Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Dear friends, I wish you a most blessed New Year abounding in new opportunities. Many updates for yours truly: 1) Beginning in mid-November I began composing what will be a 4-part chorus, hopefully with some type of accompaniment (before I was thinking piano, now I'm thinking small ensemble). I've named it Joy in Sorrow and the text is taken from an old Irish blessing. I'm about halfway there in terms of voice parts. 2) I've updated both my sites and will be adding new audio and video in the coming week. My students and I are having a great time learning new things together. I have one student (7 years old) sight-reading a series of 5-6 notes, starting on any key knowing that the first note is either do, fa, ti, or whatever scale degree. Another student (6 years old) and I, for a portion of each lesson, are playing Go Fish or some other similar game with note flashcards to more quickly identify the note and increase the vocabulary for describing its placemen