playing him, I love singing him. More than any other composer, Bach’s music seems to me to be always going on.  It’s continually playing  Read the Rest…

A few posts ago, I wrote Whining Helps.  I now want to announce that Groveling Doesn’t. Genevieve came in the other night, apologizing for the second week in a row that she hadn’t practiced and would it be all right if we did sight reading again this week?  The week before she had read through  Read the Rest…