Category Archives: Piano Lessons

Piano Parties!

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Piano Parties are group lessons that happen 2 to 6 times per year depending on how many other performance opportunities there are. They are for students to share their music and some refreshments, feel connected to and motivated by the community of piano students, learn from their peers, develop performance confidence and cooperative skills, and reinforce musical skills, especially rhythm when playing with other students. Sometimes we invite no guests, sometimes we dress in costume, and sometimes we hold a formal recital open to the public!

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New Professional Affiliation with the Gulf Coast Music Association

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I am very pleased to announce that the Gulf Coast Music Association (GCMA) has approved my membership application as a piano teacher! The GCMA is an organization of private music teachers in the Clear Lake / Bay Area that offers performance opportunities to students and is a member of the Texas and National Federations of Music Clubs. You may have heard of the Gold Cup Festival that is very popular among private piano students and teachers. In fact, my own private piano teacher, Mary Ann Colonna, with whom I studied for nearly 12 years right across the street from NASA, was a member of GCMA. As a child and teenager, I enjoyed going to the Gold Cup, Sonatina and Romantic Festivals and taking the music theory tests. Through these festivals I felt that I was a part of the larger community of piano students that loved their art enough to practice regularly and go to these weekend events, even when there may not have been any classmates at school who identified with this interest. Since meeting several current GCMA members who share my passion for music education and piano music, I feel sure that the sense of community that GCMA fosters will be just as motivating to me as a teacher as it was when I was a student!

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The first GCMA event of 2015-16 is the Autumn Artist Festival, which brings concert pianists to perform in the Bay Area. This year’s Autumn Artist Festival will feature pianist Roger Wright in a recital at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church on Friday, November 5, at 7:30pm. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students. To purchase, please contact me at Carla@Musikhaustexas.com. For more information about Roger Wright and all GCMA festivals, see the following page: http://gulfcoastmusicteachers.org/Festivals.php.
–by Carla J. Seibert

An Open Letter To Dr. Gordon

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Edwin E. Gordon, primary author of Music Learning Theory

Edwin E. Gordon, primary author of Music Learning Theory

Dr. Gordon and associates’ research on how children learn music addresses many of my questions on how music communicates and is meaningful to us and how I can help myself and others to gain fluency in music as if it were a language. The research gets into the nuts and bolts of music learning processes. Nevertheless, my questions that it answers are fundamental life questions because I learn how to live life more fully through the interactions with the other that music provides. Art is life, and life is art, as Bakhtin would agree. I am so grateful to Dr. Gordon!

–Carla J. Seibert

Eric Bluestine's avatarThe Ways Children Learn Music

Dear Dr. Gordon,

You know, of course, that your many students all over the world are thinking of you, and we trust that you are receiving the best of care. But perhaps we haven’t told you often enough how greatly your work and your thinking have guided our teaching.

Because of you, we teach with direction, purpose, and logic.

Because of you, we design and revise tests and rating scales with confidence.

Because of you, we guide our students through the stages of music babble, rather than plunge them into formal instruction before they are ready.

Because of you, we joyfully encourage our students to create and improvise (even as the students themselves have no idea that we diligently prepared them for such tasks.)

Because of you, we know what to say to parents who ask why we do what we do.

You have been the guiding force in our…

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Piano and Early Childhood Music Lessons Coming to Clear Lake / League City Area!

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piano lessons clear lake tx

Jessie, Musikhaus mascot

In December 2014, Musikhaus Music Education moved from Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, to Seabrook, Texas, USA (with mascot Jessie! – see photo), becoming Musikhaus Piano and Early Childhood Music Studio, serving the Clear Lake / League City area southeast of Houston (the Bay Area) and Friendswood.  The new Musikhaus will officially inaugurate activities for the fall semester of 2015, though I’ve been very fortunate to be teaching my first, talented piano student in the US since January!

This year Musikhaus will focus on musical beginnings to help students learn music similarly to the way they learn their native languages:

  • Music Play – interactive music and movement for babies, toddlers and preschoolers up to 5 years of age with caregivers; groups of 2 to 6 students, 40 minutes per week (plus attunement and transition time)
  • Keyboard Games – classes for 4- to 6-year-olds incorporating singing, movement and piano activities; groups of 2 to 4 students, 50 minutes per week
  • Piano Lessons for 6 years and up – developing musical fluency with improvisation and creative repertoire at the piano, singing and movement; groups of 2 students, 55 minutes per week (50-minute private lessons possible if lesson partners not available)

Let me know if you have any questions at carla@musikhaustexas.com, or follow the Musikhaus Facebook page to stay up to date.

The Musikhaus space, including bathroom, is wheelchair accessible except for wide cambered chairs.

Se habla español. Falamos português.

by Carla J. Seibert