piano players

In June, I started teaching my 3 oldest boys piano lessons.

 

Ammon has taken piano lessons on & off for 6 years. He's had two teachers besides me, and he's improved over the years and is doing pretty well. Once he entered 5th grade band, I backed off teaching him piano lessons steadily since he was learning to play a musical instrument at school. But, during the summers the last 3 years, he's been having piano lessons to help him retain his piano playing abilities. My hope, and Josh's desire, is that Ammon can play well enough to be the pianist in Priesthood meeting at church. He's been learning and practicing out of the simplified hymns book to better enable him to accomplish that goal.

 

This is Jonah & Micah's second summer of piano lessons, and my first year teaching them. Last summer, we had a young woman living with us who taught the boys piano lessons in exchange for free rent. They only had about 6 weeks of lessons, but it was a good start. This summer's lessons have been more difficult for them--it's been more challenging for them to learn from their mom than another person, and they sure give me grief whenever I make them play a piece more than once before passing it off. I never once heard them talk to their teacher last year like they talk to me during lesson time! Sheesh! But I offer them prizes when they do pass off all their songs each week, and unfortunately Jonah & Micah have each had a lesson already in the past month where they didn't receive a prize, due to not passing off songs & doing a lot of angrily back-talking. Regardless of those times, I have seen improvements in their playing since we began, and I do enjoy hearing them practice and knowing that they are getting better in their skills!