Animal Farm (or, published piano pieces by Elissa Milne with titles that refer to living creatures)
The cataloguing continues, tonight with a view to fauna. I was born in Australia and then raised in New Zealand, and
Piano Teaching
The Collected 12-bar Blues for Piano (published) of Elissa Milne
The first “blues” I ever wrote was a song I concocted for my primary school friends to sing one lunchtime
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Repertoire: a “well-defined” or “ill-defined” problem?
Creativity is a goal oft-cited by parents wanting their off-spring to take piano lessons, and yet I find myself wondering
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The Blessing of Professional Development “Tithing”
Piano teachers are a professional cohort driven by a desire to do good in the world much more than
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How Many Arpeggios Are There? Really?
My colleague and friend, Samantha Coates, was wondering aloud on Facebook the other day just how many arpeggios there were.
Where did the 40 Piece Challenge begin?
I honestly didn’t expect the 40 Piece Challenge to go global the way it has quite as rapidly as it
The Night Before Christmas
This year my piano students have been absolutely mad keen on learning Christmas carols. Not so much keen to work
What Does a Piano Lesson Cost?
Signing up for piano lessons means committing to practice, attending lessons and paying the fees on a regular basis. What should
Series 17 – Part 2 (some answers)
There’s really no bad news, not even a single bit: the AMEB’s Series 17 is a collection that does exceptionally well in catering for the vast range of interests, urgencies and fixations of the Australian piano teaching world. David Lockett and the review team (Glenn Riddle, Jody Heald and Helen Smith) have taken a meticulous approach to delivering a series of repertoire collections that will serve the assessment process – as well as piano pedagogy – well. Let’s start with that grade-deflation question. Have we seen a shift in the goal posts of any of the grades? Is Preliminary continuing the march to Grade One standard repertoire?! Short answer – no. All the pieces are very well graded. There are some easier and some harder pieces in each grade collection, but nothing to elicit outrage or confusion. More detail from me soon in a separate post. Appropriate length? Delightfully so! Very few works that take too many pages, and none that are garrulous
Series 17 – Part 1 (the questions)
The Australian Music Examination Board issues a new series of piano exam books every 5 or so years, and this
Elissa Milne 