Michelle Hamano Piano Studio

Finally received certificates and comments from our Certificate of Merit exams in March! Congratulations to all my students who participated this year! All students passed with flying colors on their performance evaluations and everyone received over 90% on theory! Talk about dedication!

Alex performing Polovetsian Dance from Adult Piano Adventures Book 1! Can you believe we’re already starting Book 2 next week?! He also texted me don’t mind my pinky but it’s getting better so...at least he’s aware...? If I could have a nickel every time I have to remind my students about their pinky...

Few weeks of practicing solfege and Thalia already memorized where C is and can find notes (at least C to G)! I use fixed do when I teach and I do believe that perfect pitch can be learned (I know, a little controversial), especially when ears are trained from a young age they’ll slowly memorize where the notes are and eventually would be able to sing any note on the spot. I would say that I was trained to have perfect pitch whereas my sister was born with it. Open to any thoughts on fixed do vs. moveable do, specifically for when teaching piano!

First piece from the set Dance of the Dolls Finally taught this piece for the first time (can you believe it didn’t appeal to any of my students before Anya? ), and I had so much fun! I can really hear the dolls dancing in her performance! So excited to explore more pieces from this set with her!

Congratulations to Khloe who finished her Level 1 Gold Star Performance Book! So proud of all my students who have been working so hard, despite all the challenges we’ve been facing the past few months. So proud of you, Khloe!

Stickers were always such a great incentive to get my students to practice, but by month 5 of online lessons, I owe you a sticker! wasn’t cutting it anymore I started keeping a section on my notes app for each student and would add to the drawing every time they pass a piece! I can manage adding a color on the rainbow or drawing a flower...but I hope they know that that’s the limit to my drawing skills!

A huge congratulations to my student who received Honorable Mention for the 2020 Online Piano International Competition, presented by @alionaspianostudio ! (A silver lining of a global pandemic is that my students can apply to tons of competitions around the world ) Thank you so much for the opportunity, Aliona!! @ Arcadia, California

Had so much fun with Madelyn (age 4) making our version of the Hungry Caterpillar, inspired by @missmikinoie (I prepared everything and had her mother pick it up from my house since I’m still teaching online ) Also, how stinkin’ cute is her little smirk

Whenever Anya’s mother sends me a recording, I reply back with a paragraph of tiny details she needs to fix. And this goes on for daysbut Anya never complains or gives up! I always admire her commitment to music! Also, thrilled to announce that she started her very own Youtube channel! Please go check it out when you have a chance https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChKr4qHVcLxfUMnZl-BrErQ

Summer is a great time to work on skills that I tend to neglect during the school year My goal is to incorporate more functional goals piano skills like solfege and improvisation in my lessons this year! Here is 6 year old Thalia singing some exercises from a solfege book for kids that I bought in Japan a while back (). She keeps forcing the tonic on the last note otherwise, I’d say a pretty successful first try!

Trying to organize my pictures on my phone (my quarantine project #1736) and found this My little 4 year old student Madelyn learning her C-D-E’s! Can’t wait until I can see all my students again and give them a huge air hug!!

Miss Kelly & I contemplated whether we were comfortable playing something together for our virtual recital until the very last minute. We decided to get together for a day to rehearse and to record...but of course, with our masks on We used to play so much together in college, and I’m so happy we got to again! To many more performances together!!

So proud of my student, Johann who graduated high school this year and will be heading off to Brown University in the fall! Within his 3 years of piano lessons, his dedication has allowed him to excel in CM exams, the AP Music Theory test and become an accomplished musician in such a short period of time. Congratulations Johann! I am so excited for what the future has in store for you!!