12 students could come today for pictures. My favorite is the FUNNY ONE!.

From left to right: Walter and Kelly Rausch: this year marks Kelly’s 5th year as a Gold Medal winner in the Piano Guild auditions. Chloe Lovato, a 6th year gold medalist; Shanti Ryle a 10th year gold medalist and HSD completion; Vinayak and Vishakh Pillai both bronze medal recipients; Bret Paddock 8th year gold medal recipient; back row: Patrick Xu 2nd year gold medalist; in front of Patrick: Ranen Unger Hicks with his mom Suzanne, this year marks Ranen’s 6th Piano Guild gold medal certificate; front row: first year medalists: Rachel and Charys Hong and Raeva Solbach; behind them: Sierra Rupnow, completed her 6th year piano guild gold medal program.

Pictured are 12 of the 30 students of the Eva Martin Hollaus Piano Studio who completed their Piano Guild programs this year. 25 received gold medals for entering and performing memorized 10 – 15 piece programs. A total of 302 pieces were performed in the last couple months in this year’s piano guild auditions alone.

Please, enjoy Cassiopeia Bostan’s blog. SHe is now 11 years old, had her birthday a couple weeks ago.

Cassiopeia Bostan started studying with me in March 2009. Cassie added a few videos of some of her pieces that she recorded recently. When she started with me in March 2009 she was playing Alfred method books level 3. Everything you hear her perform she accomplished since then. I am very happy for her and i am very grateful to her dad who has been keeping a watchful eye on her practice.

Please visit her blog here:  Cassiopeia Bostan, pianist:  http://cassiopeabostanpianist.blogspot.com/

Sincerely, Eva

And I promise the instructional videos on demand and subscription membership is coming soon.

I still need to complete editing one book project, I am praying I have the energy and can complete it soon. Every time I believe I am done, I print it out and start over. I should appreciate the process – well, I do — but in the same token it is hanging things up. Please, bear with me; I am putting my energy into distributing my products and sharing my talent and skills.

Sincerely, Eva

If you are interested in ordering quantity for your piano studio or store, please email me at playpianoinallkeys@gmail.com so I can get you better shipping rates; I am still on working out the bugs for shipping. PayPal is also available, but I need to invoice separately – please email me. Sincerely, Eva

Raeva Solbach performed a brand new 10-piece program that she learned in 6 weeks. Her former teacher taught excellent Suzuki piano, which was excellent memory work, but lacking in reading and confidence learning new pieces. This program was the perfect opportunity to catch up on missed basics. Raeva performed a brand new 10-piece memorized program that helped her catch up. Congratulations to her very first gold medal!

Sharmini and Nira Premananthan performed on Friday, both earned their gold medals with 10-piece programs.

Sierra Rupnow could also perform her 6th year in Piano Guild auditions earning a Gold Medal with her 10-piece program.

Yin Ni Lee performed a difficult 3-piece program. This was Yin Ni’s first piano guild audition and I am very happy she went and performed.

Thank goodness – it is all done and over! It seemed this year had been extremely difficult to push through. There were scheduling changes, scheduling conflicts that suddenly arose left and right; all done – what a relief. I feel I could go on a three week vacation — but you know, it will not happen. The summer months are the golden time to work technique and get a few pages in the theory books done.

Onward and forward, tomorrow is another day, more great music to listen to.

Maybe I could say, I live from one note to next well played note!

More on our total Gold Medal count later, I need a couple hours of vacation, until tomorrw!

Please enjoy this article on amazines.com

Let’s go over the seven most common practice errors and the secrets to unlock flawless and effortless practice progress:

As a piano teacher or student are we not hearing these daily?

1. I just want to learn to play a piece – I do not have time for boring scales or theory

2. Metronome practice? You must be kidding!

3. The most important thing is to get the notes right

4. If you practice and make a mistake, just keep trying, eventually you will get it

5. Only people who cannot play piano need to write in finger numbers

6. Never mind practicing technique or learning theory, just practice a piece until you get it.

7. If I play a piece often enough I will be able to play it from memory.

Please enjoy my explanations. Eva

Thank you to all parents and students for participating. The level playing was very high and the judge enjoyed the performances. She heard 159 pieces. Each student performed scales and cadences; all National and International winners performed scales, chords/cadences and arpeggios. Play Piano In All Keys Complete Workbook was very helpful in preparing the musicianship phases. Besides the complete set of fingering charts, the book also features practice logs. Some of my students used the practice logs and kept track of their progress using the metronome. They often practiced scales for 3 minutes, sometimes 5 or more minutes without stopping and their technique became more fluid.
Bret Paddock performed the entire Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. He is looking forward to auditioning with an orchestra.