Johns Creek Piano Lessons|Piano lessons for kids of ALL ages in the Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Duluth, Georgia areas

In my previous post I shared my piano lesson experiences from age seven (2nd Grade) to age 13 (7th Grade). In a nutshell, I confessed that my first months of lessons were stressful and difficult, and I did not make much progress. It took quite a bit of time for me to catch on and have fun playing, but it did happen eventually.

So, on with the story:

In the summer of 1974 my family moved from California to Athens, GA – and my dutiful mother soon found a new piano teacher for me. Her name was Mrs Randolph, and she was very different from my first teacher. Mrs Randolph had a degree from the prestigious Julliard School of Music, and quickly set about fixing my bad playing habits (that I didn’t even know I had) and teaching me music history and music theory.

Mrs Randolph did an excellent job rounding out my musical knowledge. I learned about composers and different types of music, and all about scales and intervals, chords, harmonies, key signatures – you name it. For the first time in my many years of lessons I was shown how to do finger exercises, and they helped greatly with my playing and technique. I left my pop tunes behind (well, a lot of them) and began playing what most people think of as “classical” music. You know, those songs with the highly imaginative names like “Minuet in G” and “Sonata in F” or, simply, “Dance”. I can’t say that my piano lessons ever became the high point of my week, but, for the most part, I enjoyed my time with Mrs Randolph.

So, why did I quit? Two words: Mandatory Recitals. Some people are comfortable performing, and some are not. I definitely fall into the latter category, and the recitals were terribly stressful for me. I think that sometimes teachers can lose their perspective, and end up placing too much emphasis on their students’ public performance skills as a measure of their own success as instructors.

My goal as a teacher is to motivate each student to reach their individual playing/learning goals without a lot of unnecessary stress. Lessons are about the students and how to help them do their individual best, so that they can feel proud and encouraged about their achievements.

Alpharetta Piano Lessons & Duluth Piano Lessons Websites Launched

We have launched two new websites to make sure that parents looking for affordable piano lessons for kids in the north Atlanta area will be able to find us easily. The two sites - www.AlpharettaPianoLessons.com & www.DuluthPianoLessons.com are sites designed to be easily found and used by piano lovers who are looking for piano instruction in the northern Atlanta, northeast Atlanta area near Alpharetta, Duluth, Johns Creek, Norcross, Cumming, and Forsyth townships.

These websites have pages for affordable rates for piano instruction, directions to Piano Lessons with Julie, and piano student applications which will be processed by and responded to by the staff at Piano Lessons with Julie.

We hope that you find the sites useful and will share them with your friends. They are part of our mission – to bring affordable piano lessons to kids of all ages in the north Atlanta area.

You can read the annoucement of the Alpharetta Piano Lessons site here; you can read the annoucement of the Duluth Piano Lessons site here.

I’m Julie Chapman and I want to welcome you to the blog for Piano Lessons with Julie. It is my pleasure to give piano lessons to kids of ALL ages. I teach kids to read music, play the piano, and most of all it’s fun.

Please visit often. In the coming days and and weeks we will be building the site and adding articles.