by Troy Strand
I stood facing 47 middle school students. Their eyes were all on me and a hush fell over the gathered audience of families, teachers and community members. For the next eight seconds, they all had one job: wait for my hands to raise. After that, their tasks were vastly different.
Some played complex paradiddles on percussion instruments; some played delicate scale passages on woodwind instruments; others played bombastic fanfares on brass instruments.
We were putting on our spring band concert, the culmination of months of focused rehearsal. We had worked hard to presen…
In July, I was one of several hundred piano teachers to descend upon Lombard, Illinois for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. I’ve attended this conference (or one of its predecessors) many times, and 2015 was one of the best years ever.
