Christmas Video Recital 2021

 Merry Christmas to all my dear students and your families!

I've finally finished putting together our recital videos, and am happy to share the YouTube links with you. I hope you don't mind that I'm putting them all here in one email, but I thought it would be more like an actual in-person recital where we would all get to hear and see everyone play! 

I made individual videos for each student as well as one continuous recital video. Most of the students' individual videos include them playing multiple songs, but not all of those songs are included in the full recital video, so make sure you watch your student's individual video! 

Currently, I have 10 students ranging from ages 5-13, and several of them are beginners, with two of them not yet reading music notes on the staff, and a few of them have just begun to do so in the past month! I'm really proud of each of these students for participating in this recital. Some prepared their songs almost completely on their own since we had quarantines, canceled lessons, illness, my absence for concerts, a broken collarbone, and other things trying to get in the way...but we powered through and everyone recorded at least one song! I hope you will enjoy listening to everyone's performances.

YouTube Links:

* Full Christmas Recital Video

Individual Videos:

* Ramona

* Zia

* Caden

* Lucy

* Brooklynn

* Addison

* Lucie

* Alex

* Carly

* Gabi

* Taryn

* Individual Videos Playlist 

I'm so grateful to all of you for allowing me the honor of making music with you! I wish you all the most Merry Christmas and pray that your families will be wonderfully blessed in the New Year!

P.S. - This coming week, I will only be teaching lessons on Monday (12/27), so if you'd like a lesson and have not yet scheduled a time on Monday, please contact me asap to do that!  

Summer 2021 Lessons

 June 1, 2021

Hello dear Music In Your Heart students and families!

I hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying this beautiful beginning to summertime! I am taking this week off from teaching and trying really hard to relax and unwind after how traumatic and stressful the past year has been for me. At the same time, I am very excited to get back to lessons next week! I've learned that I'm a much better teacher one-on-one, and I'm so grateful to be going into my 20th year of teaching private music lessons in my home!

When I look back at this post I wrote a year ago when I was eager to get back to in-person lessons, I am shocked at all of the regulations I felt I had to implement. At this point, I'm ready to be over that feeling. After all we've been through, it is now all about TRUST for me, and I've felt that the most frustrating situations over the past year have occurred when folks showed they could not be trusted.

I feel like my students' families and I have established a pretty great bond of trust and respect, and I am very grateful for that. I hope you will always trust me to inform you and cancel lessons if anyone in my household is not feeling well with any type of symptoms. I trust you to do the same if your student is not feeling well.

In order for others to feel more comfortable being around me, I chose to get vaccinated for COVID-19 a few months ago. I respect my the privacy of my students and their families, and I will not be requiring or inquiring about anyone else's vaccination status.

I will not be making you sign a release form saying that you won't sue me if you become ill after visiting my house. I trust you would not do that. And I trust that you know I won't be suing you if I become ill after being near you.

I will no longer be taking or recording anyone's temperature when they arrive for lessons. I trust you will contact me and stay home if you have a fever or other symptoms of illness.

I will not be intentionally social distancing in my home. I will sit alongside my piano students and play duets on the same piano with them. I will be close enough to a student's music to see and hear it well with my own eyes and ears. These are necessary parts of teaching, learning, and making music together.

I will not be wearing a mask in my own home anymore, and I won't be asking you to wear one either. Piano students and guests may choose to wear a mask if you prefer; that is up to you. However, I cannot teach a productive voice lesson with masks (either on student or teacher), so voice lessons will be without masks in my studio.

I will continue to keep a 15-minute space between lessons (except students who live in the same home as the student before them), and will disinfect between lessons as well.

I have been really sad about decisions affecting the performing arts over the past year or so. To me, if people who aren't feeling well would just make the decision themselves to stay home until they are well, our country and world could have healed a lot more quickly by making and enjoying music and performances together. In my opinion, not much is better for the body, mind, or soul than coming together to share music and art.

Let's share some music, shall we?

Blessings,

Taryn

"Music's only purpose should be for the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit." 

- Johann Sebastian Bach

Spring Virtual Recital

 A couple weeks ago, I sprung it on my students that I'd like them to record a song they've worked on recently for a little virtual recital. We didn't take long to prepare, and they all did a great job!  Enjoy their performances!

I am so grateful to these students and their families for supporting me in so many ways as I served as a longterm substitute music teacher during this difficult school year! Thank you!!!