Toby and Lorraine - the Dynamic Duo! - playing "Forbidden City" duet

O Christmas Tree - with a little jazz - WillBailyPianoTunes.com

Al, 81, is a Recreational Music Makin' pianist. Al played trumpet in dance bands in his younger days, directed his church choir, has a beautiful singing voice and still leads singing in his church. A few years ago he decided to learn to play the piano and now listen to him! He'll be entertaining his family this year around the Christmas Tree.

"Castles Burning" - Having fun from the 1st read

When this group started "Castles Burning" I demonstrated both the solo and the duet part with the orchestra. Each student decided which of the RH, LH, Both Hand, part from the solo or duet they wanted to read 1st. They took a couple of minutes and picked voices they felt worked with the part they'd picked and away we went. You'll notice only Seth tried both hands, Callie played the chord shells in different octaves and split the keyboard with different voices. Jessica played the LH from the duet and the other students played RH from either the solo or duet parts. Together they had a blast, they created something that was their own as a group, all the while they were sight-reading.

Leah, 82, has always dreamed of playing the piano.

In the clip below, Leah, is the classy lady with the beautiful white hair. She started piano in our classes 4 years ago (she's starting her fourth year). When I showed this clip to her daughter,64 year old pianist and piano teacher, I overheard Leah's daughter say, "O my, mom has always wanted to learn to play the piano, look at her!" Leah plays all the time at home, she seldom misses a class and she's always the first to say 'bring it on' when I'm wanting to start something new with her class. Helping people fulfill livelong dreams . . . it doesn't get any better than this!

The 2:00 ladies playing "Argentina Sky"

Julia Cobley: "The class always plays better with hats on."

"Here's our group at Halloween enjoying some of your great tunes. . . Thanks so much for making it easy to teach adults. Your music falls under the fingers so beautifully." Julia

Moving between Musical Moments, Reflective Moments, Way Cool Keyboarding, Way Cool Keyboarding 4 Kids and WillBailyPianoTunes.com

Someone spotted a Way Cool Keyboarding 4 Kids book on the bench next to Linda, on the post immediately below. Thursday night at class, the class asked why we weren't playing Halloween songs. We have studio copies for our kids classes so the kids and parents don't have to remember to bring books back and forth. "Broomhilda" is the last piece in Way Cool Kids book 1. I passed out books and we used it as a warm-up. Smiles on everyone's faces when we finished! We'd played the solo version of The Bell Carol from WillBailyPianoTunes.com last week (the Bell Carol was tune of the week last week) and then, introduced the duet (which is a bit easier). Everyone was excited about trying both parts next week, team playing. Then, to cool down, we played the solo part of "Forbidden City" - one of the FREE tunes from the home page of the site. And then, closed with both parts of "Autumn Breeze" (from Reflective Moments book 2), as can be seen in the video below (sorry about the delay - not sure how to fix that yet). Musical Moments and Reflective Moments, Way Cool Keyboarding, Way Cool Keyboarding 4 Kids and the tunes in WillBailyPianoTunes.com all share the same pedagogy, making it easy and fun to move back and forth between all the materials!

Look Mom! No Director . . .

First attempt of video from my phone. This class is so fun! "Autumn Breeze", from Reflective Moments Book 2 is a favorite of all our adult classes.