Special Needs & Learning Differences
Tips for Older Students
Those that also work with students 60+ might find something useful in a recent post to my students: Happy New Year! 🎉🎊 I hope you’re looking forward to an enjoyable year of music making in 2023! Here are a few tips that will support your…
Resisting Hands Together
I have a 5 year old who is resisting playing hands together. He is happy to play 5SS together but nothing else. Any ideas how to encourage him? some young children think it is going to be too hard to do so instead of giving…
When to Teach Happy Birthday
Question: I have just signed on a Special Needs student. She is 9 years old. Her favorite song is Happy Birthday. Mum said they play that every day! I know we normally teach this at the end of Foundation Level 1 but I would like…
Trouble Starting Piece
Looking for some advice…I have student who stutters everytime he starts to play. He’ll replay his starting note numerous times before finally getting into the song. Once he gets going, he plays well. But if there’s a break in his playing, or the start of…
Group Lesson and Language Barrier
I have a student that is just starting with a few private lessons to catch her up to the group I want to add her to. My dilemma is that there is a huge language barrier. She is super smart and quick, has taken 2…
High Functioning Aspergers Student
I may have written once already about this but here I am again. I have a student diagnosed as “high functioning Asperger’s” and I have to say that after 3 fairly ordinary lessons with him, what I see is a really bright boy who has…
Help with Autistic Student
Just wondering what different ideas I might be able to get for my 11 year old student with autism. She seems to have a lot of trouble using the right fingers. She keeps reverting back to playing just the RH melody only in her songs,…
The Four Tendencies
In the last few months Gretchen Rubin’s book “The Four Tendencies” was referred to me – I have found it super insightful wrt understanding both myself, and students. Here’s a link to a brief summary – reminder that one size doesn’t always fit all when…
Student with Two Functioning Fingers
The 12 year old son of an adult student of mine would love to take piano lessons. He can already play the violin and has a great ear, able to figure out how to play songs he hears on the piano. However, due to a…
Two Lessons Per Week
One of my new private adult students (she is practicing diligently, LOVES SM, her playlist so far is very strong) wants to switch from having one (half-hour) lesson per week to two (half-hour) lessons weekly (several days apart) because she is eager to make even…