70 years of teaching piano!

70 years of teaching piano! I was completely surprised when I received the letter recognizingmy being a member of the Music Teachers National Association for 50years. Time vanishes when one is busy. I have to give thanks to my wonderful parents for their deep loveof family life and teaching us the value of working hard for the thingswe wanted most in life. My older sister taught me the first two years of piano lessonsusing the old English Old English:see type; English language; Anglo-Saxon literature. Old Englishor Anglo-SaxonLanguage spoken and written in England before AD 1100. It belongs to the Anglo-Frisian group of Germanic languages. Matthew Course. She was extremely strict with me,which, fortunately, gave me a good foundation for my entry into juniorhigh school. I fell in love with the music classes taught by LutherGoodhart and Miss Drexel, who tested our voices. After class, Mr.Goodhart called me aside and told me to be sure to sign up for chorussince he felt I had a good voice and a sense of rhythm. Yes, I joinedthe chorus and started piano lessons, too. I sang the leads in threeoperettas and was encouraged to study piano with a private pianoteacher. So, off I went to senior high school and joined the chorus forthree years and had two wonderful teachers, Miss Shearer shearerperson whose occupation is shearing sheep. and MissHassler. I also started private piano lessons with our church organist,Mrs. Ella Lease. She was very strict, always spending 10 minutes at herdining room table doing all kinds of finger exercises. She soondiscovered that I liked to sing and invited me to join her church choir choir[O.Fr.]1 A group of singers; traditionally the chorus organized to sing in a church. Usually, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran choirs are composed of men and boys, but occasionally in these churches and customarily in other Protestant .I was the youngest choir member at age 13, but the music never seemedtoo difficult. I felt useful at church and continued singing in thatsame choir for 60 years. I also was a member of a girl's chorusthat traveled around Berks County and later joined the Reading OperaSociety. As I was graduating from high school, the Great Depression set inand that stopped my dream of going to college. Instead, I worked in aknitting knitting,construction of a fabric made of interlocking loops of yarn by means of needles. Knitting, allied in origin to weaving and to the netting and knotting of fishnets and snares, was apparently unknown in Europe before the 15th cent. mill for four years to help my mother keep up with householdexpenses and continue my piano and voice lessons. In 1933, my mother and I decided that I should move on with mypiano study. I chose Miriam Heisler after attending one of her pianorecitals, and from then on, my music study took on a different outlook.Through her instruction, I was offered a music scholarship with The ArtsPublication Society from St. Louis, Missouri Missouri, state, United StatesMissouri(mĭzr`ē, –ə), one of the midwestern states of the United States. , in 1934. This was myinspiration to work hard. As a result, I had prepared my memorized pianomusic program plus all the theory lessons so that I could attend asummer school course at Washington University in St. Louis “Washington University” redirects here. For other uses, see Washington (disambiguation).Washington University in St. Louis is a private, coeducational, research university located in St. Louis, Missouri. . The firstday I arrived at the school, I learned of a special course that wasbeing offered during our free afternoon hours. It sounded good, and Isigned up. I loved every minute of it, and my teacher, Miss Mitchell, ina private interview at the end of the six-week course, told me she wassure I had the right personality to work with children. We danced,marched, sang, clapped, and we played all the musical instruments forkindergarten kindergarten[Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary school but one in which children's creative play instincts would be classes. I returned to Reading, Pennsylvania Reading (IPA:/ˈrɛdɪŋ/) is the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania and the center of the Greater Reading Area. , and purchased a complete setof instruments and all the printed music for a little band. I alreadyhad my Aguado book that contained all the music and instructions forclass work. My first class consisted of 24 pupils--all four- andfive-year-olds. At the end of the year, we hosted a recital Recital - dBASE-like language and DBMS from Recital Corporation. Versions include Vax VMS. that had thechildren dressed like bunnies and frogs as they danced and sang theirsongs. Many of these students followed through with private pianolessons and quite a few studied all through their school years. I remember walking to all my students' homes for a fee of75-cents per lesson. If they were able to come to my home, their lessonfee was 50 cents. Several years I rented space in one of the local musicstores, Wittich's, and gave piano lessons there. I've beenteaching since August 1937. Music was a great part of my life. I joined Reading Music TeachersAssociation in 1940 and had the privilege of helping to sponsor thePennsylvania Music Teachers Association Convention twice in Reading. Ijoined MTNA MTNA Music Teachers National AssociationMTNA Middle Tennessee Nursery Association (McMinnville, Tennessee)in 1957. Every time a composer had a workshop in the Readingarea to explain his course and techniques, I was always in attendancealong with my piano teacher, Mrs. Heisler. We always went away uplifted up��lift?tr.v. up��lift��ed, up��lift��ing, up��lifts1. To raise; elevate.2. To raise to a higher social, intellectual, or moral level or condition.3. . During my many years of teaching and being a member of the ReadingMusic Teachers Association, I held every office, some of them forseveral years. At this time I want to thank you for all of the wonderfularticles in American Music Teacher. One can always learn from the manyknowledgeable articles. I am still teaching a few students. I do believe that over the past70 years of teaching I must have taught nearly 1,000 students. Workingwith so many young students I have taught through out the years hashelped my stay young and up to date with today's world. It gives megreat satisfaction in knowing that many of my students are nowcontinuing in the music field throughout the United States of America UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The name of this country. The United States, now thirty-one in number, are Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, . Thanks again for your great contribution to the advancement in themany different avenues of music. Editor's Note Editor's Note (foaled in 1993 in Kentucky) is an American thoroughbred Stallion racehorse. He was sired by 1992 U.S. Champion 2 YO Colt Forty Niner, who in turn was a son of Champion sire Mr. Prospector and out of the mare, Beware Of The Cat.Trained by D. : Pearl Kahler, of Reading, Pennyslvania, wasrecognized at the 2007 Collaborative Conference as a 50-Year MTNAmember. Following is her thank you to MTNA.