Teaching Beginning Skills
The start of piano lessons is one of the most important times in the learning process. Teaching the beginning skills sets the foundation for all future study. This lecture covers: learning the keyboard, how the piano works, note reading, rhythm, and the beginnings of good posture and efficient movement.

Technique Tips for Young Students
Many problems recur in the teaching of beginning students. Here are some suggestions to overcome these problems in the early stages before the habits get harder and harder to break.

Technique Clinic & Master Class with Children
This session was filmed on Children’s Pedagogy Day at the seminar. Ms Paige works in a technique clinic with students’ passage problems and also works with students in the more traditional master class setting.

Anatomy for Pianists & Posture and Seating
Understanding how the body is put together and how it is designed to move will help pianists, teachers and students with technique. The easier and more fluid the technique, the more the performer’s focus can shift to the music and away from worrying about the notes. The second lecture shows how posture, seating and balance can help or hinder your playing. Learn how good posture can free arms and hands for coordinate and natural movement to occur.

Forearm Rotation
Forearm rotation is not just for trills and broken octaves. Learn how it eliminates the need to stretch and can facilitate great speed.

In and Out Forearm Movements
Moving in and out (or forward and back) on the keyboard helps the long and short fingers to maneuver between the black and white keys. It also eliminates the need to twist the hand to reach the black keys and shorter fingers.

Up and Down & Lateral Movements
Learn the role the arm plays in facilitating movement of the fingers across the keyboard and how much up and down arm movement is needed for different types of passages.

Forearm Shaping
This is a combination of all of the forearm movements: rotation, in and out, across, and up and down. When all of these movements are combined, they assume an overall shape or design. This enables the performer to think of only one movement instead of so many. Shaping is also intimately connected to phrasing. The correct shape brings the phrase to life with ease. Ultimately the performer thinks of the the phrase and the body automatically responds with the correct movement or shape.

Octaves and Staccatos
It is impossible to speak of octaves without speaking of staccatos and rebound. This lecture covers easy ways to teach free fall and rebound necessary for all staccato playing. These principles can be taught to any age and any level. The octave lecture covers arm and hand alignment for the octave position, how to open the hand without stretching, where octave movement originates, and the path(s) of rebound.

Memory Lecture
How to learn and memorize music beyond motor memory from the beginning stages of learning a piece. This covers the role of analysis and organization in the learning process along with visual, aural and kinesthetic cues.

Memory Clinic
This session involves one-on-one work with a seminar participant who wanted help with memory problems. This individual, Lyndol Taylor, was willing to work on memorizing a short passage in front of the entire seminar. Together she and Ms. Paige will find ways to make her memorizing process easier and more efficient.

Practice Techniques, Performance Anxiety, and Personal Philosophy
This lecture brings together the concepts of the mind, body and spirit. How you learn, how your brain functions, how you organize your material, how your body moves and how you view yourself in relationship to the piano, music and your audience all affect your overall performance.

If It Hurts Here, Check This
Many musicians at all levels can experience discomfort, fatigue or even pain from practicing inefficiently. This lecture gives a check list for the performer or teacher. If certain parts of the body become uncomfortable when you play, this lecture will give you concrete things to check.

Innovations in Technique
Ms Paige has developed many new ideas based on her study of Taubman Technique, Alexander Technique and other methods. This lecture includes her latest innovations, not found in any other setting.

Brain Games, by Vicki Conway
Learn simple games to strengthen both dominant and non-dominant hemispheres, senses, and limbs for faster and more reliable sensory-motor integration. Activities also enhance developmental skills critical to playing piano such as crossing the midline, spatial awareness, and lateral movements. The lecture also includes a discussion of Dual Dominance.

Mind/Body Balance, by Vicki Conway
Experience a simple process using awareness and a variety of integrative strategies. Excellent for enhancing brain function and reducing performance anxiety.

Performance Anxiety & Dominances and Learning Styles, by Vicki Conway
Explore the advanced stages of fight-or-flight response that are counterproductive to the performing process. Learn how weak developmental skills and dominance profiles can leave us vulnerable to the negative effects of performance anxiety, and plan strategies to enhance skills and minimize stress. Discover how the variety of left and right dominances affects learning styles and what is functional or limited under stress. Discover your own dominance profile and how this can enhance teaching effectiveness