by Matt Ogden, The Catoctin School of Music As a musician, in the past few days, I have reflected on the life of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, especially on her life-long love for opera. She was famous for appearing in the front row of almost every performance of the Washington National Opera and the Washington Concert Opera (I personally...
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There is something that tends to happen with young students which is that they don't stay within the limts of classical music which is the standard for music education, and they follow the energetic appeal of music such as rock, but there are some differences beyond just how to play this type of music and its instruments. Gear For starters, there is some essential gear that is...
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When teaching, there is an obvious difference of students and teacher, and it defines the space in which each of them operates, this is, a predominance of speaker on the teacher's side, and a predominance of listeners on the student's side, but what to do when this dynamic changes, and what is the difference on it being caused by a good thing or a bad...
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I happen to love holiday and Christmas music, and it is not just that the melodies are so classic and they conjure up wonderful old memories of enjoyable times growing up with my family and church in a rural Virginia farming community. What I’ve discovered as a piano teacher is the power of one of those old melodies to actually change a young life. It...
Read Moreby Sarah Haughton The imitation of recordings has long been demonized in the music education community. Viewed as a form of creative impotence, teachers tend to discourage their students from copying recordings. To the contrary, I believe we should encourage our students to copy and imitate quality recordings as much as possible. I acknowledge there is some risk associated with having a student imitate someone else’s interpretation,...
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